Massive Breaking News: GM Receives First Chevy Volt Lithium-ion Battery Packs From LG Chem and Expects to Make up to 100,000 Cars in First Year

 
Bob Lutz was interviewed by the Detroit Press and the article was published today.  In it he gave us some very important new details.
He told them that GM received the first experimental battery packs from LG Chem/CPI Tuesday, October 30th (cooling system not included).  He also said that A123 packs would arrive in Decemeber.
He also [...]

New Interview with Chevy Volt Chief Engineer Nick Zielinksi: Part II

This is the second part of my recent interview with Chevy Volt Chief Engineer Nick Zielinksi.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUK2FBu5Tds]
Topics on the video:
-Charging issues
-Hydrogen
-Mules
-Efficiency
-Future product plans
-Certainty of production

“Project Better Place” Electric Car Charging Company Launches with $200 Million in Funding

A new start-up company announced its launch yesterday. This company is called “Project Better Place. Their idea is to create a subscription-based charging system for plug-in electric cars. This system would operate like a cell phone network, driver’s could roam anywhere, plug-in and charge their cars where it is convenient. They [...]

EnerDel Publicly Reveals Their HEV Lithium-ion Battery Specs

First of all, to be clear, EnerDel has not been selected to make the Volt’s battery pack. They are on our site because the government selected them as one of 5 companies to receive research funding (some of those dollars come from GM).
Today they made public the specs on the HEV (not PHEV) lithium-ion [...]

Chevy Volt in Motion

Better quality, less content, see our favorite concept car actually move:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYri9hPgVzQ]

New Interview with Chevy Volt Chief Engineer Nick Zielinksi: Part I

I just had the chance to speak with Nick Zielinksi about the most recent Chevy Volt developments including among other topics, the rationale for recent executive restructuring and a discussion about highway driving range. See video below:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk0YOekzhNI]

New Electric Car Company Head Count

Michael Kanellos of CNET published a list of electric car making companies he knows of (LINK).  Here is the list:

Tesla Motors
Wrightspeed
Fisker Automotive
Zap
Miles Automotive
Zenn
AC Propulsion
Phoenix Motorcars
Aptera
Porteon
Lightning
Reva
Ultramotor
Myers Motors
Th!nk
Venture Vehicles

To these were added by her commenters:

Brammo
Silence PT2
Universal Electric Vehicles
Commuter Cars
Hybrid Technologies
Bricklin’s Visionary Vehicles

Intentionally the major carmakers weren’t mentioned.  If you know of more feel free to mention them [...]

USABC Battery Contractor Comparison

One of our regular GM-Volt.com readers Alex S. has done an academic comparison of the 5 battery companies awarded research grants by the US Advanced Battery Consortium (see previous post).
Alex was able to derive estimates of what each of the battery makers lithium-ion cells attributes may be.  This is not verified but an interesting starting [...]

Mitsubishi i-MiEV to Use Wireless Charging System

We’ve mentioned before that Mitsubishi was planning an EV.
It is on display at the Tokyo Motor Show, and more details have emerged. Among them, the car is to be on sale by 2009 and using lithium ion batteries, with a 100 mile driving range. The car uses three electric motors, 2 in each [...]

The Facts on Timing of Automotive Battery Mass Production

As we discussed in our previous post, the NY Times reported an experts opinion that unless ground is broken on a new battery factory very soon, GM won’t make the 2010 deadline for the Volt (see post). We here reasoned that didn’t sound right, for many of the reasons commenters noted.  I decided to [...]

Are Chevy Volt Components Being Tested on Roads of Detroit?

In an article about GM ramping up Chevy Volt production, Bloggingstocks author Gary Sattler has quoted layperson sources as claiming that mechanical components of the Chevy Volt are currently being road tested on the streets of Detroit.
We do know that GM planned to have mules up and running by year end, and that they were [...]

Project Driveway Begins: GM-Volt.com Test Drive of the Chevy Equinox Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Car

As we have reported, GM has started it’s Project Driveway program in which 100 hydrogen fuel cell cars will be loaned to 100 U.S. drivers in NY, LA, and DC. Here in NY, I had the chance to drive off in one of these Equinoxes and recorded the experience in the video below the post.
In [...]