Help Us Make a Chevy Volt FAQ

It has recently became apparent that we need a FAQ here at GM-Volt.com to help newcomers answer basic questions about the car.  I could write one myself, and I certainly don’t mind doing it, but since we have so many bright, articulate, and enthusiastic community members here, I figured we should throw it out as [...]

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Oil Hits $88 per Barrel!

You thought $80 a barrel was a lot?
Add 10% (LINK)
Better get those batteries fired up or no-one will be driving soon!
Thanks to Nick for pointing it out to us.
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Plug-in Saturn VUE to Get 25 All-Electric Miles?

A post appeared yesterday on TheCarConnection in which the author was primarily describing the new 2008 mild hybrid Saturn VUE (see our previous post).
As most articles do when this car is mentioned, it goes on to describe GM’s plans to eventually make a 2-mode VUE and in 2009 a plug-in VUE with a lithium-ion pack [...]

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EnerDel Gets Contract to Make Batteries For Th!nk

Today EnerDel announced a deal with Norwegian automaker Th!nk to be the “supplier of choice” of lithium-ion battery packs for their City electric vehicles (EV) (LINK).
EnerDel is to supply a working prototype of a higher-density cell (than the HEV ones) by March 2008 which would allow a range of 100 miles.
Th!ink describes this as the [...]

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GM-Volt EXCLUSIVE!: New Interview with Ric Fulop, Co-Founder of A123 Systems on Volt Batteries

Ric Fulop, Co-founder A123 Systems
I had the chance to speak with Ric Fulop, co-founder and marketing director of A123 Systems in Boston as the Volt was visiting there. You can hear the whole interview below the post, download it, or find it on iTunes podcasts.
I tried to find out of GM had their Volt pack [...]

 

 Ric_Fulop_10_07: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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New Semiconductor Splits Hydrogen From Water Using Solar Energy

from Angewandte Chemie (International ed.) [1433-7851] Ritterskamp yr:2007 vol:46 iss:41 pg:7770 -7774

This isn’t exactly brand new, but I think very important.
A researcher at the Max Planck institute named Martin Demuth an colleagues have developed a semiconducting material called titanium disilicide (TiSi2). When this material is suspended in water and exposed to sunlight, it splits water [...]

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Is GM Building the Volt Purely for Political Reasons?

The Wall Street Journal published a report (link) describing “a schizophrenia” running through GM’s corporate plans. The author noted that GM (as well as the other automakers) make their money building the trucks and SUVs that Americans love to drive. These,of course, get low gas mileage.
As we’ve discussed before, GM (and the other [...]

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2008 Saturn VUE Hybrid Gets Best Highway mpg Rating of Any SUV

On it’s road to the Volt, GM has been laying out a series of progressively greener cars along the way. Today, they announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rated the 2008 Saturn VUE Green line as getting 32 mpg highway and 25 mpg city, a 27% improvement over the non-hybrid model. [...]

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250 Plug-in Electric Car Charging Stations to be Installed Across the UK

In a sign of times to come, and an indication that the UK is ahead of the PHEV pack, energy giant EDF and recharging station producer Elektromotive are together installing a series of automobile charging stations across the country. The plan is to have 250 such stations in place by April 2008.
In some commonwealths, local [...]

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EnerDel HEV Battery Pack Specs

Tuesday’s announcement by EnerDel of a market-ready production lithium-ion battery pack for hybrid electric cars (HEV) was missing some important information, the specs.
Mr. Charles Gassenheimer, Ener1’s Vice-Chairman was kind enough to provide us with those all-important details:
1 pack:
600 watt hours
120 volts
$1500 per pack
There you have it.
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Congressman Bart Gordon’s Response to the U.S.-Japan Disparity in Lithium-ion Battery Funding

Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN)
Bart Gordon (D-TN) is the Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology. This is the same committee that recently heard testimony from lithium-ion battery experts, including Denise Gray from GM (see post).
Mr. Gordon is currently drafting a bill which he plans to introduce to the house at a yet unspecified [...]

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EnerDel, U.S. Lithium-ion Battery Maker, Unveils Market Ready HEV Battery Pack

EnerDel has recently been making the news, appearing on the shortlist of U.S. battery makers awarded U.S. government research grants. I had the opportunity to interview the companies Vice-Chairman to get us some more details (previous post).
Now they have publicly unveiled a fully-functional working lithium-ion battery pack, to be used in hybrid (not plug-in) electric [...]

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