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GM Official Chevy Volt E-Flex Briefing Part 1

November 29th, 2007 | Posted in: E-Flex, Engineering, Video

Here is a live video of Tony Posawatz and Denise Gray giving the media a live briefing on the current status of the Chevy Volt/E-Flex program. This took place in LA on November 14th. This is the first of three parts, each ~8 minutes.

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Posted by: Lyle

14 Responses to “GM Official Chevy Volt E-Flex Briefing Part 1”

mykallb Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 12:14 am

Lyle,

I continue to be confused as to who’s who in the GM Volt hierarchy. I know TP was once listed at the line director, but I thought the crown went to Frank Webber. Now, again, I’m not sure. Wagoner, Lutz…etc no problem but beyond that, IDK.

Can you possible clarify the GM Volt development hierarchy?

Thanks

M.
Jimmy Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 12:29 am

The video is music to my ears. Thanks Lyle.
Drake Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 12:52 am

Great video. Lyle, thanks for being our eyes and ears at these events. I don’t know what we’d do without you buddy.

A couple of points about this video:

1) Wow, its very refreshing to hear an auto executive say bad things about oil. How wonderful was that?

2) The Volt looks very cool from that angle. Almost menacing, but in a good way

3) Is anyone else tired of hearing about fuel cells yet? Every time I hear someone from GM (or other auto manufacturer) talk about fuel cells it feels almost demeaning- like they think we are fools or something.

4) What did he mean by the asking the audience to “understand the sensitivity of the information…”? Now my curiosity is peeked…
ysf Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 1:31 am

If GM wants me to give them trust this time, I will recommend them to post their battery testing results here every two months. How does A123/LG battery perform under various conditions? Do they blow up under extreme conditions? How much does the battery degrade under accelerated conditions? Until then, I will give more favorable opinion to the Japanese and but their vehicle, NOT the Chevy Malibu, though it looks good, anyone here know sth about its reliability vs. Camry/Accord?
Robert Ackerlind Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 3:16 am

GM was a significant shareholder of Ovonics. It sold its share to Chevron after it decided it didn’t like EVs and didn’t want them posing a threat to the highly profitable internal combustion engine. They are heavily embedded into the US Advanced Battery Consortum and used their clout to censure Stanly Ovshinski and other inventors who had viable batteries; they didn’t want them revealing these advances to the public in the 1990s. A123 and a few other Li Ion battery makers have as recently as this year been gobbled up by Chevron and the USABC. The USABC has also recently been used by the automakers in attempts to obtain government handouts, since they claim “the battery technology isn’t there.” The auto industry wants to pocket this money. Some suspect that since Altair Nanotechnologies and A123 have similar patents, that A123 will next be used to sue Altair to keep its batteries off the market.
Chevron Oil hates all things EV, and killed the battery needed for EVs.

The following is to the credit of C.W., but seems the exact truth and the reason plug-in EV batteries are not available.

BEV=Battery Electric Vehicle, one that can charge the large battery and run on it.

HEV=Hybrid Electric Vehicle, wwith a battery too small to plug in and restricted to getting all of its energy ultimately entirely from gasoline.

10 A/H = at most 5 kWh, too small to plug in. Batteries larger than 10 A/H are called “large format”, and those were the target Chevron seems to have hated and prohibited, with its $180M investment to buy up distribution patent rights on the batteries.

“…Vectrix gets [large-format NiMH batteries] from Gold Peak in China. They are 30Ah NiMH batteries…there is one — and I believe only one — NiMH battery manufacturer which is actually permitted to produce large-format NiMH batteries for BEVs
sold in the US market under license from Cobasys, and that is Gold Peak.

“Chevron’s subsidiary Cobasys controls the exclusive worldwide patent
licensing rights on NiMH batteries. Cobasys is sometimes referred to
as a ‘joint venture’ between Chevron and ECD Ovonics, which indeed it *is*. But Chevron put up 100% of the $180 million investment
capital to create Cobasys; none came from ECD Ovonics. Cobasys is not carried on ECD Ovonics’ books. It is carried entirely on Chevron’s books as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chevron.

“As the originator of the key NiMH patent portfolio, ECD Ovonics *does*
however receive profit share from the production of Cobasys’ own NiMH batteries as well as a share of the royalties from the production of NiMH batteries by Cobasys’ licensees. The top executives of Cobasys come from Chevron and are clearly in the driver’s seat. There is no doubt that Chevron is the one that is
calling the shots at Cobasys. A senior Chevron executive was quoted
off-the-record 6 months ago as saying that Chevron was determined not to go down the BEV path again and never to let that happen again
in the automotive industry, at least not with NiMH batteries…”

“Every NiMH battery manufacturer in the world must be licensed by Cobasys and can only produce NiMH batteries under Cobasys license, a de-facto
monopolistic (albeit legal) syndicate that has been repeatedly adjudicated,
upheld, and enforced by courts and arbitration bodies around the world.
Cobasys has around 30 NiMH licensees at present. Its entangling web of licenses with its various licensees could only be described as
Byzantine in its dizzying complexity, with numerous categories of restrictions
including geographic market segment (Asia vs. North America vs. Europe),
application category (consumer electronics vs. automotive propulsion), sub-
application classes within application categories (HEV vs. BEV), and even battery
capacity (10Ah). Some of these licenses pre-date Chevron’s involvement and were negotiated back in the early and mid 90s by
Cobasys’ predecessor, Ovonics, which controlled the patent licensing rights
before Chevron bailed Ovonics out of its deep, steep recurrent losses and
supplied all the capital to create Cobasys. Chevron of course had to honor
those older licenses, which are grandfathered. What this means in practical terms
is that the oldest licensees have the most liberal and unrestricted conditions.

“Newer licensees, many of them in Asia, are restricted to making NiMH batteries only for consumer electronics applications and are specifically
prohibited from making any batteries for automotive propulsion (whether HEV
or BEV). Slightly older licensees are permitted to make propulsion batteries but only for HEV applications and not for BEV
applications, often
distinguished by the batteries’ capacity: 10Ah. Others
may be permitted to make BEV batteries but only for other geographical markets and
not for BEVs that will be sold in North America.

“European battery
makers Saft and Varta (the latter now a subsidiary of Wisconsin-based Johnson
Controls) are two of the older European licensees which seem to have somewhat less restrictive licenses, which however do not permit them to sell BEV batteries into the US market. Gold Peak is one of the oldest
Cobasys licensees (inherited and grandfathered from Ovonics), if not *the*
oldest, and I believe is the only one that is actually permitted to make large-format NiMH batteries (>10Ah) for BEVs that will be sold in the US, such as the high-performance, highway-capable Vectrix electric motorcycle.

“Sanyo and Panasonic, two of Cobasys’ Japanese licensees, are permitted to make HEV batteries (10Ah) for BEVs sold in the US. There is only one small exception
to that, specifically in the case of Panasonic, which came out of the patent
infringement lawsuit that Panasonic lost to Cobasys in an international court of arbitration in June 2004. In that June 2004 judgment, and as subsequently amended in July 2005, Panasonic is permitted to manufacture new
EV-95 95Ah NiMH batteries solely for existing Toyota RAV-EVs that experience
battery failures, under warranty, and only under warranty, until the
last of those warranties expire, on September 14, 2008, at which time Panasonic is no longer permitted to produce *any* EV-95 batteries or any NiMH
battery with a capacity greater than 10Ah until January 1, 2015.”
Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 3:23 am

Thanks Lyle,

Oh by the way, being a teacher and directing masters thesis, I found that my students would be ionspired by TP’s slides. Is it possible that you get them ? I searched the GM website for them, without result.
james Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 6:33 am

any chance of getting printed copy of these? people hear, i think, 4 times faster than they talk. reading would be quicker and easier.

if doug k. is right (which i do not believe that he is) that gm is totally bullsh*t on this whole volt thing, they sure are putting out a lot of information.
LyleL Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 9:39 am

#5 Robert Ackerlind

A very nice historical perspective on the restricted electric vehicle battery industry. The understanding of history keeps bad things from happening to us again. Please elaborate on:

“A123 and a few other Li Ion battery makers have as recently as this year been gobbled up by Chevron and the USABC.”

I’m unaware that efforts have occurred to suppress the Li Ion EV industry. If true, now would be the time to act “in force” by exposing the suppressing corporations behavior and exerting pressure on congress.

There are eternally optimistic people on this site who will not believe your statements without evidence. Please provide links to press releases, corporate statements, reports from independent organizations, etc. that support your claims.

Thank you Robert for helping to educate.
kent beuchert Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 11:13 am

When will the fools out there understand that automakers are in the business of building cars, not selling gasoline? Higher
gas prices are loved by exporting nations and anyone who has access to crude at a fixed price, but it drives automakers absolutely insane, especially when price volatility becomes common. No one in the auto industry can plan anything without knowing what the price of gasoline will be two years down the road, and no one can predict this with any kind of certainty.
Moving to a less volatile (and less expensive) energy source would be a boon for automakers, although those at the top
of the ladder in terms of gasoline technology (Toyota, Honda) wouldn’t like to give up their current advantage. The other 13 automakers would love to see a new technology where they can buy electric motors every bit as good as anything Toyota, Mercedes or Honda can get a hold of. Immediately they achieve powertrain parity with the top tier companies and perhaps, if they can grab a better battery, go beyond them. This situation destroys any
plausibility of the nonsensical conspiracy theories of “Who Killed the Electric car?”, where all automakers are driven by identical motives, which for unexplained reasons, supposedly drives them to strive to please the oil companies. The last thing I rememeber GM ever saying to the oil companies was an open letter to all of them demanding that they put more detergents in their gasoline to stop clogging GM’s fuel injectors. That doesn’t sound like a company striving to please oil companies, and logic leads even the dimwitted to understand that the oil companies are dependent upon the automakers, not vice versa.
People forget (or are too young to know) that it was high gas prices that opened the floodgates to Japanese cars and put over 50% of the U.S. auto workers out of a job and destroyed GM’s ability to make decent profits. Now the fools think for some reason that GM loves gasoline. Gasoline destroyed GM and the other U.S. automakers.
Tim Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 11:50 am

Kent,

“People forget (or are too young to know) that it was high gas prices that opened the floodgates to Japanese cars and put over 50% of the U.S. auto workers out of a job and destroyed GM’s ability to make decent profits.”

Not entirely true. Yes, the big 3 were slow to change and face the enemy, but fiat currency, bad federal trade deals, union greed and corporate arrogance also contributed to the demise of the US auto industry along with steel, textiles, consumer electronics and so on.

Plus, how does a $20/hr person compete with another person with a much lower standard of living who is willing to do a the same job (only better) for $5/month? It doesn’t take $200/mo. to make a cow payment.

And, it what about the cost of benefits, and environmental regulations that are non existent in many foreign countries? With all this federal regulation, government and personal debt and our high cost of living, I don’t really understand how America produces anything!

Like alcoholics, we’re still in “Party” mode drunk off the savings of our forefathers, pawning our children’s future for one more drink while the rest of the world is walking out the door with our silverware.

Our house of cards is just now beginning to collapse as we have little left to pawn and the foreigners are swaggering into American buying the rest of our assets at bargain basement prices because our fiat US $ Dollar is becoming worthless. Doubt me? The US $Dollar has lost 50% of its value against the Euro in less than 6 years and the drop is accelerating!
AES Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 3:08 pm

re:A123/Chevron - neither has done any “gobbling”. The two companies are merely doing a technical collaboration, and the patents have not come into play. A123 builds the cells, and Chevron builds the packs for the Saturn Vue.

It’s the same situation with A123/Contintental for the Volt pack.
Mike Says:
November 29th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

“This video is no longer available”
charley Says:
November 30th, 2007 at 8:54 am

I was just wondering, has anyone heard of a plan B for the volt if the lithum battery doesn’t work out? CW
Grizzly Says:
November 30th, 2007 at 7:04 pm

I’m guessing they’re pretty confident at this point that scaled up Li-ion will work. It’s already working on a smaller scale in B&D’s premium DeWalt tools.

Gotta’ believe they’d be more apt to delay the Volt than to consider another batt technology.
There is really only 1 alternative and that won’t meet the Volt’s design criteria.

GM Official Chevy Volt E-Flex Briefing Part 1

14 Responses to “GM Official Chevy Volt E-Flex Briefing Part 1”

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