Make available in the design wiring of the Voltec vehicle the optionality of a *second* “add-on” battery if you need one. You could extend electric propulsion range 10 to 20 more miles with an independent lease for the following clear “no-risk-whatsoever” advantages:
1. A transferable “outside” or GM lease could reduce demand-rates on the original pack in cases of high-proportion miles of high-speed driving, like my 18,000 per year. (It would be also desirable in very hot climates like in Texas where you need the AC 9 or 10 months of the year).
2. If you wanted to transfer the lease or resell it, then the remaining capacity (as a function of “conductance”) could easily prove the remaining value of the second optional pack to any second buyer to an exact fair value if you didn’t need it anymore (or didn’t need it in the first place).
3. Electrical design provisions for a second “stack-a-pack” would help in case you needed a “loaner” if you could not immediately get into the dealership to get something serviced on the original pack.
4. A slightly smaller original design battery, say, a 28 mile original equipment array, might be made available for those who only drive an average of 12 miles or less to work. That might be upgradeable with a “stack-a-pack” “add-on” in the trunk by a second buyer who wants to buy your Voltec vehicle, yet needs more electric-drive distance.
5. Provision for adding a second battery pack could allow for really great upgrade options for the Voltec owner when blocks of cash come in, or, in this case where any lease makes the best sense. The lease could be written to not necessarily become a lien on the vehicle itself, but just as a secured leased (financed) item separate from the vehicle.
If at any time you no longer needed that extra capacity, then you could post the availability on this site and someone would have the benefit of getting your battery at either a reduced cost from new for an outright resale, or, the advantage of fewer-lease-months-term, and a one-dollar buyout to own it after the term of the lease has been fulfilled.
This is what the idea of leasing would mean for a second battery for the Voltec vehicle. Leasing companies will write a lease for anything that will reliably sustain the payments, and, they would be a great place to send capital in order to keep more money circulating here in the US,.
Dan Petit Austin, TX

tom 52. fine, the batteries in cell phones weren’t lithium to begin with, and the first phones that we were hauling around in ’92 (or somewhere around that time) maybe were not called cell phones. so let’s call them portable phones, lol.

the portable phones were in a “box” about half the size of a brief case, but that was still pretty big. and as tech grew, the batteries and the size of the phones got smaller and smaller.

when i talk about exponentiality, i am talking about total overall development of a product line, that is similar to the line that it is replacing. nothing flawed in my points or my logic.

as for your point that these batteries have improved over 100 years, i must say, lmao @ that one. most of the battery improvements have taken place over the last 15 years. i don’t remember exactly when i bought my first nicad rechargeables, but it wasn’t all that long ago.

as for exponential, lol, let’s say that batteries have improved an added .00000001% (a purely hypothetical munber) per year over the last 100 years, it’s still exponential, as it grows, and then improves and grows again. it took a long time, but it’s still exponential, just not the kind of exponential speed that i would like to see.

back to batteries. so when i say that the batteries for the volt will grow exponentially, i am saying that maybe it’s lithium batteries this year, and then it’s sodium batteries next year, and then it moves to capacitors or whatever tech pops up.

again thank grizz, it appears that our friend tom (and i use the term extremely loosely)is quite Ill informed about all of this.

moore’s law will be working in electric cars as well…

I think a 40-50 mile battery does not exist nor does a 500 mile one.

If you took the 16KWh battery pack from the Volt and put it in an aptera it would do 150-160 miles on a charge! 27KWh takes a RAV4EV(er) 100-120 miles. It’s all about the vehicles power consumption!

Even so, I don’t really care. Let GM put its pricing structure out there when the time comes. Buy, lease, combination of both, whatever. I am sure that everyone I have encountered on this blog is smart enough to figure out the bottom line and proceed accordingly.

Just make something happen before Toyota, et al, take over the world!