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GM-Volt Interview: Compact Power VP of Engineering, Martin Klein, Part 2

January 3rd, 2008 | Posted in: Battery, Original GM-Volt Interviews

Can you expand on the concept of leasing battery backs, from your perspective (battery maker)?

This does offer a solution, particularly for customers who may feel uncomfortable with the potential cost of a replacement battery pack. We and GM feel pretty confident that these packs will have the life that they expect, but you could imagine a customer driving it very, very hard, and what do you do there? Leasing could then become an option. I think one of the other bases for that concept is that when a pack, we have to size the pack to operate in the car for it’s expected life, say 10 years. As we mentioned earlier, the batteries start off with more capacity and capability than they do at the end of life. But at the end of life, it still has a tremendous amount of energy in it. Lets say not enough to go the full 40 miles, that’s what we would define as the end of life. But a battery pack of this size that can still deliver 39 miles is still a good pack. So that pack could still have usefulness outside of the automotive realm. For example at data centers, standby power facilities, the pack is still a tremendous source of stored energy. But it might not give the customer it’s specified range. That another use of the concept of leasing the pack.

What is the toxicity to the environment for these types of batteries, if an when they are discarded?

It is less toxic than lead acid batteries, especially for the formulation that we use. We don’t use much in the way at all of heavy metals in our formulation. It is actually quite benign for the environment.

How do you imagine dealing with packs after say the car is in an irreparable accident?

We would want to be part of that answer with GM, especially with Dr. Patil’s experience in his previous work on hybrid vehicles, he developed some ideas on how to replace the battery packs, how to service them. For example is the car was in a somewhat serious accident and you had any doubt whatsoever about the battery’s safety, it could be refurbished. If the cells were still strong and had a lot of life yet there are things that could be done to service the pack and make it safe.

Do you know about the new separator technology ExxonMobil is claiming they have made?

We have a few ideas but we don’t know the full details of what they’re claiming. Things about temperature limitation of temperature rise and shrinkage and so on. Id probably be a lot safer not commenting on it. The separator we have has many years of research behind it and actually has some commercial field experience now. We very confident about ours.

Are the cells your using for the Volt large-format cells?

Yes

Are they lithium polymer?

Yes.

GM seemed very pleased that you packs met their specifications?

Yes. It doesn’t come as a surprise to us. But were happy that they’re finding the same thing.

Obviously GM has some very good technical people working the program. It has been a pleasure to work with them because we would hash out quite a few things in our meeting so that when it came time to deliver the pack their wouldn’t be any unpleasant surprises. They had asked for a lot of data up front and challenged us with that data. They challenged us with a lot of “what if’s”. OK the cell by itself is like this, but lets hook them up now and assume this happens…What the happens to your pack. So we waled through those scenarios, we’d do some modeling and simulations, wed say Yes..thats not a concern, that might be a concern, lets work on it. And so when it cam time to deliver there were no unpleasant surprises.

Is each cell and module in the pack individually monitored by a central processor?

Its a mix. For certain measurements, groups of cells are monitored. For other measurements larger groups of cells are monitored. And yes there is a computer that does this, actually some distributed computing throughout it for things like voltage, current, and temperature sensing. And then there is a main computer that takes that information and multiplexes it, puts it on an information bus so that it can be transferred to the GM vehicle.

And then the vehicle might send more coolant in for example?

Yes. Or it will make some decision as to, we’ll call it the fuel gauge, you know how much energy is left in the battery. Can it demand more power at this time or does it need to back away on battery power (and go to the generator)?

It’s a liquid cooled pack. Is the liquid water or antifreeze?

Its an antifreeze mix.

Can the coolant be shuttled into certain modules and not others? Is the plumbing that complicated?

No, we have not made the plumbing that complicated. Our cells are very efficient, so getting even flow through the pack is the best way to cool it.

Can one cell fail and take out the whole system?

Its probably not impossible but if your familiar with CFMEA, that any automotive or complex system goes through an analysis of potential failure modes. And then we look at several things. What the likelihood of that failure mode? If it does happen, can you detect it readily? The third thing is, if you can detect it, how can you fix it or prevent it? The failure mode of one cell going bad and knocking out the whole pack is not that likely and it is certainly detectable.

So its possible for one cell to go bad, and the system can still operate?

Yes. But it depends on the nature of how it goes bad.

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Posted by: Lyle

30 Responses to “GM-Volt Interview: Compact Power VP of Engineering, Martin Klein, Part 2”

Ziv Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 am

Well, he didn’t deny the possibility of leasing the battery which I am not too happy with. And if they are going to make you pay to lease the battery, I would hope that they would acknowledge that the sales price would have to be less than ‘comfortably below $30,000′. This is a $19,000 car with an electric motor and battery pack, the total equivalent cost can’t be more than $30,000, or it won’t sell enough to matter.
Then he made a somewhat ambiguous statement about end of life for the battery, the way I parsed it, it did seem to indicate that end of life would be when the battery couldn’t give a 40 mpc range and he had earlier referred to a 10 year life expectancy.
All in all, he didn’t rule out eliminating the battery lease idea, and he confirmed the 10 year life with at least 40 mpc capacity as the goal they believe they can achieve, not bad!
Thanks, Lyle!
Dave G Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:55 am

The way I read the interview, you will have the option to lease or buy the battery.

I certainly hope so. If I’m forced to lease, that’s a show stopper. I won’t do a lease (period). I don’t think I’m alone on this.

But if someone else feels more comfortable leasing the battery, I have no problem with GM offering that option. As long as I can buy the whole car (including the battery) for less than $30K as advertised, I’ll be happy.
Mark Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:59 am

I got the sense that leasing the battery pack would be a positive for the consumer. Purchasing a whole pack and being stuck with it even while it didn’t give an entire 40 mpc range wouldn’t leave a good taste in my mouth. The leasing option means I am only paying for that portion of a pack’s life that gives me 40 mpc. The remaining pack life is owned by GM and they have the responsibility of reselling it to someone else, while I get a fresh pack for my car at some point. I would caution, however, that the “lease” for the first pack should be built into the purchase price up front so that someone who buys the car outright doesn’t have a monthly battery lease payment (unless that person wants to do that).
Eco Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 am

To me the battery-lease issue is only one piece of total maintenance cost. A GM with an IC engine is a money pit. I am an environmentalist, but I’m not rich. I own a GM that has stolen money from me by being a maintenance nightmare. I will ONLY buy another GM if the cost of keeping it running is better than GM’s competitors. If the lease is only real expense, and everything else costs negligible amounts, then a lease is no big deal. If I have to pile a lease payment on top of everything else that has to be fixed, they can forget it.
Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 am

Thanks Lyle, great interview with a lot of positive infos.

The lease is not a great issue provided :
a) that the total cost does not go above the announced 30.000 $
b) the consumer at the end of the lease is not stuck with a car without battery either because the price of the replacement of the battery is too high or there is no more battery to put in the car.

Let’s hope that an aftermarket of batteries will develop giving the freedom for the consumer to have alternate choices and allowing competition to keep costs as low as possible.
Darren Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am

Doesn’t the idea of a “leased battery only” idea scream to everyone as the same “we won’t really sell you this car” BS that was felt by the EV owners.
Dave B Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:53 am

Dave G @ 2, I doubt Compact is calling the shots about leasing or buying the pack, especially at this juncture.

I will admit, if GM leases the pack and it becomes so cheap to operate a vehicle by not having to buy $3-4 gas, that may make this a very desirable car.
Tim Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am

I doubt that GM would make that “leasing mistake” again if only to avoid bad press.

Once these hit the road, you can bet that battery tech will continue to rapidly improve. We’ve all seen the report on Nanowire batteries that have 10X the capacity of this pack. Competing technologies and economy of scale will lower the value of the existing packs along with the cost, size and weight of replacements. Their rapidly declining value would make them difficult and expensive to lease like a car with unlimited milage.

Perhaps this “heavy old clunker” of a battery would make a good buffer battery for a home or office PV system.

Great info. Thanks Lyle!
bill Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:26 am

The computer and censers on this battery sound very hightech . That leads me to believe the after market batteries we had just assumed would come along and drive prices down and electric miles up are not as likely . There will most asureadly be a handshake between the battery and the car witch GM can use to lock everyone els out.Im afraid the price of automotive batteries will not be dropping as fast as some have hoped.
kent beuchert Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am

A cooling system of WATER??!! Do you realize that there was a hard freeze in Tampa Florida last night, and there will be another tonight? Tampa!! GM would have to restrict VOLT sales to latitiudes no higher than that of Miami Beach.
AES Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am

Kent-

The interview clearly states that the cooling system is antifreeze (e.g. solutions like ethylene glycol).
Jeff Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:58 am

Concerning the use of water as a coolant, I think it is safe to assume that a company such as GM knows something about cold weather operations. The vast majority of their testing is done in Michigan and Minnasota.
As for the leasing of the battery, with the news released in the last week from Stanford University about their new battery technology that increases the capacity by a factor of ten, I think I would prefer to lease the first battery in hopes to trade up to a next gen unit.
Dave B Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Anyone follow GM’s stock that has been getting hammered (even more than the broader market)?

Rick Wagoner said it was due to the housing slump and high gas prices, and expected the 2008 market to be “flat.” If I were him, I think I’d be talking about the new technology of the Volt, about not needing gas and whatever concoction of financing they can come up with this thing.
Dave B Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm

whoops, source:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/22487991
Estero Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:27 pm

I agree with Dave G #2.

If there is a lease/buy option, that is fine. But, it is a “show stopper” for me if the battery pack is only available as a lease. I can well imagine the lease terms “small print” with cost penalties for everything under the sun! If you can imagine the penalty, it will likely be in the lease.
Rashiid Amul Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm

I don’t like a lease only option either.
But it will really depend on what the terms are before I make a final decision. By 2010, there will be other EREVs available. I want a Volt, but GM needs to market it correctly.

I expect to “kill” my battery in 5 years or less (153,000 miles on my 2002 car). So the lease terms will be extremely important to me.

I’m also hoping there will be cheap replacement batteries by the year 2015. Time will tell.
Jim D Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm

Well, I am suspicious of the lease talk. What I had in mind was to own a
Estero Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm

I’m not sure what to make of Martin Klein’s comment[quote]How do you imagine dealing with packs after say the car is in an irreparable accident?

We would want to be part of that answer with GM,…[/quote]

It sounds to me like their greed is showing; wanting to be part of the battery pack answer (make big profits) for its entire life.

Or, is there another way to interpret that comment?
AES Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm

If the pack is owned by the individual, then I don’t see where greed comes in. GM may have recommendations for how best to recycle the pack (taking into account environmental laws and so forth), how and where to donate or resell it etc, but personal property should be just that.

If the pack is leased to begin with, then it’s their discretion. Maybe used packs could become part of a V2G facility.
Guy Incognito Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm

[quote comment="24091"]Dave G said:
If I’m forced to lease, that’s a show stopper. I won’t do a lease (period). I don’t think I’m alone on this.[/quote]
No, you’re not alone on this Dave.
I won’t do a lease either.
Canuk Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Hi Everyone: This is my first post on this site. I’ve been watching this site with great interest for a few months now, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the volt. Here in Canada, gasoline has been over $1/litre for over a year now, so a car like the volt is going to be a welcome relief from the gas sucking offerings on most of the new car lots.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you people here know or sense that there is a chance that a company like Cobasys (the arm of Chevron that sequestered most of the world’s NIMH patents which helped to squash the EV1),is going to buy up the li-ion technology too and mead it out sparingly, thus creating a lack of batteries for EV use? I hope I’m just being paranoid, but after dealving into the circumstances surrounding the killing of the California EV mandate, I can’t help being leary of the motives, moves and commentary from the greedy big companies that say these cars are just around the corner.

Oh, by the way,I really think Lyle is doing a superb job at maintaining this site — keep up the good work.
AES Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Canuk-

Li-ion technology is so widespread and used by so many other industries (cell phones, laptops, MEDICAL EQUIPMENT), that I doubt that such a massive patent coup would be either feasible or practical.

Specific li-ion chemistries, however, such as iron phosphate might be subject to more patent lawsuits and so forth. That’s the basis of the ongoing suit between A123 and the original inventors of LiFePO4.

No matter what happens, there is a lot of money to be made through these technologies, so hopefully one form of greed will trump the other form.
Dave G Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm

[quote comment="24189"]I hope I’m just being paranoid, but after delving into the circumstances surrounding the killing of the California EV mandate, I can’t help being leery of the motives, …[/quote]

Well, it looks like ExxonMobil is starting to buy up Li/Ion patents:
http://www.gm-volt.com/2007/11/29/exxonmobil-helping-to-make-lithium-ion-batteries/
so there is room to worry.

However, the circumstances now are much different than it was when the EV was killed:
- People are finally starting to connect the dots between oil imports and terrorism
- Al Gore has started a whole new green movement
- Toyota has surpassed GM as the world’s #1 auto maker.

So old rules may not apply.

Bottom line: Be vigilant, not paranoid.
Dave G Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 pm

[quote comment="24199"]Li-ion technology is so widespread and used by so many other industries (cell phones, laptops, MEDICAL EQUIPMENT), that I doubt that such a massive patent coup would be either feasible or practical.[/quote]

From what I understand, Chevron owns the patents for NiMH and won’t allow that technology to be used in any car that doesn’t use gas as the main fuel source. For example, many digital cameras use NiMH batteries. Hybrid cars also use NiMH, but not plug-ins. Owning the patents doesn’t mean you shut a technology down, it just means you control how it’s used. So there is room to worry…
AES Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 pm

I think the Exxon-Mobil thing has been overblown since they are making a new version of a component, not the whole cell. The hybrid craze has probably shown that there is legitimate big bucks to be made, so they’re trying to cash in on it.

Not that I don’t wish them the worst for what they’ve done to the environment, but still…They would have to be stupid to ignore the business potential, especially with the uproar over gas prices.
Canuk Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Thanks for the response guys. It seems you too are keeping an eye on the happenings behind the scenes.

A123 systems has already gotten into bed with Cobasys (yikes!). However, Compact Power has not (as best I can ascertain from their website).
I hope that this is a tactic that GM has arranged so that Cobasys cannot hold the technology and the Li-ion batteries as ransom for another of their greedy motives.

I think it would behoove us to keep watch over the main players in the Volt development to see if scheming is going on which could thwart the sucessful outcome of this new car. If development is delayed or prevented, it would most certainly be very disappointing for us and generally bad for the world as a whole.

I can tell you, I’m really interested in purchasing a Volt, however, if it’s not ready in about 3 years when I need a new car, I’ll be making tracks to the Toyota store for one of their hybrids.
Rich Anderson Says:
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:43 pm

How about a battery with 20 year life, operates and charges (50C) at -60F to +165F. Can charge in 10 minutes (100C) and can be discharged and charged totally with no damage over 15000 times. Current cost about $.50/Watt. (See AES 2MW storage system press release). Forget about cooling except maybe a fan to supply some winter heat and discharge excess to air or heat pump in summer.
Check out Altair-nanosafe battery data sheet. Altair already has an 18k battery pack. (See Aerovironment, Altair. Go Green demo in Norway).
Then use the generator to recharge the battery while supplying power to motor cycling back to battery every hour or so to give the volt even greater MPG.
butters Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 2:43 am

Rich #27,

A 50C charge is 72 seconds and a 100C discharge is 36 seconds. A 50C charge for a 16KWh pack would almost require a megawatt power source (800KW). I believe that Altair’s price target is $1/Wh, which would of course be $16,000 for the Volt’s pack. I wonder if that’s more expensive than the packs from A123 and CPI.

What happened with Altair in the run-up to GM’s selection of the development teams? It really does seem like there are three major technological branches to consider in the high-power lithium-ion landscape, and Altair is one of them. They’re the only ones doing anything innovative with the anode material.
o.Jeff Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Dear Mr. Klein,

Thank you for answering Lyle’s questions!

We are counting on you and your organization to deliver a great battery pack for the Chevy Volt.

The Chevy Volt is the first car in a hundred years that has the potential to really make a positive change for the world. Whether you are concerned about energy dependence out of concern for foreign policy or for economic reasons, or whether you are concerned about global climate change, the Chevy Volt is the only car that can make a significant difference.
Rich Anderson Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

I envision a day when charge stations have 1-2MW or greater battery packs stabilizing the grid and offering charges to EV’s. Using an 50KW battery pack would allow for multiple high rate quick charges all the while the grid has thousands of packs to stabilize the grid. Each battery pack grid tied to a substation being constantly recharged for more charges. The technology is here now with AES using Altair nanosafe batteries. Infrastructure is must easier and much more beneficial than hydrogen or ethanol. The 33% of generated off peak power going to ground could be effectively used.

GM-Volt Interview: Compact Power VP of Engineering, Martin Klein, Part 2

30 Responses to “GM-Volt Interview: Compact Power VP of Engineering, Martin Klein, Part 2”

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