GM Would Share Volt E-Flex Technology Among Brands
Some GM news coming out of the North American Dealers Association, besides GM CEO Wagoner asking dealers to fight state level emissions regulations, had to do with the Volt.
A report noted that dealers were told by GM that brands other than Chevrolet could also one day get E-Flex technology. This shouldn’t of course surprise us as GM has indeed already shown us Saturn Flextreme and Cadillac Provoq concepts.
Certainly since the Volt may be the holy grail of success for GM, telling worried Pontiac dealers they may too one day get E-Flex on their showroom floors are important words of hope.
How about this for an idea? Should GM license E-Flex to other manufacturers the way Toyota does it’s hybrid system? I didn’t think of it. A reader once emailed me that he was actually invited to a focus group to discuss this proposal.
Source (Autonews)
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20 Responses to “GM Would Share Volt E-Flex Technology Among Brands”
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February 11th, 2008 at 6:20 am
If GM were to license this technology, I think they could make a ton of money doing so. I would much rather see them keep the technology at home by licensing it to Ford and Chrysler. By doing this, perhaps they can take a significant cut out of the 60% of new car buyers that won’t buy American.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Personally, I have a easy answer that would make it fair to all dealers and ALSO be fantastic for those of us who want to buy it.
INTERNET ORDERS!!! Volt dealered to whatever GM dealership is hte closest, they get their lousy $500 bucks…and we don’t have to go through the run-around, the price gouge or the dealer picking off our order.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Way back in the dark days of WWII, Rolls Royce licensed the Merlin V-12 design to Packard, and voila, the P-51 escorted our heavy bombers all the way to Berlin.
We are in a war with folks sitting on huge lakes of oil, yet no effort at all has been made to bring PHEVs to market like we did to bring what we needed to win WWII.
Provided the technology lives up to the hype, and that is not a given, then absolutely, GM should be required to license the technology to all the OEM building cars in America.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Not to belittle GM’s E-FLEX system, but it’s probably not rocket science. I can’t imagine that Toyota and other manufacurers hasn’t or can’t engineer a similar system of thier own that would perform every bit as well, if not better. This would get them out of the licensing fees, and give the dealers the ability to boast to customers how thier systems are “superior” to GM’s, because of the differentiation.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:04 am
However having said what I said in post #4, sure, why not allow other interested companies to use the system under license?
February 11th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Hasn’t Chrysler all ready shown concepts with similar tech?
February 11th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Hell no, isn’t the whole idea to win back the market share from Toyota, maybe license it inside the US, but definitley not to Japan.
We have to win back one of our original industries. Not to mention i’m pretty sure Toyota has already invested to much to change directions. They bet the ship on the fact people would never drive electric powered cars, only electrically assisted cars. They were wrong they lose.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Wagoner asks dealers to fight state level emissons regulations?
Almost half of the states, including many with the largest populations, have signed on to implement the California CO2 regulations. The argument about a hodgepodge of individual state requirements is just BS spin.
With that level of “leadership”, no wonder GM is circling the drain.
Van, #3:
No kidding. Remember when Jimmy Carter said that achieving energy independence was “the moral equivalent of war”? What was that, 30+ years ago? The price of oil dipped back down, and everybody went back to sleep. Now look where we are.
Speaking of Chrysler, did anyone notice the press over the weekend about Chrysler shrinking its number of products, and its dealers, by 50%?
February 11th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
noel park #8:
Amen to that. Just imagine what if, instead of fighting the CARB ZEV mandate of 1990, GM just went ahead and fully developed the EV1 and subsequent offshoots; this GM-Volt site wouldn’t even exist (no disrespect to anyone here, though). We would already be driving electrics, and advanced hybrids. It seems hard for me to get my head around GM thinking, that it’s good for buisiness to spend tons of money fighting change for the good, rather than to just get on with the task of getting that electric drive car out there — we all know they can easily do it, because the EV1 program proved it.
Jon P. #7
Didn’t Toyota develop their hybrid mainly because of Chevron’s/Cobasy’s lockup of the NiMH battery use, which said that no BEV’s allowed?
February 11th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Robert V. #6,
Robert, look at the Chrysler Ecovoyager concept, see for instance :
http://www.chrysler.com/en/autoshow/concept_vehicles/ecovoyager/
And remove from it the fluel cell, the add an ICE with a generator (GM did the same thing last year with the Volt but in reverse order) and you get a Saturn/Opel Flextreme up to the cokpit design (LCD Sceens, cameras instead of mirrors, antagonist doors, etc.)
Hope that helps.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Noel @ 8:
“Wagoner asks dealers to fight state level emissons regulations?
Almost half of the states, including many with the largest populations, have signed on to implement the California CO2 regulations. The argument about a hodgepodge of individual state requirements is just BS spin.
With that level of “leadership”, no wonder GM is circling the drain.”
I agree, and GM is trying to delay and strain an overburdened judicial system because the legislatures are speaking, adopting the CA mandate state-by-state. The next stop, will be the courts, but to do it piecemeal, is ridiculous. GM doesn’t have the resources to go it alone at the local level, but asking dealers to do it will only increase prices to the consumer.
GM, FOCUS ON THE PRODUCT HERE. The consumers are screaming for higher fuel efficiency AND lower emissions (as evidenced through legislative mandates). Quit fighting the inevitability of change and make your products better. The Volt should have no issues meeting requirements. Now the rest of your line-up may suffer…but if you pass the expenses on to the consumer, your shareholders will suffer as will your execs.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’m of the belief that the challenge of the electric vehicle is less a technology hurdle, and increasingly, a hurdle of manufacturing expertise. The other car companies will quickly develop something that is nearly equal, but perhaps harder to build. Eventually, they will figure out a way because all of the car companies are expert manufaturors.
That being said, GM could make some nice scratch by saving these companies the time and hassle of developing the 99% alternative, and protect themselves from the possibility of someone accidently (or purposfully) developing a 105% alternative. They could get some favorable PR to boot.
Go ahead and sell the technology GM, but make sure you get the right $. I suggest a minor fee, per car produced by a competetor, worldwide, that uses your technology, but only if they are willing to pay the minor fee for 10 years (3 years following the experation of the patent.) Likewise, if they develop a technology in that time frame, they must be contractually obligated to sell to GM, at the same cost, or less if it is a less important breakthough. Furthermore, they must agree to refrain from comparing their versions of the GM technology to a GM product in advertising. Furthermore, GM must be allowed royalties on maintenance components that utilize the GM technology.
February 11th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Dave B #11,
“GM, FOCUS ON THE PRODUCT HERE. The consumers are screaming for higher fuel efficiency AND lower emissions (as evidenced through legislative mandates). Quit fighting the inevitability of change and make your products better. The Volt should have no issues meeting requirements. Now the rest of your line-up may suffer…but if you pass the expenses on to the consumer, your shareholders will suffer as will your execs.”
—————-
I agree with Noel and You.
And GM, while you’re at it, instead of spending the enormous amount of money fighting these mandates, embrace them and be first on the block to have them. Then you will have something to brag about and please the American people. Are you still so clueless as to continue to make vehicles people don’t want to buy? Come on! Get the Volt right, spread it amongst the rest of your fleet, and you will have your lower emissions and higher fuel efficiency. This is not rocket science. Your Marketing and PR departments need to be cleaned out because this fight you are fighting is NOT making you look good.
I realize that looking good has not been part of your nature for the last couple of decades, but I honestly thought you had made a turn around and have come to your senses. Start building cars that people want to buy. Start building cars that people want to buy. Do I need to keep repeating myself?
February 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Noel Park #8
Yes I saw this in the press, and they considered to get the Viper out of the market too, note that I found this : “The Viper’s almost surely dead — the company wants to close this low-volume operation, and in the new labor agreement would not commit to any new product for Conner Ave.”
Here : http://www.autoobserver.com/2007/11/chrysler-produc.html
Note that this information is from November 5, 2007.
So the plan from Cerberus Capital Management is going on, time will tell what will be left of Chrysler, hope that will be the occasion to produce EV vehicle basd on the concepts shown in january at the NAIAS
February 11th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
>> Didn’t Toyota develop their hybrid mainly because of Chevron’s/Cobasy’s
>> lockup of the NiMH battery use, which said that no BEV’s allowed?
Sorry, that guess is not what happened.
PNGV is the history you need to read about.
The Big-3 were funded by the US government to build high-efficiency cars. Toyota was denied the opportunity to join… so, they found their own way to compete instead. Prius was born.
The Big-3 abandoned their efforts… and our now regretting delay of the inevitable. Taking E-Flex to high-volume production as rapidly as possible is a really, really big deal.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
>> Didn’t Toyota develop their hybrid mainly because of Chevron’s/Cobasy’s
>> lockup of the NiMH battery use, which said that no BEV’s allowed?
“Sorry, that guess is not what happened.”
Yes it was. Check out the RAV4.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
1994 the development of Prius was in full swing.
1997 sales of Prius began… the same year RAV4-EV was first available.
The purpose was to compete with the PNGV automakers.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Actually, I don’t really think there’s anything to license. You have to have a proven product and not only does this take time, but the RE EV concept is also going to take time for acceptance. I’ll bet that most people for the first year or better will think this is just a late GM entry into the HEV market…a nicer looking Prius if you will.
By the time it does start catching on, more will demand this technology and GM will want to sell all the vehicles it can, and so will the other 4 GM divisions. Not licensing the technology will allow for more vehicle sales and the ability to take a bite out of CAFE.
To give that up for a few bucks per vehicle, not to mention that these vehicles might be opportunities lost for GM just doesn’t seem to make sense at this point.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
The technology (except for the battery ) has been proven for decades on your local railroads. Diesel locomotives have been all electric, all the time. The only real change is the battery and plug in charge. Not all that exceptional of a concept to be talking about Licensing. Any car maker will be able to do the same thing soon enough.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
3 Phase AC motors have been out there forever, we all know that. The controller is a bit harder to find, but their not rocket science either. The batteries now, I think they’ll last just as long as the NiMH in the RAV4..
The hardest part of the EV system is the software. Even that isn’t that hard, Chrysler and Ford have built EV’s before. They like to lie to the public, (maybe not lie, but you know what I mean) that the technolgy isn’t there, and it’s too hard to build/pull off..
If a rookie can convert a heap of junk Mitsubishi on his own dime, and have a good reliable car, and had little technical experience, what is wrong with the picture here? Why the hell does the big 3 have all these high and mighty people working for them, and having such a hard time with it? 2010? Really, they could have it out the end of this year, but they enjoy dragging their feet I guess.
Really, I’m at a loss of words, I really don’t understand what the problem is…… Waiting for testing of the battery? Please.. we’ll see what happens..