I agree. Well put.

Upper management has given him a delivery date to meet, and unless there is a major problem in the drivetrain, he knows enough not to let the power drain of the electric door locks hold back that production deadline.

Successful projects are what move these guys up the ladder. And unless he has a death wish, they all want to move up! After all, he will have on his resume, Chief Engineer and VLE of the Chevy Volt!

I certainly did NOT intend to be disrespectful of ME’s or of the mechanical engineering discipline. Some of the best & smartest people I’ve ever known were ME’s (in fact, my Orthopedic Surgeon who did back surgery on me years ago had been an ME prior to going back to Med school –see, I told you ME’s are smart!)

My real concern in my post #1 was that Frank Weber is spread so thin as Chief Engineer AND Vehicle Line Executive that EE’s and/or supplier’s, knowing this & knowing that his background was ME, might try to “con” him into signing off on needless cost & schedule concessions to reduce the power drain of accessories such as power door locks or the anti-theft alarm system –which makes little sense if such unnecessary redesigns could threaten the Volt schedule (or even the reliability of the accessory).

Don’t you worry about those A123 packs, I bet they are performing just fine! I’m with you though, I want to hear more about them.