Exclusive: GM has Received Second Continental/A123 Chevy Volt Prototype Battery Pack in Michigan
GM has confirmed that they have indeed received the second prototype Chevy Volt battery pack from the Continental Systems/A123 team. The 16 kwH pack arrived at the battery lab in Warren, Michigan on Monday March 3rd. It now takes its place alongside the first two prototype battery packs from the LG Chem/Compact Power Inc. team which have been undergoing tests since October.
The first Continental/A123 pack arrived in GMs Germany facility on January 31st and remains there where it continues to undergo testing. GM officials indicate that the initial pack was not moved to the U.S. specifically so that no time was lost in the testing process.
Unofficial reports indicate that the first packs test results have been thus far encouraging, and it is probably safe to say that none of the battery development teams would hand over packs that they wouldn’t be confident of, after all they were built to the specifications required by GM.
The two battery development teams were intially awarded GM contracts in June 2007, with plans for final decision-making on one or both suppliers in June of this year. That is the same month Bob Lutz expects media test drives of the Volt prototype mule cars.
The momentum is building fast folks, and not a minute too soon considering oil and gas prices lately.
Popularity: 3%
Related posts:
- Breaking: Chevy Volt A123/Continental Prototype Lithium-ion Battery Pack Delivered!
- Chevy Volt A123/Continental Battery Pack will be Tested in Michigan
- GM-Volt EXCLUSIVE: Interview and Podcast with A123 co-founder, CTO, and VP of R&D Bart Riley on Building the Volt’s Battery Pack
- GM Has Ten Volt Prototype Battery Packs - Picture of A123/CPI Pack
- More with Contintenal EV Director on the A123/Conti Chevy Volt Battery Pack Development
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5) 
Loading ...
21 Responses to “Exclusive: GM has Received Second Continental/A123 Chevy Volt Prototype Battery Pack in Michigan”
Leave a Reply
Recent Posts
- The 2009 Detroit Auto Show Should be Electrifying
- Chevy Volt Battery Temperature Control
- EEStor Gets a Trademark Patent on EESU and Provides Specs for a 24V EESU
- More Future Volt Competition?: Lotus E-REVs and Solar-Powered Toyotas
- Poll: Which 2010 Hybrid Would You Buy?
- Happy New Year From GM-Volt.com
- 10,000 Camaros Have Been Pre-Ordered, How Many Volts Will Be?
- How Will Air Conditioning Affect the Chevy Volt’s Electric Range?
- Volt Chief Designer on the Public Reaction to Chevy Volt Redesign
- US Battery Companies Seek Government Funds to Establish US-Based Lithium-ion Production Capacity
March 6th, 2008 at 12:20 am
This is good news!
More things to ask about at the NY meeting….
March 6th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Terrific news, Lyle! I’m also pleased to hear this because it confirms that GM apparently has redundant Volt-sized battery testing labs in both Germany and Michigan —(it’s standard practice in NASA to run parallel testing efforts on critical components to be sure the two sets of test data agree).
And testing the Continental/A123 packs BOTH in Germany & in the US underscores GM’s near-term planning to manufacture E-Flex vehicles in Europe using drive trains comparable to the Volt’s ….such as the Saturn plug-in Vue (current Vues are already made by Opel), the highly-styled Flextreme Opel announced recently and probably the Volt itself (for sale in Europe?)! ….So one might wonder if there could be a backup Volt production line in Germany too?!?
You’re right, Lyle —the momentum & excitement is building!!!
March 6th, 2008 at 12:44 am
I would like to know how GM is conducting failure testing with only two packs? I’m talking fire, explosion, crash, thermal run-a-way, extreme charging, etc. testing. Is GM conduction cell level tests as well? I hope these things are getting severely abused now so there are no surprises down the road.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Texas #3It’s my understanding that one of the specifications required by GM was a battery chemistry that cannot catch fire or explode as many laptop batteries (with different chemistries) have been known to do.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:42 am
I’m still wondering who will manufacture A123’s cells after their falling out with their Chinese partner. Seems as though volume supply might be a problem for A123, however I’ve got to believe that if they’re going to be a player, they’ve got this sewn up.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Is GM testing one of the LG/Chem batteries in Germany as well? No.
March 6th, 2008 at 4:46 am
But when are the batteries arriving to go in the mules? 4 sets doesn’t sound like much to me. Still its all good news.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:07 am
#7. NZDavid – Agree. At this point in the game it seems like there should be more than 4 batteries in existence. And for some reason I get the feeling that the A123/Conti batteries are proving some difficulty in manufacture. But I’m optomistic.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I admit, I’m a little impressed. One, the batteries exist and will be in a moving vehicle, albeit a mule, in a few months.
And two, based on three batteries in existance as I write this, there will be 50,000 of them in, at most, 3 years.
If this works, there will be textbooks written about how transformative this is in the greater context of industrial development.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:19 am
5Grizzly
You ask, "who will manufacture A123’s cells after their falling out with their Chinese partner?" —a valid concern that I share.
From the A123 web site, their answer is "for larger projects that require volume manufacturing, we operate state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Asia which have the capacity to scale to millions of battery packs per year." From what I can discover, these high volume facilities are headed by a " Dr. Tao Zheng , President, A123 China." —So my guess is that A123 decided to forget partnering with an existing Asian firm in favor of doing their own volume manufacturing in China.
Also, remember that A123 has over 800 employees world-wide, has the backing of heavy-weight corporate investors like GE and P&G and has raised over $100million in equity financing.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Why make a whole lot of batteries when it is being improved on constantly. At the end I have a feeling this battery will exceed GM’’s requirement when the Volt starts production.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Finally the shoe dropped, great news, and I expect in the nick of time. If the lab tests take about 3 months, mule testing in June still looks feasible to me. And maybe a one or two latter, perhaps Lyle can drive a mule with a A123/Conti pack! That will be a day! Go Volt
March 6th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Nasaman #10
I agree. Certainly good news if they now OWN their own facilities. I’d have preferred that the plant was in Mexico,
but again the fact that they own their own production means
is huge.
Jack #11
Very good point, and I hope you’re right. If so the parallel development gamble will have payed off big time.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:44 am
It looks like even President Bush is beginning to see the light.
At a news conference yesterday, he said "We’ve got to get off oil. And the reason why is, first, oil is - dependency on oil presents a real challenge to our economy."
GM should take that and make it a part of their ads for the Volt….
March 6th, 2008 at 9:57 am
#3 Texas Its true that GM is testing 3 batteries , but I have to believe that A123/Conti have volumes of test data and have pushed there Batteries to the limit already. Only the people at the testing unit , can really know what going on. Its amazing the speed of the developments that we are witnessing .
March 6th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I concur with Jack #11, until a contract is made and there is no market for its design, so why invest millions into tooling up & developing the MFG process for a product with out a market. My gut feeling is every one of these early batteries is hand built taking an inordinant amount of time to assemble. There is no automation whatsoever at this stage in the game. If and when the contract is signed with the final battery design approved is when we will see who can mass produce & deliver these. Remember Lithium Ion batteries with these specs have never been mass produced before. That is why there are so few of them available. Until either company develops a cost effective quality process to assemble these within budget we will not have a Volt. Having hand fabricated batteries only proves concept which is a long way from mass producing. As I said before I worked in Aerospace where we built an Anti radiation missle, the best in the world but we could not get the MFG process down the prototypes were hand built like these batteries. They worked great but we could not deliver in quantity. I am keeping my hopes tempered until I see more than hand built batteries within cost.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am
GM, Toyota Doubtful on Fuel Cells’ Mass Use "If we get lithium-ion to 300 miles, then you need to ask yourself, Why do you need fuel cells?" Mr. Lutz told reporters. He added that fuel-cell vehicles are still far too expensive to be considered for the mass market. "We are nowhere [near] where we need to be on the costs curve," he said. To read the complete article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120468405514712501.html
March 6th, 2008 at 10:47 am
ZAP-X is now taking reservations ($25,000) for an all electric crossover car that has a 350 mile range with huge power. See:
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/index.php/2008/03/06/zap-x-crossover-electric-car-more-power-than-you-need/
Unfortunately the pricetag is $60,000 which will put it out of most people’s budget. The car is designed by Lotus and has more power and speed then anyone really needs.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:48 am
#16, It will go something like this but on a larger scale with more robots:How to make Lithium Polymer Batteries for Electric Carhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqywKcJ0J2M
March 6th, 2008 at 11:01 am
The thing I would like to see at this point is a purchase order from GM for a 1000 units. This would give the the company enough incentive to start creating a mass production capability now.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Generally you can do lots of stuff in parallel, but usually you cannot go into production until the prototype testing tells you how to finalize the design for production.