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Lutz: Volt Battery Suppliers are in a Horse Race and Expect 100,000 in sales by 2012

March 19th, 2008 | Posted in: Brand, Production

horse-race.jpg

GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said GM initially planned to choose between either CPI/LG Chem or Conti/A123 to make the Volts pack by this April, but that the plans have changed somewhat. He now says GM wants to “run the two in parallel for a while longer”.

He calls the battle to be the Volt’s pack-maker a “horse race” and says that both suppliers “have extreme strengths and some weaknesses, but the balance of strengths and weaknesses are different between the two potential suppliers.”

Lutz says to expect 100,000 in Volt sales by 2012 and still expects to make the 2010 deadline for production.

He also said “We are doing all of that testing and so far, I will say, no failures, no problems. The battery technology is working great,” and that battery pack obstacles left to overcome “aren’t fundamental electrochemical problems. These are simple engineering problems”

And for those coming to Volt Nation, be at the entrance to Javits by 3PM and look for the Volt Nation sign. Your names will be on a list there. Remember to record everything you see and hear.

Source (Mlive)


Posted by: Lyle

27 Responses to “Lutz: Volt Battery Suppliers are in a Horse Race and Expect 100,000 in sales by 2012”


  1. David L
    Vote -1 Vote +1David L     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 12:03 am

    Hmmm … I wonder how many they plan to sell in 2011 …

    Have fun at Volt Nation! (It’s way to far for me to travel …)  

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  2. David L
    Vote -1 Vote +1David L     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 12:04 am

    Lyle … do you ever sleep? You always post new topics around midnight which is a more "civilized" 9 PM on the west coast …  

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  3. Thomdbhom
    Vote -1 Vote +1Thomdbhom     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 12:53 am

    I’m sure GM can handle simple engineering problems. So, the batteries are good and will get better. Given that, can the battery warranty costs be reduced yet?  

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  4. Nick
    Vote -1 Vote +1Nick     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 1:45 am

    Guys, if this turns out true, it’s great.  60,000 cars nation-wide in 2010 would be nice, but just think of the training and equipment cost to get a dealer set up to service these cars.

    One big lesson from this blog and all the challenges GM has to deal with to get this car out is an appreciation of why, although electric cars sound like such an obvious idea, we haven’t had them yet.  

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  5. Ausmartin
    Vote -1 Vote +1Ausmartin     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 2:38 am

    Per #4
    Training is not really and issue, oposition has had the Prius and there are no big issues even in for crash crews who have to be educated, modern cars have enough danerouse bits on them like airbags etc!
     Being a serial Hybrid it will be easier to work on than the current crop of parallel hybids now in use around the world.
    Only danger is the high voltage bits and the darwin theory applies here. For most it would present less danger than doing the wrong thing with a gasoline tank currently.

    The most amount of servicing will be the REV engine and that already every one knows.

    Bring it on I say!
      

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  6. NZDavid
    Vote -1 Vote +1NZDavid     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 4:57 am

    The battery has a master off switch. I would expect that in the event of airbag deployment it would automatically switch off.  

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  7. bruce g
    Vote -1 Vote +1bruce g     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 5:33 am

    Hmmm…
    That is a typical Lutzian Expresssion.
    Please , no protests from the Animal Protection groups, its just an analogy….
    All is well, enjoy the Javitz and please report back…  

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  8. mmcc
    Vote -1 Vote +1mmcc     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 5:44 am

    #6 NZ – Yeah, I was on a site for first responders the other day and that was mentioned… in fact it was a GM site I believe, that provided info for first responders on their current hybrid vehicles.  Can’t find the link right now.  As far as getting it serviced and technician training I keep thinking about the EV1 experience from WKTEC.  I remember the service tech saying how trouble free it was and basically they check the tires and fill the washer fluid.
    I hope GM will release some new pictures today of the actual car, not the concept.  You all have fun at Volt Nation.  

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  9. Sentinel
    Vote -1 Vote +1Sentinel     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 7:38 am

    If GM feels like breaking the site here again maybe they could give us the strengths and weaknesses of both battery packs and we could comment. Leave the names and any revealing tech info out to be fair to each supplyer. Call them battery A and battery B…. just a thought :)   

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  10. Eco
    Vote -1 Vote +1Eco     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 7:52 am

    The point of the Volt is not to need so much maintenance, hence less training required.   

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  11. Grizzly
    Vote -1 Vote +1Grizzly     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 8:39 am

    Sentinel #9

    T’wood be nice, but you know they’ll never do that.  With this group we’d be speculating all day and might even be right, and GM wouldn’t want that anymore than LG or A123.    It probably would bring the house down again.  

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  12. voltman
    Vote -1 Vote +1voltman     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 8:51 am

    I think they have to pick one even if both would do.  Otherwise they wont get the cost down via mass production since they will each be making half as much.  

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  13. Grizzly
    Vote -1 Vote +1Grizzly     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 8:56 am

    Yes, that and the fact that you want consistency from car to car for servicing etc.  Additionally, w/two suppliers of non identical packs some part of the population might feel they got the inferior pack.  

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  14. Jason M. Hendler
    Vote -1 Vote +1Jason M. Hendler     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    It is always wise to be multiple sourced on any critical system.  Think of the extra cost as buying an insurance policy, should one vendor fail.  

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  15. Statik
    Vote -1 Vote +1Statik     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 10:15 am

    I’d very much like to see production rollouts in 2010 and ‘100,000 in 2012′

    That being said, why should we believe a guy that has missed every deadline and target so far? To me these numbers are fettered with ‘maybes’ and ‘expects’…in my mind I’m still tacking a year on production and cutting 100k to 40k for 2013.

    Frankly, I’m surprised he would re-iterate the 2010 target or mention a future production goal at all, unless he was in defensive mode for just blowing his, “we are going to show Toyota we are serious, we will have mules by Easter, count on it” speech.  

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  16. Jason M. Hendler
    Vote -1 Vote +1Jason M. Hendler     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    Statik,

    You would gripe in the middle of an orgasm, so your whining is falling on my deaf ears.  

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  17. noel park
    Vote -1 Vote +1noel park     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 10:49 am

    #15 Statik:

    Well I realize the downside of too much optimism, but if Mr. Lutz is going to be this positive, I say wonderful.  I am allowing myself some optimism this morning.  I won’t blame you if you say "I told you so" later.

    #5 Ausmartin:

    Me too – "Bring it on I say!"  

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  18. Jeff M
    Vote -1 Vote +1Jeff M     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    I don’t suppose GM has actually stated what they feel are the "extreme strengths and some weaknesses" of each of the two suppliers?  

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  19. GXT
    Vote -1 Vote +1GXT     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 11:20 am

    Lutz is continuing the process of pushing deadlines and expectations into the future.  They are falling farther behind.
    It   

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  20. GXT
    Vote -1 Vote +1GXT     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 11:22 am

    … that was strange….

    Lutz is continuing the process of pushing deadlines and expectations into the future.  They are falling farther behind.
    It probably wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that Lutz already made some crazily over-optimistic promises.  That makes these setbacks appear worse.  It also makes you wonder if these revised dates are still crazily over-optimistic.  

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  21. Ron
    Vote -1 Vote +1Ron     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am

    The fact that both battery designs are performing very well in bench testing is encouraging.  GM has always bragged about testing their products under far worse conditions than the vehicle should realistically expect in normal daily life, so I hope that our real-world  abuses (both electrical and mechanical) will not cause unexpected failures. I think it’s unfortunate that one of these manufacturers will end up being the loser on the long-term contract, but I agree with the previous post regarding the need for standardization across the entire production run.  Since the packs are very close in terms of performance, they can’t even upsell the "better" pack as an option.

    Ford goofed this one up several times in the 70s & 80s by mixing in whatever left over parts they had laying around throughout the model year. It still causes parts suppliers headaches because the customer has to order parts based not only on year/model, but on specific variations as well ("Does that truck have the larger or smaller bearings in the rear axle?" "Uh, how should I know? I’m just trying to buy a heater core!")  

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  22. Dave B
    Vote -1 Vote +1Dave B     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm

    I am still very curious in the differences between the two packs.  Can we squeeze more range out of one pack?  How much cheaper is one pack than another? 

    I envision a day where a consumer can "customize" their Volt choosing one pack over another based on range, price, etc., much like you can build your computer–we’ve talked about this before. 

    Also, not that I’d encourage merging the two packs, but using one pack to the exclusion of the other company sounds silly to me.  There’s safety in redundancy; talk to Nasaman.  

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  23. Statik
    Vote -1 Vote +1Statik     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    #16 Jason

    I might indeed gripe in the middle of an orgasm…and you might not be able to hear my whining about it, hehe.

    …sometimes the correct statement isn’t the popular one, especially on a Volt fourm, so I do get pasted alot and thats ok.

    That being said, I want a Volt, but if GM is going to put out wild statements and changing everything from price to production, I am going to call them out.

    I can go back to every single one of my statements on the Volt over the past year here…and not one has been wrong yet, I wonder how many others can say the same? So yes, all my statements have pretty much been a downer, it’s not my fault I live in the real world.

    If GM puts out a reasonable press release I will be the first to agree with it. Or if GM hits a goal and I am wrong, I will be the first to apologize…until then, I’m still batting 1.000.  

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  24. Adam
    Vote -1 Vote +1Adam     Says:
    March 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pm

    Statik, I am a lot like you.  I can be negative a lot too, but there is something about this life we live.

    We didn’t ask to be here, but just being here and expressing our opinions, we catch sh*t.  I’m anxious for the volt as well.

    Lutz said he was wanting the mules on the road by Easter, I’m going to hold him to it.  Now if he would said, the mules would be on the road around Easter, we would’ve been cool with it.  You can take the same anology for the number of volts in a year.

    I was brought up, if you say your going to do it, then you do it, don’t let ‘em down.  

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  25. Shawn Marshall
    Vote -1 Vote +1Shawn Marshall     Says:
    March 20th, 2008 at 8:54 am

    Tupac better than no pack at all. The "other"  will be used somewhere, don’t you think?  

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  26. EJ
    Vote -1 Vote +1EJ     Says:
    March 20th, 2008 at 10:33 pm

    Totally unrealistic!Which 100,000 people are going to buy this Volt if it’s costing $35K to $40K and you can buy a Prius for $25K?Doesn’t make sense!Don’t hold your breath, people.They need to get the cost way down. That will probably take till 2020.Cheers.  

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  27. Will
    Vote -1 Vote +1Will     Says:
    March 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am

    #15 and #23 Statik

    Please, do us a favor and get off of your high horse for a minute.  I don’t post as much as you, but I have been reading this site since it’s inception.  You have made many good posts that I’ve read in the past, but you are far from being 100 percent correct.  Hell, your post #15 says Lutz has failed on every deadline, yet the batteries were delivered on schedule.   Batteries that 12 months before hand skeptics said where still 5-10 years away.

    I recognize that a healthy dose of skepticism is good now and then, but please try to recognize that GM has not once given a concrete statement on anything yet.  They consistently say things like "Our goal is…" and "We’re are shooting for…".  They haven’t made the mistake of giving an exact price, or date, for anything yet, probably because they know that it would be precisely that, a mistake.  They are doing everything in the most transparent way that any major auto manufacturer has done for any upcoming vehicle ever.  This information they are releasing is to most companies considered to be closely guarded information.  GM is doing with e-flex what IBM did with the PC.  I’m willing to bet that in 20 years, every major auto manufacturer will be doing it just like e-flex.  

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