GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

A fundamental theme observed in the inception and development of the Chevy Volt is the competition between General Motors and Toyota. GM vice chair Bob Lutz has admitted GM was wrong in not getting into hybrids at the time Toyota did with their Priuses and has promised not to make the same mistake twice.

Over the months there has been considerable banter between the two companies. One interesting facet has been Toyota’s arguments that the E-REV paradigm is not as efficient as the parallel hybrid paradigm (of the Prius). They have also declared lithium-ion as not being ready for prime-time, and only plan to have a limited test fleet of plug-ins (with Nickel) by the end of 2010.

Toyota for its part has sold over 1 million Priuses to date and sells 60% of them in the U.S. Considering the recent gas price hikes, these numbers will likely continue to climb precipitously. Toyota has exclusively been building Priuses in Japan, but now is apparently in talks to build some in the U.S.

GM and Toyota have a joint-venture assembly plant in California called New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI), and the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbum has reported that GM and Toyota are in negotiations to produce the Prius there. Officially, Toyota reports that so far,”nothing has been decided about building the Prius at NUMMI,”

I have tried for a comment from GM, but so far, silence.

Further related news comes from a Wall Street Journal report in which it was stated “Toyota has said it plans to test the feasibility of an electric car with a range extender,”

I investigated this statement more closely through a conversion with the Wall Street Journal article’s author Nori Shirouzu. He referenced the source of this quote as Toyota’s press release from the Detroit Auto Show in January 08. They were simply referring to the aforementioned parallel Nickel-metal hydride plug-in prototypes. Thus, there remains no evidence that Toyota is exploring the series or E-REV design.

Nori told me he suspects that Toyota really is not interested in building plug-in cars, that they are only putting their feet in the water now just in case the Volt takes off and they have to react.

So the battle between Toyota and GM rages on, and perhaps it’s best to keep your enemies close.

About one quarter of GM’s blue-collar workforce of 76,000 accepted buyouts to leave their positions, the automaker announced today. These workers who were earning an average $28 per hour could be replaced by new workers starting at half that much. These generally older workers will vacate by July 1st.

The fact that lower wage and less numbers of workers would be coming in should lead to significant cost savings for GM. The cost of the buyout hasn’t been revealed yet by GM, but analysts believe it could lead to a net $2.1 billion annual savings as only about 4,000 new workers may be hired.

Due to the slowing economy and dramatically rising oil prices, vehicle sales are way down for all automakers, and there has been a dramatic an unprecedented shift from trucks to cars. GMs total sales have dropped 12% in the first four months of this year compared to last, whereas truck sales have dropped an even greater 18%.

Recently having gotten a vote of confidence from the board, GM CEO Rick Wagoner will be announcing GM’s second quarter numbers and plans for shifting production from truck to cars at next Tuesday’s annual shareholders meeting. To his credit, he has actually achieved $9 billion in annual savings for GM since 2005.

Let’s also not forget GM is a major global player, and despite the problems in the U.S. market, profit in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific have doubled 1st quarter 2008 compared to 1st quarter 2007, and GM Europe profit was up nearly 20-fold in the same period.

And even though oil prices are likely a frothy slippery bubble, this is a wake up call, and the time has for GM to get lean and green.

Despite the storm, the Volt project moves on full bore, and with an open wallet, steadfastly heading the 100 year-old automaker into their next century of automaking.

Sources (Bloomberg) and (Detroit Free Press)

We have known for a while that the initial Chevy Volt concept car did poorly in the wind tunnel. GM has advised us that in order to achieve a full 40 mile end of life EV range the car has to have an excellent aerodynamic profile.

Over time we have heard that the production Volt will have a coefficient of drag in the “mid-2’s”, as per GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz. I have also been told the new design outperforms the Prius in the wind-tunnel.

GM has only shown us a teaser of the new designs front end. I and other journalists caught a glimpse of a rear quarter while at the tech center in April (no pics) and noticed the rear corner was squared.

The video below demonstrates some of the aero effect issues GM is dealing with. In it we are told the Volt will have a flat back end, called a Kammback. The steep drop off leads to turbulence behind the car which improves the CD. We are also told the car will have a round front and tapered corners.

No official word yet on when we’ll finally see it all but I suspect very soon.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/v/bp-EUf93irk]

Below is a discussion I just had with Micky Bly who is GM’s director of hybrid vehicle integration. He is responsible for putting all the parts of the Volt together to produce a smooth and consistent driving experience.

Now that Bob Lutz has said the battery is no longer the issue, what are the issues of control in the Volt program that you haven’t resolved yet?

There are a lot of issues still left to work out on integration and controls issues. The areas are the charger, how we’re going to hook up to the grid, how we’re going to control that, when we’re going to charge, how do we charge, what do we tell the driver when were charging. Those are all significant challenges from a controls point of view.

Other areas are on the battery cooling and heating to make sure we clearly take care of the very large battery which requires a lot of cooling and heating capacity. So that’s an area that we’re going to spend a significant amount of time on. The brakes integration, even though we already have a lot of experience in regen braking, now we’ve got to roll that in from a controls execution.

Other areas that are clearly a challenge for us would be the transition from an EV running vehicle to a charge-sustaining one to make sure we make that as smooth and seamless as the driver would expect it to be, and the behavior of that. These are the big ticket areas but the details is where all of this really gets down to. Bob Lutz’ comment was “reams and reams of software (are needed),” and he’s not kidding. It literally is a couple of hundred engineers on my team and powertrain’s team working on controls and software and calibration work to get this vehicle going.

Do you see any challenge at this point that will be very difficult or is it just putting together the tough pieces that already exist?

As an engineer, nothing is an obstacle we can’t overcome with the right talent and the right amount of time. So we’ll get through every one of these issues. But as I tell a lot of the leadership, Wagoner and Lutz, in reviews, I can do 99.9% of the things right, but it’s the 0.1% of the things I didn’t get right that will still cause the customer a concern, a problem, a warranty issue. So I’ve got to put as much energy and focus on that 0.1% as I do on the other 99.9 and get them all right. I don’t have the luxury of giving a ‘mulligan’ to the customer.

They all have their own challenges. Some are easy, some are regulatory, crash and safety, first responders, regulatory from the tailpipe and from a fuel economy certification, on-board diagnostics (OBD). That’s a huge thing you’ve got to get just right. We’re adding five to six hundred new diagnostics on this vehicle just becasue its a range extending EV. All of those things have to be flawless so we meet the governmental requirements in California and the northeast states.

I’m telling you the job’s big becasue it is. But, there is nothing in front of us that we can’t get around or over though.

Bob Lutz said GM might be considering a pure EV version of the Volt to be sold in California, any comments on that?

I will let Bob comment on future product plans. I clearly know my space on that one.

How many miles has the first early developmental prototype vehicle run?

I can tell you that were running two shifts of engineering support on this around the clock. Typically we run engineering one shift, and technicians two or three, but we’ve got so much work we’re doing on this. The vehicle will not stop. It’s going to be running around the clock. And as much time and effort as we can put into it we will.

Considering the current national gas and oil price crisis, media outlets can’t seem to discuss the topic enough. This has led to a break for GM and the Chevy Volt. As readers here have pointed out, the Volt was featured on a segment on tonight’s broadcast of the NBC Nightly news.

View it here.

Neilson ratings suggests that the audience for this broadcast is roughly 8 to 9 million viewers.

The segment kept the message clear with a little stock footage and an interview with GM exec Robert Kruse.

Anyone coming to this site from seeing the Volt on the news, welcome. This is the place where we who are extremely interested in getting this car on the road convene to analyze, discuss, and contribute to its development. Be sure to read our FAQ.

We review relevant topics on a daily basis, and if your very interested, join our waiting list.

Last week we experienced quite a bit of buzz about a German publication’s interview with GM CEO Rick Wagoner and his supposed comments that the Volt would come out by 2010 and for less than $30,000.

I remained skeptical about this quote becasue it did not fit well with the information we have been getting from GM.

I now have official confirmation GM spokesperson David Darovitz that “there was an unfortunate misunderstanding that resulted in inaccurate information published.” He also went on to say “we are not in the position to speculate on the retail pricing of the Chevrolet Volt.”

Automotive News also has just published unnamed sources with GM as continuing to state the Volt cannot be sold for under $30,000 without a significant government tax credit, and that the automaker is indeed lobbying for this.

Last year we observed the passage of HR5351 by the House of Representatives which would have allowed up to $6500 plug-in tax credit. It was not passed by the Senate. In a poll , 94% of GM-Volt.com readers support plug-in tax credits.

Last week a new bill called HR 6049 was passed again by the house, allowing $5000 in plug-in tax credits for a car like the Volt with a 16 kwh battery. It allows $3000 as a base plus $200 per kwh over 5 kwh up to a maximum of an additional $2000. It may soon go before the Senate.

Below you can see which Senators voted for and against the failed bill HR5351. If you desire, feel free to contact those in the nay column and see if you could get them to change their mind. Considering Bush’s recent rebuff by OPEC to produce more oil, maybe he just might be in the right state of mind not to veto it if it does get to his desk.

The List:

YEAS – 59: Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Clinton (D-NY) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Grassley (R-IA) Harkin (D-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYS-40: Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lott (R-MS) Martinez (R-FL) McConnell (R-KY) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA)

Not Voting – 1: McCain (R-AZ)