GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

It’s glaringly clear that GM (and Ford and Chrysler) have rapidly slid into serious financial peril. Revenues have depended heavily on trucks and SUVs. The current oil price spike has fundamentally and profoundly shifted consumer behavior across the boards. People have abruptly stopped buying SUVs and trucks in favor of small fuel efficient cars (or no new car at all).

In the Wall Street Journal, Joseph White proposed three types of cars he feels the Big 3 should build to save themselves:

• A seven passenger family vehicle that gets 30 miles to the gallon on the highway.

• A midsize sedan that gets 40 miles to the gallon on the highway — and doesn’t cost much more than a Chevy Malibu, Ford Fusion or Toyota Camry.

• A pickup truck large enough to do real work and comes close to 30 miles per gallon on the highway.

He did not recommend an electric car, because:

“an electric car isn’t a mass market product for Detroit Three buyers, most of whom live in the heartland. The Detroit Three lost electric car fans a long time ago. They first need to regain relevancy with their customer base – people who like larger vehicles, who have families and who need to drive long distances.”

Mr. White’s associate Keith Johnson on the WSJ blog paraphrases “Would GM… stand to gain more by forgoing moonshots on fantasy cars and focusing on just making more fuel-efficient cars that Americans want to buy?”

Source (Wall Street Journal )

A couple of weeks ago we heard an interview with Compact Power CEO Prabhakar Patil in which he indicated his company and LG Chem had a good chance at getting the Volt contract and that his packs were the one’s running in the prototypes. It was also indicated that LG Chem would build a U.S. production facility should they get that contract.

GM would not confirm they were close to choosing one supplier but that an announcement would be forthcoming.

A new interview with Continental’s board member Karl-Thomas Neumann was recently published.

He said "Our expectations are high and we’re confident that we made a good offer to GM."

He also indicated that if his company and battery supplier A123 Systems got the contract, Continental too would build a U.S. assembly plant.

Although I do not have definite confirmation from GM there appear to be some indications that a battery contract decision could come in August.

Source (CNN )

After GM first introduced the Chevy Volt concept in January 2007, there was a lot of ire and skepticism from the former EV-1 crowd.  Most vocal among them was Doug Korthoff who appeared in the film Who Killed the Electric Car?

Doug has since filled the web with extensive anti-GM rhetoric and used to make appearances on this site.  He and I had a chance to meet in LA last year as well, quite cordially.

In response to an article in the LA Times outlining the Big 3 automakers financial difficulties, Doug has reappeared with a letter to the editor that he copied to GM vice-chair Bob Lutz.

Doug’s letter:

"GM has been seriously looking for options for getting more fuel-efficient cars on the market quickly, because there is some question about its financial health after 2008.  Rebranding foreign cars has become more expensive as the dollar falls.  GM has proposed producing the VOLT, described as an Electric car with a range-extender, but it isn’t planned for earlier than 2011, and it depends on Lithium batteries which don’t yet exist.

There is one option GM has not considered, which would turn things around, both in image and in reality.

GM could resume production of the 1999 EV1, using Panasonic lead-acid batteries.  These were leased in Arizona in 2000, and regularly attained a range of over 100 miles on a charge.

Resumption of production would be simple; the EV1 plant is empty, the former assembly workers have been laid off and are idly drawing "jobs bank" salaries, the batteries are available off-the-shelf in any quantities over 1000, and the design is proven successful.

Production of the EV1 does not depend on an expensive product design cycle, new engineering, questionable battery testing and recalls; it’s a proven winner.

This is the GM car that fans watched over in a rain-plagued vigil for 28 days.  Here’s an example where would-be purchasers clamored for a chance to buy GM products, hoping for the faint chance that GM would sell six-year-old used versions for $25,000 cash.

Supposedly, GM is now bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm for its current products; why not re-activate the EV1 fan club, recharge the excitement of the "21st century test pilot" GM fans, and turn GM around?  Spend scarce engineering dollars on new versions of the EV1: four-passenger, pickups, serial hybrid with range-extender; but the current version could be in showrooms in six months.

If GM had re-started the EV1 line, instead of starting design work on the VOLT, the EV1 would already be generating revenue right now.

Fresh off the assembly line, these cars would sell for no less than $35,000, perhaps as much as $50,000 or more.  But the morale value would be even greater.

Revival of the EV1 would quiet GM’s critics, make GM some money, and attract new customers as well as increase floor traffic for other models.  New and improved versions of the basic Electric car, year after year, would expand GM’s footprint on the world market, leveraging scarce investment dollars, maximizing profit and leading the way forward.

And we could say once again that our cars were "made in America and fueled by American Electrons".

Is it a measure of GM’s past failure that resumption of EV1 production is not even under consideration?"

Apparently having heard enough of this Mr. Lutz in his earnest no-nonsense way decided to respond:

"The EV will not meet any current safety laws. Putting a version into production that meets regulations would put us out to ’11 or ’12. They cost us well over $80,000 to produce, and, being a two-seater, we could only sell 800 in four years. We lost over one billion dollars on that experiment.

I don’t know why you insist that lithium-ion doesn’t exist. We are getting packs from our suppliers, they test well in both hot and cold, they store the energy as claimed, we are fast-cycling them to make sure they last, we are doing high-temp, high-load testing with the cooling system shut down and are experiencing no thermal problems. Trust me, the battery will not delay the car."

Source (LA Times ) and thanks to our reader KFO18 for Doug’s letter.

Ted Miller is Ford’s senior manager of energy storage. He outlined to Bloomberg News Ford’s cautious approach to plug-in vehicles.

Balking at the idea of what GM has done with the Volt he said "if there’s going to be a true plug-in hybrid market, we’re going to be there. It’s just that that’s a huge commitment to actually go to production.”

Miller acknowledged that such a major move is costly, stating "If we’re spending significant resources on plug-in hybrids, it means we don’t have a bucket of money”, and instead notes that Ford would rather take a sit back and watch strategy perhaps adopting the technology if cars like the Volt catch on.

Using the term normally applied to a desperate last ditch football play, Miller called an aggressive approach to plug-ins a "Hail Mary", specifically saying "the Hail Mary means that we’re probably going to have to neglect a lot of other things."

With oil skyrocketing and the economy spiraling this just may be the last play.

Source (Bloomberg )

Today Republican Presidential candidate John McCain toured the GM auto plant that makes Chevrolet Cobalts in Lordstown Ohio. He told workers there among other things that he supports government investment in producing future electric cars.

He also is reported to have praised the development of the Chevy Volt.

He told the workers, “we can lead again in the automotive industry and that can lead to thousands of jobs.”

McCain pledged federal support for research efforts, but said he would not favor a government bailout of automakers.

About research funding he said “once we develop that technology with pure research and development, then we’ve got to hand it over to the private enterprise — the automotive companies. I do not think we should be in direct competition.”

About GMs financial troubles he said “It depends on what you mean by a bailout. If you’re talking about it in the classic terms, I’m afraid not.”

Source (AP) and (WSJ)

EEStor is the Texas company that has been secretly working on a breakthrough energy storage technology that is a type of ultracapacitor. The technology is reportedly able to store large quantities of energy in a package markedly smaller, lighter, and less expensive than lithium-ion batteries.

The company has formed an exclusive agreement with ZENN Motor Cars of Canada to begin production of electric cars using their technology. They also have a contract with Lockheed-Martin.

Few insiders have seen EEStor’s facility but those who have, and with whom I have spoken, came away impressed. Despite these grand claims and remarkable potential, the company has yet to demonstrate a working unit. When last I spoke with ZENN CEO Ian Clifford he told me functional production storage units were to be delivered later this year, and he advised me a third-party has been verifying EEStor is achieving their technological milestones.

A new report indicates that the third party testing data would be released within the next several weeks.

If the breakthrough is real, quite possibly lithium-ion batteries will have a strong competitor.

Clifford hopes if this all works out his company would really be interested in building ZENNergy Drive Systems, rather than cars, which could be used to power any 4 -wheel vehicle. The carmaking could be left to the large automakers, in fact there has even been contact at some level with GM.

I checked in with Mr. Clifford regarding this new report on the timing of the public release of EEStor’s testing. Whereas he couldn’t be specific, he confirmed the release is indeed "imminent."

It looks like truth or dare time is coming very soon.

Source (Financial Post )