GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

We have considered for some time the implications of being an apartment dweller and being able to own and drive a Volt. An idea I’ve had is charging meters similar to parking meters. It turns out a Silicon Valley startup called Coulomb has already taken that idea and ran with it, developing a quite interesting model. I had the chance to speak with their VP of business development Mike Harrigan.

Coulomb has developed a charging meter that they call a "smartlet." Users would subscribe to the service and in exchange get a smart card or fob. After parking their Volt near the meter waving the fob would open a chamber. An outlet would be exposed and the user could plug in to charge. The smarlet would be connected to the grid either via 110 or 220 volt lines. It would be able to access the user database and the utility company via a wireless network. The utility company could control flow on a mass scale based on the grids daytime demands.

Mike explains that the smartlet would be configured so the user’s cord could not be removed or stolen or another car be charged from it. There will also be different subscription plans depending whether you wanted to use it during the peak (at work) or at night (in your apartment).

Coloumb would pay rent to parking space owners as well as reimburse them for electric use, their revenue coming mainly from users subscriptions.  Mike notes there are only 54 million garages for 247 million US vehicles.

Coloumb is beginning to work with municipalities to begin installations in municipal parking facilities for now, but its easy to see the possibilities are endless.

Full press release below:

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Today at the Plug-in 2008 Conference in San Jose California, GM is announcing a major new collaboration with the Electric Power Institute (EPRI) and 30 major utility companies.

The endeavor is a landmark, first of its kind effort through which GM will work directly with both those utility companies and EPRI to ensure that the codes, standards, and grid capabilities are in place so that when the Chevy Volt comes to market, the infrastructure will be there to support it.

The shift of transportative energy from oil to electricity brings forth a myriad of special needs that automakers and utilities companies have to collaborate on to be sure they are met.

I had the chance to speak with Brita Gross who is GMs’ Manager of Hydrogen and Electrical Infrastructure about the announcement.

She advised me this collaboration is a very big and extremely important initiative. It encompasses three broad areas.

First, work will take place on the technical interface. Here, the utility companies will collaborate with GM to examine how the vehicles will interact with the electric grid. All the issues related to charging will be looked at. Methods to recognize and manage the cars’ draws, impact on peak and off-peak capacity, home and away from home charging, as examples, will be developed. From this, technical standards will be created. The Volt and indeed all future plug-in cars will then have to adhere to these standards. The fact that GM is first to do this gives them a significant strategic advantage as well ensuring the Volt launches well.

The second area of focus will be education for the public. For years the public has had difficulty understanding what conventional hybrids are. Adding a plug to the equation increases the complexity consumers will have to grasp. New learning will have to take place and the utility companies are willing and able to help GM in this educational process.

The third element is the development of policy. By planning together, GM and the utility companies will be able to go before government bodies on a state, federal, and local level as a partnership seeking the same goals. These goals include the development of appropriate incentives at the consumer and corporate level to encourage mass adoption of plug-in vehicles.

Britta advises me that this collaboration involves 30 utility companies stretching into 37 states and 3 Canadian provinces. Most of the major utility companies are represented and as a whole serve a very large volume of the US population. It has a far greater and more powerful scope than simply working with EPRI as other automakers already are.

Full press release below:

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A while back we discussed whether the Volt should have one or two charging ports. The concept car has two ports, one on either side on the front quarterpanels. GM has been stealth about what the production car will have. I discussed it again recently with Bob Boniface, the Volt’s chief designer and this is what he had to say:

“The charge port decision is matured, we know a lot more about it, there is still more work to do. There’s a lot of things under consideration. I can tell you what we are considering. I have to decide, ‘is it in the front or the rear?’, probably want it up in the front, but, ‘driver or passenger?’ You want it on the side in the front, but having two…well there’s a cost associated having two doors and two electrical ports. There’s a weight cost of the wires.”

“I’m not saying we’ve eliminated the idea of two, it’s just that when you’re trying to do a car that’s very efficient, every ounce of aerodynamic drag is important, every ounce of weight is important, and we want to be super-efficient with all things we put on the car. Now if it really needs to have to two ports, that’s one of the things we will find out when we go to research.”

So it looks like GM might still be waiting for ‘research’, i.e. consumer focus groups, to help make the decision. An interesting idea one of our readers had was one port in the front under the Chevy bowtie, I wonder if they’re thinking about that.

Why not take a poll right here? It’s only 8 weeks until the production design will be revealed (speculation).

The initial Chevy Volt concept model had a 3 cylinder 1.0 L engine as the generator to keep the battery charged. The model with this engine suggested the vehicle would get 50 mpg when running beyond the 40 mile EV range. Recently we heard rumors on this point, neither confirmed nor denied, that GM might be considering a 4 cylinder 1.4 L engine instead.

Now GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner has confirmed these rumors. The 1.4 L turbocharged ICE is expected to power the Chevy Cruze we’ve recently just seen photos of, the car Wagoner refers to as the next generation Chevy compact.

Wagoner answered the following question, among others posed of him by the Flint Journal, centered around the fact that GM was planning to built this engine’s assembly plant in Flint, Michigan:

Flint Journal: Are there opportunities for Flint to have a hand in the future production of the plug-in Volt?

Wagoner: The new, small displacement engine that is tentatively scheduled to be built in Flint will be used first in the next generation Chevy compact car. However, we are looking at other potential; vehicle applications, including an application as the range-extender engine in the Chevy Volt.

Wagoner also mentioned that the turbo 1.4 L “achieves a superb balance between fuel efficiency and power” and specifically tell us “when teamed with a manual transmission, the new engine will offer customers a 9 mile-per-gallon increase in fuel economy over Chevy’s current entry in this segment.”

It is possible that this engine change decision may not represent so much an engineering issue, but rather an economies of scale advantage. It is clearly a big decision since Wagoner himself is aware of the debate.

Source (MLive.com)

Clearly we are all here waiting for our Volts. But we have heard there may be some limitations in price and availability at first.

Now that consumer sentiment has shifted gears from truck to small cars, GM is accelerating the production of the latter.

One that stands out is the Chevy Cruze. It will be GM’s replacement car for the Cobalt, and is set to begin production in 2010. It is a well-designed compact car with a 1.4 L turbo engine that should get better than 40 mpg. Previously we had only seen camouflage mule photos of the car.

Apparently on Tuesday when GM CEO Rick Wagoner spoke to employees about GM’s future, they and the media were shown images of some future cars which included the Cruze. Likely through rogue screen captures, those images have now surfaced on the web.

I have been advised by GM officials that these photos were not officially released, which is why no better resolution pictures publicly exist.

Bob Lutz previously downplayed the launch of this car, preferring to focus more on the current Cobalt.  But that’s marketing, what do you expect?

The Cruze might very well be considered the gas-powered sister of the Chevy Volt, since they are both built on the next generation Delta global compact platform. The car also seems ripe for a next-gen lithium-ion hybrid option (see post ), also slated to appear in 2010 and offering up to a 20% increase in fuel economy, but that is a matter of pure conjecture.

Looks like a great car.  The new GM.  Yes I know, no plug.

After getting his personalized VIP Volt tour, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Senator McCain spoke to about 500 GM engineers at the Technical Center in Warren, MI. He had apparently spent about 10 minutes at the Volt design display including getting into the concept car. In attendance were CEO Rick Wagoner, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, and Volt VLE Frank Weber.

In his comments, he said it was his belief that every new vehicle be flex-fuel capable and indicated his support of a $5000 tax credit for each low emission vehicle sold.

He said specifically about the profound global importance of the Volt:

“The eyes of the world are now on the Volt and this will be not only be about the jobs or economy of this great and beautiful state. It’s also about the future of the world. We have to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil as a national security issue.”

Pointing to a VOLT sign he also said:

“I will do everything in my power that this new experiment, this breakthrough… has every chance of success and that we will make sure that American citizens understand what’s happening here.”

Source (Detroit Free Press), (Detroit News), and (AP)