GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

The Volt will be primarily charged at home, although there is certain to be demand for public charging outlets for people who wish to charge at work and for those who live in apartments.

The Volt will have some capacity to regulate its charging function, but more advanced features are expected to be coming in future generations.

I had the chance to ask Britta Gross who is GM’s direct of infrastructure some questions about this.

Are you involved in what technology will actually be in the Gen-1 Volts to communicate with the grid?
There will be some capability in the first generation volts to key in charging preferences. It won’t have all the smarts and broad capability of future generations. But it will have the smarts for you to be able to go into the vehicle and key in, for example, that you prefer to be charged after 7PM at night because you know the rates will be lower.

I am also working on how to (facilitate) that relationship between the utility companies and the new Volt buyers so they will be knowledgeable about their particular utility company’s best off-peak rates. We’re setting up systems now for utility companies to communicate with their customers about this.

So you may come home at 6 PM and plug-in the car, but your preferences are for charging to begin at midnight, and so your car will delay charging until then.

And, for example, if there is a different situation say for two weeks you need to be charged right away, let’s say your wife is pregnant, then you could override it.

Will the Gen-1 Volt communicate to the utility companies?
We’re looking at a lot of studies with OnStar right now, but there are other ways to do it. Through SAE and EPRI and our relationships with the utilities, we are very actively engaged in how we would communicate with the vehicle.

There are wireless means already, such as Zigbee, we’d have to have a chip on the vehicle that allows wireless communication about the charging and what’s happening. There are many ways out there to do this, we are looking through all of them to figure out what is best for consumers.

Will the Gen-1 Volt have something in it along these lines?
Well Gen 1 is a little different. The Zigbee chips aren’t even available today. These are nice to haves, but not must to haves. Even if the chip were available it would have to go through our very rigorous validation process which takes at least a year.

A few years ago hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were considered to be the next phase of automotive propulsion, to replace petroleum. In 2003 then President Bush even said “the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.”

A lot has changed since then.  The Volt concept and countless other electric car programs have been introduced, and Obama has pledged to get 1 million plug-in cars on the road by 201.

Within months of first introducing the Volt concept a hydrogen fuel cell range-extender version was displayed, never to be heard from again.

Earlier this week in the setting of the Obama administration’s weeding of the federal budget, it was proposed the funding for hydrogen fuel cell spending be cut by 59% to a total of $68 million.

“We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?’” said Energy Secretary Stephen Chu. “The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’”

Not surprisingly the National Hydrogen Association and the U.S. Fuel Cell Coalition issued a statement of disapproval.  Among other things they said:

The cuts proposed in the DOE hydrogen and fuel cell program threaten to disrupt commercialization of a family of technologies that are showing exceptional promise and beginning to gain market traction.

GM for its part has done considerable work on fuel cells and currently has a fleet of 100 Fuel Cell Equinoxes on the roads that have collectively logged well over half a million miles.  Their most recent viability plan still indicates long term expectations for fuel cell vehicles.

I asked Nick Zielinksi who is GMs director of advanced technology engineering whether he believes GM is shifting away from hydrogen fuel cell development.  “I don’t think were shifting, but there is some new balancing of priorities,” he said. “We still think there is a place for fuel cell vehilce in the future and were continuing to work on them.”

Source (Edmunds) and (NY Times)

As last week’s earning report indicated, GM’s financial position continues to worsen. Despite surviving on $13.4 billion dollars of government loans since December, and fast approaching its possible bankruptcy deadline of June 1st, GM lost another $6 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2009. This loss adds to the $83 billion lost since 2004 and accompanies a 50% reduction in revenue compared to Q1 2008. In fact, last quarter GM spent $10 billion more than it earned.  There are fears that bankruptcy talk is affecting sales.

In less than three weeks we will learn if GM will be able to successfully restructure or else enter a rapid bankruptcy.

Yet with all this turbulence, uncertainty and fear the Volt program trudges on undaunted like a brave soldier marching through a battlefield.  And GMs top brass are looking ahead to better times after June 1st.

“At this point in time, I know of no reason why we can’t be in production by November of 2010,” said GM’s new vice chairman and VP of product development Tom Stephens. “The Volt is absolutely on track.”

Stephens also said GM hasn’t decided which of its remaining the core brands GMC, Buick, or Cadillac, would also get a Voltec car.

“It’s best utilized in urban vehicles,” said Stephens. “We have to consider what is the usage of the person buying the vehicle. For a commuter who drives 40 miles a day and takes it shopping on weekend, it’s the perfect application.”

Stephens is planning a showroom approach with each of the core brands offering an array of advanced technology vehicles.  “We’re going to have the most exciting, capable showroom,” he said.

New CEO Fritz Henderson agrees with plans to richly flesh out the product lines in each brand.  “I think that in the case of Chevrolet, we have the chance in the next year or two to really put the stake into it, with Cruze, with the Spark and with the next-generation [vehicles] available we’re working on,” he said.

Source (Automotive News) (Autoweek)

The Volt was initially conceived as a pure electric car by former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz. His colleagues, chief among them VP Jon Lauckner, added the gas range extender idea and so the Volt concept was born.

GM has remained rock steady on its goal of 40 miles of electric range, to maximize gas-free driving while at the same time keeping cost down and battery dependability high.

At no point has any executive at GM reported any plans to build a pure electric car.

There is a new unconfirmed report, however, that a pure electric may be in the works. GM first unveiled the Trixx concept in 2004 as a city-micro car similar, for example, to the Toyota iQ. Now, reportedly GM is reviving the concept as a pure battery electric vehicle to appear under the Vauxhall brand, and slated to launch in Europe in 2012 after the launch of the Volt-twin Opel/Vauxhall Ampera.

The new vehicle would use the same Voltec drivetrain minus the range extender

Supposedly the microcar would offer 90 miles of range using the same 16 kwh battery pack as the Volt. Presumably the car’s extremely small size and lack of generator and associated hardware would allow for the increase in range.

“It’s a concept only,” said Voltec spokeperson Rob Peterson. “I can’t confirm any of the details.”

Since this car is similar in size to the upcoming Chevy Spark, one would wonder if that car could come as an all-electric version for the US. However, acceptance might be problematic as US customers unlike their European counterparts aren’t accustomed to driving vehicles this small.

Source (AutoExpress)

On April 29th, Charles Lane wrote a scathing and derogatory op-ed in the Washington Post about the Chevy Volt entitled Volt: Not Ready to Roll. Should you desire you can read the whole story here.

Some choice quotes from Lane include:

“GM wouldn’t be in quite so deep a hole if it had not sunk a billion dollars, and much of its corporate reputation, into a not-very-realistic plug-in electric hybrid vehicle known as the Chevrolet Volt.”

or

“Unless and until gas prices shoot up, you’d be crazy to buy one of these much-ballyhooed vehicles, which will run 40 miles on a single charge if GM can overcome difficult battery-engineering issues.”

and

“the dream of a mass-market electric car remains implausible and probably will be for years.”

He also claims if electric cars “relied on coal-fired electric plants for power, electric cars might simply move the emissions problem around.”

Finally he concludes “The Obama administration should refrain from lavishing public money on losing propositions such as GM’s Volt.”

Compelled to respond to this, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post.
Strictly confined to a maximum of 200 words, my letter has just been published and you can read it here. And here:

Charles Lane wrote that people would “be crazy” to buy an electric
Volt at current gas prices [“The Volt: Not Ready to Roll,” op-ed, April
29]. However, driving without gas is worth a premium for many people.
Lane asserted that the Volt would not reduce emissions but would “move
the emissions problem around” to power plants. Lane obviously didn’t read
the study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural
Resources Defense Council showing that widespread adoption of plug-in
electric hybrid vehicles would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 450
million tons a year.

Glaringly omitted from his argument, in addition, are two critical
items: the national security value of energy independence and the
importance of first-generation technology for future cost reductions.
Consequences of petroleum dependence can no longer be tolerated.
Electrification of the automobile is critical for national security. Our
country is weakened by dependence on oil-rich hostile foreign nations.
While the wealthy and the government may have to subsidize
first-generation Volts, electric car prices will drop substantially with
increasing production volume as economies of scale come into play.
In my opinion and that of many thousands of others, the Volt is the
best idea GM ever had.

LYLE J. DENNIS

The writer is the founder of GM-Volt.com, an independent Web site
devoted to advocacy for the GM vehicle

Tom Stephens has taken over Bob Lutz’ role as GM vice-chairman and VP of product development.  He recently made a statement about GM’s plug-in future beyond the Volt.

As we know, the Saturn brand will be brought to a close by the end of this year, and reports indicate a few parties are interested in buying it.

However, Saturn has been key to GM’s hybrid rollout plans, particularly the plug-in Saturn VUE.

Stephens says, not to worry, “the plug-in hybrid technology will be applied to one of GM’s four core brands.” He remains coy in not letting us know yet which brand will get it writing “I’ll enjoy reading the speculation” written by folks like us about which one will get it.

My guess is the Cadillac SRX, though the new non-hybrid 2010 Equinox already can get 32 mpg on the highway.

Stephens also noted that GM will be rolling out the unnamed 2-mode plugin hybrid in 2011 to demonstration test fleets in concert with the DOE and EPRI. After that it might be offered to customers, though this does not appear certain.

Per Stephens, “We’ll go to fleets first and see where it goes after that.”

Although it looks as though the 2-mode plugin drivetrain is a bit further away from customers than it was planned to be previously, the Volt is not.

In fact “the Volt and plug-in hybrid vehicle are two of 14 hybrid and electric vehicles GM plans to offer by 2012,” says Stephens.

Source (GM)