Andrew Farah is the chief engineer for the Chevy Volt, and has been involved in the car’s development since 2007. He is the first person to drive the newly minted integration production intent Chevy Volts, as we have just heard. That’s him driving the IVer above.
I have had the fortune of being able to interview Mr. Farah on several occasions in the past and have learned a lot from him. Now is your chance.
Right here in the chat-box below will appear Mr. Farah at 4PM EDT. Lets give him a GM-Volt.com welcome, and get your questions ready!
GM has just released a video of and blog post by Andrew Farah, the Volts chief engineer. Andrew demonstrates one of the new pre-production genuine Chevy Volts that has rolled of the assembly line. He reports he drove the first one on Tuesday, Integration Vehicle #1, more than a week ahead of schedule, and drove it again today.
He writes:
I adjusted the seat and mirrors, pressed the POWER button, moved the shifter to D, and then took it on a few laps around our Technical Center campus in Warren, Mich. This was the moment I’d been looking forward to and it was exhilarating. And when I was done, I pulled it into the garage and charged it with the production intent equipment.
As Andrew says, the preproduction properties “are the Volt” He notes this new era is not the end but the beginning of what he calls “the most important part of the process.”
Farah says the fundamental issues of the car are under control, but at this point his team needs to go into the refining the vehicle and make it something people “want to drive.”
Its the little things he says like “the ways the blinker sounds, the way the door sounds, and the way the steering responds.”
People, he says rightly, expect all of that to be flawless and finish developing. You can see the new location of the charging port door.
What makes it wonderful is that they are a few weeks ahead of schedule. And so the next major phase of the Volt coming into begin has occurred, 2 years 5 months, and 8 days after this site began as little more than a hope and a dream.
This month I became one of the first people outside of GM to visit the pre-production operations (PPO) facility at a time where the first genuine Chevy Volts, called integration vehicles (IVers) were being assembled.
The PPO plant was vast though moderate in size relative to full automotive production plants which can occupy several million square feet. Within it were two assembly lines each likely about 500 feet long along which the cars were being built by hand.
The day I was there was only 12 days after the first car was begun. At that point there were four Volt vehicles in various stages of construction. One was white, one was black, and two were gray. The paint on the surface was primer.
The sheet metal skeletons of the vehicles arrive there from the pre-production body shop, there 1000 or so pieces already welded together with hoods and hatchback in place.
The cars are built from the Volt math models developed by design and engineering. Little fit variations or flaws are detected such as for example the fit of the hood or rear window, and then are hand corrected for the next iteration.
The body shells were unmistakably Volts and seeing them in the flesh drove home more than anything the reality of these cars and this program in a deep and more meaningful way than ever before.
The most advanced or “lead” vehicle was fitted with many components including a high to low voltage converter and electrohydraulic brakes. None had their lithium-ion T-packs yet. In the lead vehicle the interior was nearly complete along with leather seats and the beautiful center console in jet black. White or black will be options. The heated leather seats were two-tone and looked great. I was told cloth seats would also be an potion.
I actually saw the electric motor-generator sitting on a wood table. Within it I was told are two motors. One was to turn the driveshaft and to recapture kinetic energy during deceleration (112 kw), and the other acts a a generator (53 kw) while the engine was running. Together the object was strikingly compact and a testament to the space advantages of electric cars. Volt Chief engineer Andrew Farah noted it was about the size of a conventional transmission, something this car wouldn’t need.
Another black Volt had just been put through a heavy water soaking to check for leaks in the design which could then be corrected.
These cars, unlike the mules before them, also had soundproofing installed onto the frame ensuring a very quiet ride.
There will be some changes from the show car which we have all seen, but these are 100% production intent.
One notable change was the location of the charge port. Now it will have its own door like a fuel tank and site below the front nameplate. The sliding cover design was abandoned due to risks of mechanical failure. The top surface of the center console was somewhat different too with some design tweaks and a storage area with trap door.
In the end, this facility will crank out 5 to 10 cars per week for a final goal of 80 to 100 vehicles. All of the learning here, the fixing of slight errors, and refinement of the assembly plan will lead early next year to the first assembled cars called validation builds on the Detroit-Hamtramck line where the production Volts will finally be built for sale. That plant has the capacity if needed to make up to 200,000 cars per year.
As of now the first fully built Chevy Volt IVers have rolled off this small assembly line and are being lab tested prior to their actual first drives. In the video below you can see Volt chief engineer Andrew Farah giving a tease and sitting in the true Volt about to go for “a shakedown drive.”
And so without any doubt the Volt has truly been born and its arrival into public production for launch in November 2010 appears at this point an absolute certainty.
Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla Motors, the company credited with jump starting the nascent electric car revolution, and inspiring Bob Lutz to conceive the Volt. Musk was the founder of PayPal who made his fortune by selling it, and besides Tesla also also founded a private space exploration company.
Musk is a man of opinion. He is not one to pull punches or shy away from controversy. He “appeared” on GM-Volt.com in the past when I once asked him why Tesla isn’t using a range-extender, and crossed paths with the Volt again on the David Letterman Show when Letterman at first bashed the Volt. Those comments were later rescinded by Letterman when he had Lutz and the Volt on the show.
Musk has decided to use his company’s blog to clear the air of all controversy. His main thrust was to dispel the claims of Martin Eberhard, Tesla’s former CEO, who is now suing the company for breech of contract, libel, and slander. While he was at it, in a very long diatribe, Musk also told the world Tesla is about to become profitable. Appearing among several other email footnotes, F to be specific, was…well, me.
“Although I sometimes disagree with the specifics of their strategy, I’m also glad to see many of the major OEM’s moving forward with either semi or fully electric car programs,” writes Musk. “The faster the industry transitions to electric, the better for the world. It is distressing when my comments about the Volt or plug-in hybrids in general are construed as an attack, rather than simply explaining, only when asked, why Tesla has chosen an all electric path. The Volt is in a different market segment from the Model S, but even if it weren’t, I would still wish it well (email F below).”
If you you want to read the actual email F interchange between Musk and myself he has published it for the world to see, and appears at the end of his post. About it all he writes:
A lot of nonesense has been written about me attacking the Volt. It stemmed from a response I wrote to questions from Lyle Dennis, who runs the GM-Volt.com commentary website. Lyle wrote a blog posting that was actually pretty reasonable and not inflammatory. However, several other bloggers either intentionally or unintentionally recharacterized that posting as me launching an attack against the Volt.
The problem was exacerbated by the Letterman show, where Dave went on the attack against the Volt. Perhaps I should have tried to defend it, but I could barely get a word in edgewise at times and my main goal was promoting the Model S. I couldn’t even get in my “important point” at the end of the show! The point I was trying to make was that an electric car has a cost of operation that is much less than a gasoline car, since electricity is way cheaper than gasoline. Also, I made an offhand comment at a small talk I gave in Silicon Valley where I said one of the reasons we went pure electric was out of concern that the engine in a plug-in hybrid would feel like a lawnmower, since it would have to run at high rpm and work hard for its size. This was a small audience, but the event was recorded and posted to a website. From there, the same set of bloggers again inaccurately portrayed this as another big attack on the Volt.
Let me be clear that I wish the Volt and any other semi-electric or electric cars well. Whether you care about national security, balance of payments, the high long term cost of oil or the environment, the answer is still that the car industry needs to make the transition and sooner is better. Obviously, Tesla has its reasons for pursuing a purely electric path and I articulate those in the email below, but the automotive sector is (still) a very big industry and there is plenty of room for other solutions too.
The Department of Energy also announced today that Tesla will be receiving $465 million in DOE government loans it requested for building the Model S assembly plant. $365 million will be used for mass production of the $57,000 sedan which is expected to begin in 2011. $100 million will be used for a powertrain manufacturing plant.
The so-called $25 billion ATVM or retooling loans were first approved during the Bush administration era.
The other two recipients for now include Ford who gets $5.9 billion and Nissan who is getting $1.6 billion. Both companies will use the funds to advance their electric car programs.
GM and Chrysler did not receive first round financing becasue they are not currently considered viable due to bankrupcty. It is expected they will particiate in the second round. In fact GM’s business plans indicates an expectation of $5.7 billion in these loans between 2010 and 2013.
While in Warren Michigan for the opening of the GM advanced battery lab I along with a group of journalists was given a tour of the facility. I filmed the event (video below). In this segment we hear from Bill Wallace, engineering group manager, GM battery lab. He shows us the current Chevy Volt pack and tells us its the 5th design iteration.
Bill illustrates the progress of pack engineering since 2007. There is a process from proof of concept to Malivolts to current mules and soon on to mass production. GM will possess about 100 each lab packs, vehilce packs and manufacturing packs, for a total of about 300 by the third quarter 2009.
He notes over 200 li-ion cells from LG Chem are in each pack.
Bill explains what the packs contain in terms of thermal management structure and microprocessor controls.
He notes the packs are completely sealed to dust and water, and have insulation to maintain temperature when the car is unplugged.
He says the design has changed in every detail from the beginning and is now comprises of 155 unique part numbers of which 147 were designed and engineered by GM itself.
The pack completely supports high volume manufacturing. At full production volume, all the packs together will exchange over 3 billion kwh of energy in their lifetime.
Attacking Tesla he said “you cannot reliably attach 6000 cells over a large number of batteries,” extolling the virtues of the Volt packs advanced design and engineering with only between 200 and 300 cells each.
He answers my question and tells us that each cell is a little over 3.5 volts. He says he is confident there is no higher energy density cells available than these GM exclusive LG cells.
Finally he admits the battery pack can be safely completely submerged in water.
GM has recently announced it will be discontinuing the Pontiac Vibe, twin to the Toyota Matrix, currently built at the NUMMI plan in California. NUMMI is a joint venture between GM and Toyota which has been in existence since the 1980s.
Now that GM is going through bankruptcy, it remains unclear what will happen to the joint-venture operation, and what cars may be built there in the future. Furthermore, there have been rumors that Toyota might bring Prius production to NUMMI. Other rumors have indicated Toyota officials offering to “give” GM access to their synergy drive hybrid engineering, analogous to the time Microsoft once propped up Apple when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
I recently had the opportunity to get one question in to Troy Clarke, who is GM’s VP of North America:
What are some possible options under consideration for GM’s involvement in NUMMI, and is GM considering licensing the synergy drive hybrid system from Toyota?
Lyle, With regard to Nummi we are still in discussions with Toyota on the JV and potential products. We are not in current discussions with Toyota on licensing their synergy drive. I would point out that we are working like crazy on our own hybrid technology. Also, we are really moving fast on the Volt of which you are well aware. By the way, thanks for your support.
