Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time. There’s no getting around this fact. GM is going out of its way to pamper the Volt’s pack so as to guarantee up to 40 miles of pure electric range even at 10 years or 150,000 miles of driving. But what happens beyond that?
Most experts believe the Volt’s battery will have anywhere from 50% to 75% of its original capacity after 10 years. Since 8kwh of energy are required to deliver 40 miles of driving, when the battery drops below 8 kwh of storage potential, the range should reduce.
GM’s Director of Hybrids and EVs, Bob Kruse, predicts the Volt will continue to function successfully even after 10 years. “People will continue to use them well after that period of time,” he says. “That’s the beauty of the Voltec system. As the battery begins to age it will eventually have less capacity but it still will provide some capacity and some amount of electric range.”
Asked if the software and controls could dysfunction if there is less than 8kwh of energy left Kruse promises, “the software and the control system will be there to allow the customer to utilize what battery capacity if left.”
I asked him about is whether the system will continue to operate within a 50% band of the now smaller total capacity.
“I’m not going to talk about that because it is highly prized intellectual property,” said Kruse. “That whole notion of how you make this successful, how you use the battery, how you treat the battery, how you charge and discharge it is all central to our promise and how we do that and what we are going to do, as open as we are, I’m not interested in telling my competitors things that I don’t want them to know at this point in time.”
I don’t blame him.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 6:41 am and is filed under Battery, Engineering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (6:50 am)As the three pieces of the “T” seem to be full voltage packs running in parallell, i wonder if they will take turns “resting” and not going through so many charge/discharge cycles. then when the battery is degrading, you allow them all to have full charge cycles. so sure, once it’s degrading it will then degrade faster, but hopefully make it to the ten years.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (6:50 am)It’s interesting to wonder weather an EREV would be more abusive or more protective of a battery, as compared to a BEV.
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+5
Jul 24th, 2009 (6:54 am)Every personal computer contains Lithium primary (non-rechargeable) cells good for >10 years with very little loss in voltage/capacity. I can think of no fundamental reason why Lithium secondary cells can’t be designed to last even longer! And I’m glad to hear GM’s Bob Kruse say they’ve been working to develop means to do so that they’re protecting by patent(s) —i.e., “intellectual property”.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (6:54 am)I hope the logic in the Volt is easily upgradeable so that the battery control algorithm could be updated in a few years if the battery behavior changes more than GM now thinks.
I also hope that GM has made it relatively easy to change out the battery. It may be that in 5-10 years, batteries will be available to give the Volt a much larger range or the same range with a much lighter and more durable battery.
Please GM, make sure this car is upgradeable since that need may arise.
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:05 am)EREV is way more protective. BEV will struggle in very hot or cold environments, and for high output vehicles need mega current capability. Consider, the Volt doing 100mph needs 53kw of power (handily the genset can output 53kw) and so it’s top speed will be electronically limited to 100mph. the motor itself (112kw) could take the Volt to 140mph. if the Volt were hacked to allow this, it would need to draw 53kw from the genset and 59kw from the battery (incidentally giving you a dead battery in a mere ten minutes, some 23 miles along the motorway). The Volt as a BEV would need to draw the full 112kw from it’s battery.
In a slightly different scenario, powering a truck, an estimated result would be 106kw required to travel at 100mph. this would be a struggle for the volt powertrain, as genset and battery would both be required (for a realworld application the engine/genset and battery would have to be enlarged) but as a pure BEV the demands on a pack drawing 106kw would be immense. as long as it’s suitably scaled the EREV system will always be kinder to batteries.
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-2
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:07 am)nasaman:
As far as the primary cell – they have a 3-5 year life. Otherwise, they would not be replaceable, don’t you think?
As far as the rechargable cells:
I have found that “rated” capacity and “real” capacity are not all that close.
My H/P laptop is about four years old, and the battery capacity is about 60% of what it was when new. And I do not really beat it up all that much.
I hope the engineers at GM have figured this out, or there will be a lot of us that will be looking for replacements under warranty. Because I usually keep my cars at least eight or nine years before I start to think about something new.
I suppose that Maximum Bob may have been correct when he said there was a replacement battery pack built into the price. I guess we will just have to see how it goes……….
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Jul 24th, 2009 (7:09 am)I guess I’m a little confused. In the last thread, Statik confirmed in the chat with Jon Laukner that the battery will deliver 40 miles of AER even at year 10 or mile 150,000. Here it is:
“Jon Lauckner: Hi Statik, still working on getting Bob’s pink tie. Yes, the Volt is being designed for 10 years and 150,000 miles. That means the battery pack will continue to deliver 40 miles of pure electric range (EPA city or highway cycles) and will be fully functional (free from defects). So, both of these conditions have to be met for us to meet this requirement. Btw, even after 10 years or 150,000 miles, the battery pack will still have enough energy storage capability for non-automotive, stationary applications.”
Now Bob Kruse is saying, “As the battery begins to age it will eventually have less capacity but it still will provide some capacity and some amount of electric range.” Does Bob mean that it won’t have 40 miles range at 10 years/150000 miles?
Am I misunderstanding something?
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:24 am)The article notes that the battery will loose capacity over time and hints at the idea of GM being able to change the logic to use a larger fraction of the available capacity to maintain the 40 mile range.
At least thats how my optimistic read went. I go on vacation tommorow so I am feeling optimistic today…
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Jul 24th, 2009 (7:27 am)I love that cut-away picture of the Volt.
I just wish we could use the entire 16 kWh of the battery pack. 80 miles all electric range is much more appealing!
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:28 am)I believe what is being implied, is that, yes the battery will degrade over time. As the battery degrades over the 10 year/150,000 mile period, the software will automatically adjust the depth that it digs into the battery to deliver the performance over this warranty period. For example say in 5 years your total battery capacity has degraded to 75% or the original 16kWhr, so now you have 12kWhr. That means the software now uses 66.67% of the total capacity, so as to still provide the 8 kWhr required to meet its warranty AER.
But, eventually (And because of so many variables, no one is going to be able to provide you an exact time or useage of when exactly) the battery will have less than 50% capacity (ie <8kWhr left) or likely some percentage higher then 50% , and you will no longer get full warranty range, but you can still use whats left in the battery.
This would be similiar to your laptop, in that as it ages, you find that you have to recharge more often, but your laptop still functions. It does not say, “Hey, I only have total capacity of less than 50% of what I had when I was new, so now I will not let you run your laptop). You can decide if you want to live with the degraded performance, or go buy that replacement battery.
My hope would be by the time your battery starts to get this point, that new battery technology will have cut the cost of that replacement battery at least in half.
Thats just my best guess, but I think it is pretty much on target.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:30 am)No, in many talks with the brass they have made it a point that there will still be 40 miles of electric range at the end of 10 years.
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:39 am)(tried to edit my previous comment, but time ran out )
BTW: I also believe that in the not to distant future, the battery will be capable of using nearly 100% of its total capacity. This means your new battey only needs to be half the kWhr size of what it is today. This will save you money and give better AER, since the battery weight will be significantly less (win…win). This is the low hanging fruit, that I am sure GM and all others are after, by working on that darn battery chemistry. Once solved, the benefits to all are enormous!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (7:42 am)Still no word on an Emergency Mode (this is also (poorly) referred to as a limp-home mode).
I won’t buy a first-gen Volt, if I am unable to hit a Panic Button and tap into the reserve battery power to avoid, or get out of, a dangerous situation.
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+4
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:43 am)Funny, I get a day off work, and I cannot help myself. It’s like this site is my vacation (pretty sad, but true).
Thanks Lyle for providing me an inexpensive vacation site! With the economy like it is, I feel I am really getting a deal.
If you could just manage to provide a breakfast buffet
What a beautiful day, today is…so I will be going outside, eventually, to work on my sons pitching, fielding, and hitting.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:45 am)Random thought….I wish I could bring my battery inside. I would wash it and treat it nicely.
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+4
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:50 am)I believe that your Volt battery pack will actually be significantly better, regarding life and performance, then a typical laptop battery. I wondered the same thing a year of so ago.
Laptop batteries do nothing to maintain temperature when it is sitting in a cold or hot car. Also, laptops use closer to 90% of of the available capacity from day 1, the Volt only uses 50%. Along with the new chemistry that these batteries are implementing, I feel confident that the batteries will easily make the 10 year or 150,000 mi. warranty.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (7:53 am)Are you really nuclearboyd or nuclearboy?
I would be confident that the ability to upgrade all the control and monitoring firmware will be a given. Very likely, GM will be sending you updates the day they sell the new Volt (well not you, but likely the service dept’s will be upgrading the firmware, right after they finish washing and polishing the Volt for delivery)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (7:54 am)The news, Volt continues to operate in old age with a diminishing AER is what I had hoped and expected would be the case. Impressive that GM had thought through this and worked out the software to manage this condition. Go Volt!
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:54 am)I surely hope that the battery is operational with less than 50% operational capacity. Just keep working it. You are the one with the new battery laboratory so get the details worked out and get the VOLT on the street or at least, out were real people can touch the real car.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (7:59 am)Why do you need to limp home if you have a little gas in the tank? It’s no different than an ICE car running out of gas.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:01 am)I believe they’ve stated before that when new, the control logic will use a relatively narrow band to provide that 40 miles of range, and as the battery capacity drops, the usage band will expand to maintain that 40 miles. Otherwise, the car could realistically mainain the same band over its lifetime and start with a range of probably closer to 50-60 miles and have it degrade to 40 or so after 10 years…it sounds like GM is trying to avoid the issue of battery degradation so they’re limiting the range up front.
I took Kruse’s comment to be meant more toward the period after that 10 years, when the battery will continue to degrade and possibly drop below that 40 mile AER threshold, but still provide some amount of utility, i.e. still getting 30 miles of AER at 175-200k/15 years or whatever (competely made-up numbers to illustrate a point there…).
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:02 am)Dude! You can love your battery….just don’t LOVE your battery.
NO STICKY PACKS PLEASE!
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:03 am)I have a feeling you will provide a very nice home for some lucky battery someday!
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:05 am)The original message was put up by nuclearboy (pre coffee).
I guess the d is for “duh”
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:08 am)You mentioning your sons made me think of this…Wouldn’t it be cool if we could someday hear something from our kids like, “What was it like driving around in gas driven cars?”. I think it is great to at least see some progress being made on the EV front.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:09 am)Understandable. I am on my 3rd cup…and counting. lol
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+4
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:12 am)I like to compare this to what has been done in the past.
Some “kit” conversions might suggest that you make your own EV. Go down to the auto supply store and purchase 32 conventional lead acid deep discharge batteries at $100 each. At 12 volts each, this gives you 384 volts in a series configuration. At about 0.5 kW each, this equates to 16 kW, just like the Volts battery pack.
However, at ~50 lbs each, your battery pack now weighs in at 1600 lbs. Now, every day, take and discharge these batteries to 50% SOC, and then recharge them every night. How long before you need to buy a new battery pack?
Granted, a new set of batteries (uninstalled) might only be $3200, but now you have 1600 lbs of batteries to dispose of. And how often over the 10 year/150,000 mile period will you have to replace these suckers? Not to mention the fact that the added 1200 lbs of batteries (1600 vs. 400 for the Volt), will likely eliminate your back seat so that it can be filled with batteries. Expect the AER to be less with all this added weight.
So you have the low tech solution, with low intial cost, but high maintenance, lower utility factor, and inconvenience. Then you have the high tech solution that creates a battery pack that is not only compact and efficient, but is designed to last for the life of the vehicle.
I think GM is on the right track here.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (8:12 am)It would be cool in 10-15 years if teen agers could get the Old Volt V1.0 models (created before all of the additional safety and lockdown features are mandated for electric cars) and modify them with 160kW battery packs, new programable computer controllers etc. etc.
Just a thought…
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:26 am)I couldn’t help but notice that my post from a couple days ago garnered 25 positive votes. I wondered about this for a while, then I got this email this morning and I started to connect the dots. I’ll repost the comments I made first, and then the email follows.
There is still a lot of love for the good ol’ USA, and we are still the best thing going on this planet.
——————————————————————–
My post (which was a reply to someone):
No, actually GM and Ford ALREADY make cars that are as good or better than anything the Japanese make, according to many sources, including JD Powers. Most Americans just haven’t caught up to that fact.
Americans were sensible to buy quality, economical Japanese cars back in the 1970’s and 1980’s when GM made some bad cars. But, the automotive world has changed now. It is a new Century, a new Millennium. Ford and GM make world class cars and Americans are fools to keep sending our money overseas to foreign auto companies.
Remember, just because your Japanese car may be assembled
here in the States doesn’t mean anything. The PROFITS go to the Japanese, and the jobs you think were created by them building a plant here are an illusion. Those jobs were merely shifted from American auto plants here to foreign-owned and operated plants here. That’s the reason GM has closed dozens of plants in the US.
In these dire economic times it is in our best interest to keep our money inside our shores wherever possible.
———————————————————————–
The email I received this morning:
You could have heard a pin drop…
When in England , at a fairly large conference, Condi Rice was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans
for Iraq were just an example of empire building’ by George Bush.
She answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great
peril to fight for freedom beyond Our borders.
The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return Is enough to bury those that did not return.’
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American..
During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done?
He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?’
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people;
they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias
with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea
water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.
We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from
the U..S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies.
At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that,
whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.’
He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied ‘Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans
arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.
At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.
‘You have been to France before, monsieur?’ the customs officer asked sarcastically.
Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.
Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.’
The American said, ”The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.”
‘Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France !’
The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained,
”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country,
I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.’
You could have heard a pin drop.
If you are proud, pass this on!
If not delete it.
I am so GRATEFUL and PROUD to be a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ” AMERICAN ”
I WAS COMPELLED TO PASS THIS ON,
IT’S WHATS NOT BEING TAUGHT OR TALKED ABOUT THESE DAYS.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:33 am)How true. Things will be different for the next generation.
A future father son conversation:
Son: Dad, can you unlock the performance mode on the family car tonight, I got this hot date, and wanna impress her.
Dad: Well, if you promise to be home by midnight, I might give you 30 minutes of full performance mode.
Son: Thanks dad!
Dad: Oh, and by the way, when are you planning on cleaning your room (some things never change)
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:35 am)I noted this for “teen agers” because when I was a teen I rebuilt the engine in my Chevelle and created a speeding ticket generator.
I was really thinking of car lovers in general who like to tinker. Cars that are easy to mod and have potential can create a follwoing among car lovers. It would be nice if the Volt could serve in this way.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:36 am)Agree.
But as someone once said (was it Bill Cosby….well maybe not but he did work for Jello) “The proof is in the pudding”
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:47 am)I do not anticipate encountering/worrying about this problem, as I am not driving/keeping my Volt for 15 years, lol. (Unless the clouds open up, lightning strikes me and GM accidently gives me VIN #0001, then I put it in the garage and put 50 miles on it a year)
Besides that, I thought a replacement lithium pack by 2025 was going to be like $49.99 at Walmart by that time anywhoo? (=
(ok, a little sarcastic…but we are discussing what happens decades from now on a very used, very old car)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (8:48 am)Volt has a range extender. Having no battery left will trigger the generator to start. In that case, there is nothing different in that situation as an ICE car.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (8:50 am)Yup, that’s how I read that too.
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:50 am)These are great stories. Our country is slowly starting to hate itself and becoming apologetic for our past. We may have things that we have done that were not ideal but so does every other country. The point is, we have done many more things to be proud of and we should focus on those more with our youth.
We do have a great country and we should all be proud of it and stop apologizing. I hope we can all work hard to make it even better.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:52 am)I have seen that e-mail before and still love reading it each additional time I receive it.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:54 am)Agreed, I think there will be shops who will (for a fee of course) ‘rebuild’ battery packs with new cells.
You will be able to get these at NAPA and the like.
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (8:55 am)Interesting theory. I bet there’s something like that going on. I wonder if/how the user will even know what current total capacity is at any point in time. How do you measure that other than completely draining the battery and timing it? I would like to think that if I knew how my driving habits affected capacity drain, I would adjust my habits accordingly. For example, if driving slower when its really hot out, or driving a shorter distance between recharges during the winter means I can extend my all electric 40 mi range to 15 years, I would do it. Hopefully GM will provide the users with guidelines and a way to measure / monitor / extend battery capacity over the life of the vehicle.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (8:55 am)This is talking about past 10 years.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (8:56 am)Right on the money.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:00 am)“Well then I get all excited. I’m like Jojo the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet. …. Hello there pretty little pet, I love you. And then I stoke it, and I pet it, and I massage it. Hehe I love it, I love my little naughty pet, you’re naughty.”
/ I love that movie
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:02 am)LOLROTF!
You just made my morning! TOO FUNNY!
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-3
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:04 am)These numbers are pure hearsay. GM only has tested under pristine lab conditions inside a temperature chamber. In the real world things will be different for every user. I would expect to see significant battery degradation after 5 years regardless of what those GM bozos are spewing.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:05 am)The button should be offered, but it should instantly void your battery warranty.. and it should not be easily accessed. GM would make money on it and you would get what you want.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:08 am)Interesting report, Lyle. Thanks. I can see where GM does not want to give away any information that might prove helpful to its competitors. At the same time this still leaves a lot of unanswered questions for those of us who want to know. We will just have to wait and see the outcome. Maybe more information will be forthcoming later.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:08 am)It’s great to hear confirmation from GM that none of the Volt’s major principles are being compromised. That shows that they’ve over engineered the thing, which is good.
All the technical details will, in my opinion, be worked out before the first customer gets his or her Volt sitting in the driveway. It will just be a fine-tuning process after that.
I’d like to see GM being a little more aggressive in their timeline to spread Voltec drive system to more product lines. That should come as no surprise to the “regulars” on this board. Perhaps they are privy to information that the rest of us don’t have, something that would tend to make them more cautious about promising Voltec in all their cars and trucks. I hope not. I hope they are just being “anal” and taking baby steps on purpose when a full gallop would be totally justified.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:13 am)“…..we are discussing what happens decades from now on a very used, very old car”
______________
I look at it differently.
I think we are discussing what is the viability of EREV (and, for that matter, all electric cars)
Warranty or not, the battery pack looks to be a fairly high dollar item in any electric car for some time to come( at least on par with what we have traditionally called high dollar items, such as engines and transmissions).
If you had a transmission, or an engine, or a 16kwh lithium battery that would typically fail at say 5 to 7 years or at 75,000 miles (….as in, . . . we’re planning for two batteries to meet the warranty) then this will seriously affect how potential new and used car buyers will view the product.
Obviously, if the battery has to be replaced to meet the warranty, then that’s going to be built in to the new car price, and it’s still very much a factor for viability in a competitive marketplace.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:13 am)dorp7,
I suspect you are correct about GM providing guidelines and hopefully a status display showing battery capacity. Maybe there will be a mode that helps the driver determine when he is doing things that reduces or increases battery performance and efficiency. We can all hope so. All of us are going to need to be re-trained in our driving habits.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:19 am)Chemestry is what it is.
The usability of the entire capacity is a big part of why people are excited by the possiblity of “storage capasitors” (we have had some very entertaining ‘fairy dust’ conversations on that very subject!
Before I get smoked, I HOPE that EEStor comes through I’m just losing faith that they will.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:20 am)OFF TOPIC
Just went to allcarselectric and read the post about EEStor. And dang I hope it is true and not smoke.
I am going to stick my neck way out and hand an axe to you guys. Now I ALMOST believe!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:21 am)Hello no-name.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:26 am)And I would imagine you will have to go to the service department on a quarterly basis (or some other schedule) to get software updates, etc. The Volt’s software will probably nag you to death until you finally give in and go to the dealer for a “check-up” and to pay the $350.00 for doing so. Gotta keep those service departments working for the dealers.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:28 am)I’ll put this down in the thread, because it relates to updating a old thread, specifically this thread:
——–
“GM & Toyota What Will Be?”
http://gm-volt.com/2009/06/21/gm-and-toyota-what-will-be/
Which was a thread on the NUMMI plant, a joint venture between GM and Toyota, and what GM would do with it after they announced the Vibe discontinuing (and we had a lot of GM Prius rumors at the time too)
Lyle asked this question to Troy Clarke:”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.”
—————————
My quote at the time:
#12 Statik said:
June 21st, 2009
The problem with NUMMI is the high labor costs ie) old school UAW wages. I think Toyota would see GM’s exodus as a mixed blessing. A good opportunity to lose the Tacoma line, and to move the Corolla…
“So my 2p/guess on what is going to happen: GM is out totally, and will use bankruptcy as its cover to get out of the joint partnership. GM goes elsewhere, and sucks up compensation money/tax breaks from another state. Toyota is likely going to scrap the whole thing when GM rolls out….and the reason we aren’t hearing any plans right now, is that they have nothing good to say. So why ’spook’ the herd?”
===================
===================
Well, we know that GM did use bankruptcy as a cover to get out, a whopping 8 days later:
“NUMMI No More: Has GM Said No-Thanks to GM-Branded Prius?”
http://gm-volt.com/2009/06/29/nummi-no-more-has-gm-said-no-thanks-to-gm-branded-prius/
And today, surprise of surprises, we have this from Bloomberg:
Toyota to close NUMMI shortly.
“July 24 (Bloomberg) — Toyota Motor Corp. will shut a California auto-assembly plant that operated as a joint venture with General Motors Corp. for 25 years, the first time Japan’s largest carmaker has closed a factory at home or abroad, according to two people familiar with its plan. The company will negotiate the timing of the closing with Motors Liquidation Co
“Without GM’s volume the plant is simply not cost effective,” said Aaron Bragman, an analyst at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Troy, Michigan. “They have other facilities that could easily accommodate the production that’s there.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=av8xtgwsA8_I
/cookie
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:28 am)Mr. Kruse sounds like one arrogant bastard.
Somebody needs to tell this wanker that GM failed as a company and had to be rescued by the federal government else this stupid man would be unemployed. Making statements like “… highly prized intellectual property..” shows this guy is nothing short of a loon.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:30 am)Now, why would anyone want to generate speeding tickets? Is there an untapped market for them? (LOL)
I am sure there will be some “teenagers” modifying their hand-me-down Volts, at some point.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:30 am)Laptops generally do a very poor job of maintaining their batteries, it’s truly a charge and drain without any management to speak of.
A properly monitored and maintained pack should last a LOT longer than the standard pack in a laptop.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:31 am)Very salient question. PHEV applications always stress the batteries more. The BEV packs are larger. This means that, for PHEVs, at the pack level you have more charge/discharge cycles than you would have for a BEV pack, and that at the cell level the discharge rates are higher. (For a given power draw, halving the pack size will double the discharge rates for the cells in the pack). When you combine those two effects you have considerably more stress.
This is yet another area where GM seems to have gotten the design just right. (Some of this is great design and some of it seems simply the way the technology has broken, but in any case the result is awesome). The pack is large enough to minimize the stress but small enough to be (almost) affordable. Pack stress would also be a reason why GM hasn’t shown any interest in the idea, frequently offered by some here like john1710a, that it would be a good idea for GM to develop a vehicle with a smaller range and battery pack.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:34 am)EEStor is gonna rock GM’s world. Probably turn it upside down.
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:35 am)Unless the clouds open up, lightning strikes me and GM accidently gives me VIN #0001, then I put it in the garage and put 50 miles on it a year
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You get the tie. Tag gets the Volt.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:37 am)True deep cycle lead acid (golf cart type) will last about 550 cycles at 50% SOC.. thus you could use it daily for 550 days.. it will last much longer if you keep it below 50% discharge.
The Crown 27dc24 is what you are talking about, usually $105 each.. they will require maintenance.
Look for the new Firefly lead acid tech, it may be good for 1000s cycles, .. it will also be much lighter, comparable cost as deep cycle lead acid batteries.
There have been some rumors that they are having trouble bringing the tech to the market. Lead acid is fully recyclable.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:37 am)Ditto. Me too.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:38 am)It makes sense to close this plant. The Pontiac Vibe wasn’t known as a “high quality” car. Because of GM’s involvement it was without a doubt Toyota’s lowest quality plant in their history. With closure Toyota’s overall quality index should see a significant boost.
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+2
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:39 am)The vote meter is broken and sometimes works backwards.
Is it a Diebold product?
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:42 am)The Volt’s going to make a terrible make-out vehicle with that battery running right down the middle. Maybe the front seats will recline all the way…..
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:42 am)The future looks bright, as you described. Many things are quite possible. Assuming some company has the drive to pursue those types of goals and government gets out of the way.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:47 am)I am assuming you are talking about a situation where you don’t have any gas and you want to use the battery capacity to get home or to a service station. I can understand that. I don’t have any idea if GM will do anything like that. They did say, a year or two ago, that the Volt might not turn on the ICE range extender if it knew you were on your way home and had only a few minutes left to get there. Other than that……………?
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:49 am)“If you had a transmission, or an engine, or a 16kwh lithium battery that would typically fail at say 5 to 7 years or at 75,000 miles (….as in, . . . we’re planning for two batteries to meet the warranty) then this will seriously affect how potential new and used car buyers will view the product.”
This would be truly nasty, but also note the battery will displace about 3000 gallons of gasoline during its life.. at $4 per gallon the battery would have paid for itself after 10 years (not counting interest or the cost of electricity).. and there will probably be some value left after 10 years (maybe) for other uses.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (9:49 am)Every personal computer contains Lithium primary (non-rechargeable) cells good for >10 years with very little loss in voltage/capacity.
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These must be special NASA batteries! Following up on Jim’s comments, If I buy ten laptops one of the cells goes bad in the first six months. And the good ones are more or less kaput at the end of three years. This is more or less expected for the chemistry. Tesla uses these batteries, and even its optimistic forecasts say the battery will last for five years, albeit with diminished capacity. This is why Tesla has a program under which a customer can buy a replacement battery for reduced $$$ when they buy the car — you will have to replace the pack in the Roadster at least once over ten years.
That said, the large cell lithium cells used by manufacturers like GM and Mitsubishi have very different chemistries and should last much longer. Determining how much longer is of course one of the purposes of GM’s battery testing facility. What that testing finds may well impact the price of the Volt — the more confidence GM has in the life of the pack the less $$$ for replacement packs it needs to bake into the price.
In this regard, this is the reason why Plug-In America has advocated suspending the 10yr/150Kmi warranty requirement for EV battery packs — at this point this requirement just pushes the technology past the point its capable of sustaining.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:50 am)I like it, too. Enjoy the day with your child (children?). Looks like Lyle will not be providing a breakfast buffet anytime soon.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:52 am)Or you might hear:
Dad, keep driving until the range extender comes on. We never get to hear it run. None of my friends have one in their fully electric cars. Come on, Dad!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:53 am)LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:54 am)Do you believe anything that GM says ? I smell sheep.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:55 am)It’s Friday and everyone is happy. Great day in the morning! Don’t you guys know that Monday is just around the corner waiting to pounce!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:56 am)How nice that tact and diplomacy are still alive outside of the US.
“You could have heard a pin drop…”
=
“If someone states something … wrong… never tell… them they are wrong.”
http://www.books-that-can-change-your-life.net/2009/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/
Clearly, in this site, I have no interest in winning friends or influencing people.
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:57 am)We are all hoping GM has “worked out the software to manage this condition”. Another one of those things we might not know for about 10 years or so.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:58 am)“Now Bob Kruse is saying, “As the battery begins to age it will eventually have less capacity but it still will provide some capacity and some amount of electric range.” Does Bob mean that it won’t have 40 miles range at 10 years/150000 miles?”
He means that at 11 years/160,000 miles the all electric range will drop below 40 miles.. perhaps the computer will start the genset sooner to preserve the remaining life of the battery and perhaps by the 20th year the all-electric range will have dropped to 1 mile and the genset runs continuously. So it will have degraded to a Prius like state by the 20th year
Its all a guess, they may all fail at 5 years.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (9:59 am)Another +1 to Statik. Good call.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:00 am)I wish I knew how to spell that sound Tim Taylor used to make!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:02 am)I just read that article too. As always…I would be happy to be wrong about EEstor, they just need to prove their claims. (Fingers crossed).
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:03 am)I REALLY hope you are right!
I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy enough to put on a TAG hat on that one just yet though.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:03 am)I think we can all agree with what you said. And we can agree that GM has done some outstanding engineering and software development to produce the Volt. Here’s to them for a job well done. We get to open the package and see how this baby performs in a little over a year. Most of us will be doing it by reading about it and getting information through other sources. No first hand knowledge for a few more years. Oh, well.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:08 am)what?.. you think the battery box will be full of mud?.. it will also be pristine you m***n.. They are tested in the same way they will be used.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:10 am)BTW: I also believe that in the not to distant future, the battery will be capable of using nearly 100% of its total capacity. This means your new battey only needs to be half the kWhr size of what it is today.
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You’d still need 10% at the top for regen. It actually seems more likely that $2/gallon bilfuel will show up before a battery that can handle this type of charge/discharge does. I know of one possible deep discharge technology that might allow for what you’re suggesting but that’s still in the lab phase. (Of course there may be lots of things I don’t know about as well but you’d think anything this major would get a lot of press).
I think there will be shops who will (for a fee of course) ‘rebuild’ battery packs with new cells.
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Unless you can effectively manage each cell individually it’s very hard to replace individual cells since the new cell would have such different capacities than the existing cells. Impossible for Tesla with its 5000 cells to do this. Hard for GM with 288 cells but perhaps on the module basis. Maybe possible for Mitsubishi with “only” 88 cells.
Not being very optimistic today but the technology just isn’t moving that fast.
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-10
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:11 am)(click to show comment)
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:12 am)From what I read it appears that most people that want to purchase the Volt want to keep it driven under 40 miles per day if possible. At this rate 150,000 miles will be still be about 10 years. I presume that we will have something better than batteries by that time.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:13 am)I was hoping to get those through ONSTAR…
(LOL, seeing who will bite…)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:13 am)it is very hard to determine this.. the biggest factor is the core temperature of the cells.. you never want to exceed 130 deg F and better if kept cooler (but not too cold). You would want a temperature display of the battery.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:13 am)“I wish I knew how to spell that sound Tim Taylor used to make!”
I do too!(lol) The Volt will definitely qualify for it.
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:14 am)23 miles in 10 minutes is about 138 MPH. Thanks, but I’ll take the bus!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:15 am)EDIT: ‘bumped’ higher, to stay inline with the thread
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:16 am)I would think that driving habits are the biggest factor into the pack ever getting so depleted it is not useful (in the auto application) before the car falls apart.
There is warranty for 150K on the pack, but is anyone really going to get close to hitting this with ‘electric miles’? As in 3,653 full cycle discharges? What will be the likely electric/ICE breakdown…it is that metric that we need to know to be able to extrapolate the usefulness of the pack out of warranty.
The problem I think with ‘used’ Volts, or life expectancy after the 10/150 is up is the unknown usage. One Volt could have 150,000 miles with 30,000 on the pack, the next could have 150,000 miles with 140,000 on the pack.
I guess GM could have two odometers, although that sounds unlikely…and that odometer for the pack would have to be able to be reset if the pack was replaced. A resetable odometer sounds really scary when buying a used car.
I really don’t know…fun to talk about/speculate I guess. To me if I had a Volt and she ran 10 years and 150,000 without issue electrically all that time, getting the original AER, then died the very next day…I would say that it was my greatest car ever. So again, I’m not so worried/concerned about year 11, and mile 150,001.
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:17 am)400 pound battery is NOTHING for the governator of Kalifornia. You should see his knife. Anyone who cannot carry their Volt battery inside is just a girly man.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:18 am)And I wish Jessica Alba was my housekeeper, but it ain’t gonna happen.
But, at least batteries will improve. Five years from now, Jessica still won’t be dustin’ my coffee table.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:18 am)There is a certain age where ‘making out’ in a car just doesn’t work for you anymore (OK, her) … and we have a wagon!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:20 am)OK, Neil! you get a -1 for using the M – word!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:21 am)a trolling you do go…
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:21 am)zipdrive,
I my opinion the number of positive responses to your previous comment should only be exceeded by the number you get for this one. Problem is that many, even some of those who blog here each day with us, will condemn you for posting such comments about the United States of America. Sadly there are many people, and governments, around the world who condemn the U.S. for actions we take in their defense. Not to say that we always and only act in defense of others, but we do in most cases. And, it is sad to say that we can find a very large group of people right here in the U.S. who condemns the U.S., also. It is a shame that those who so readily blamed George W Bush for everything that they saw as “bad” would never give him any credit for the many good things he did as president. Those same people never blamed Clinton or will never blame Obama for doing some or most of the same things the exact same way as did Bush. Funny how we all view things so differenly.
Thanks for you comments. Sorry that you will get negative responses for them. I hope (and believe) the positive response will still out weigh the negatives.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:25 am)Agreed. Now, please send an email to President Obama and ask him to stop going around the world apologizing and blaming the U.S. I am getting kinda tired of hearing this from him.
Now, let’s get back to the business of the Chevrolet Volt as many of us are probably saying to themselves.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:27 am)“There is a certain age where ‘making out’ in a car just doesn’t work for you anymore (OK, her) … and we have a wagon!”
lol, I hope I never get that old (g). I guess everything’s relative. In the 60’s I had a VW bug with the stick in the middle (ouch).
I also love the “wanna hear the motor run” comment.
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:28 am)>> “pristine lab conditions inside a temperature chamber”
Make that “temperature, vibration, accelerated charge/discharge cycles,” etc.
What else do you want them to do, to test it? Or would you rather they built it and drove it around for five years before attempting to build and sell it?
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:30 am)another no-name troll…
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:33 am)That’s a gentle cruise on the Autobahn… right?
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:35 am)Hot Rods will not go away, they just change shape!
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+3
Jul 24th, 2009 (10:35 am)Ahem, some of us old retired folks have a markedly reduced aversion to Mondays….
I have a T-Shirt that says: “I’m retired, you’re not. Naw naw naw naw naw”
Sorry, but I DID spend my time in the trenches. You’ll be through before you know it.
Be well, and patient,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:35 am)Yeah, I agree.
I confess I don’t know much of anything about the inner workings of my laptops, or much about the usable lifetime cycles of the lithium batteries themselves inside them.
However, I do know my personal experience with them. I generally replace the battery in my personal, primary laptop at least twice before I replace the laptop itself (which I do about every 3ish years). Now to be fair, these are not dead packs by any stretch, but they have degraded to the point where I can no longer make it through my day without witnessing the death of said laptop.
In the case of work laptops, they last 5 years or so, and I likely replace those packs only once, they don’t get taxed near the same…and I don’t care about them as much, or if they lose a third of their capacity.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:42 am)Agreed, rebuilding a pack isn’t for the faint of heart!
But assuming the internal pack support systems are still OK 10 years out, maybe you replace the coolant pump or whatever else ‘wears’ in the pack and then it’s fine.
Replacing all 288 cells will effectively give you a new pack without having to dish out for the whole thing. I don’t see this as a whole lot different than rebuilding an engine.
This is coming from someone who is replacing the struts on his son’s car this weekend. (I like to DIY.)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:42 am)Volt 1.0 is a transitional vehicle. Of course things will get much better and of course 40 miles is not that good. bfd.
Your post is like telling INTEL not to produce the current CPUs because they suck compared to what will be available in 10 years. We buy the current PC knowing that the CPU is limited and that in the future, chips will be better. We buy it anyway.
The point GM is making is that 40 mile range is good enough for now and this was reached as a balance between cost, weight and range. If toyotal was offering a 200 mile range EREV than I would say that your post makes sense. Thats not the case however. When the Volt hits the streets, it will be one of the best out their for the price. You will probably be able to spend twice as much and get a fisker with twice the range or you could spend 1/2 as much and get a hybrid with no electric range. The Volt fits right in.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:44 am)LOL!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:47 am)Welcome to the forum Christopher,
Did you get over your case of bronchitis?
(Sorry, I can’t help but check out a hotlink when I see it)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:47 am)Two things:
1) The VOLT battery pack is “like a laptop battery”? Can someone tell me if this means the VOLT pack will also suffer from “memory loss” > My laptop stays plugged into the power brick most of the time. The battery got little use. Maybe it would run on battery for a few minutes in certain situations, but never FULLY discharged and then recharged. So now it has that “memory” problem. Over time the battery has reduced in capacity where it will not fully discharge, or fully recharge, so basically it’s worthless for more than 2 minutes of running the laptop. It has failed.
Will this happen to the VOLT? Let’s say I have a really short commute and I only drive 20 miles per day… So the battery only gets discharged 50% of its capability each day…. Then I come home; plug it in; recharge the 50%…. Over time will it end up like my laptop battery where now the TOTAL usable capacity is just the 50% of its original usable power because of this “memory loss”???
2) Does all this concern over the battery pack REALLY matter? With every automaker moving forward on electric and hybrid/electric vehicles and companies like the one working on the EESTOR system appear to be moving forward; Doesn’t it seem more likely that in 10 years there will be sufficient advances in battery technology that it will be cheaper to replace the VOLT battery pack with one that will most likely cost thousands LESS than Version 1 ??? Forget “range anxiety”… I think everyone needs to get over “battery anxiety”.
First off, even if you LOVE your VOLT still after 10 years of use, I’m pretty sure that the average person would start considering a newer model VOLT to replace it. It seems highly likely that a 10-year-old VOLT traded into the dealership would most likely have that battery pack replaced with a newer CHEAPER battery by the dealer before it is resold. Or, if the VOLT has been that reliable of a car after 10 years, it would be something that the original owner would sell or hand down to the kids or other family member.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:48 am)BEV would be gentler on the batteries, because they are much larger packs and thus discharged very lightly (in a typical commute).
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:49 am)/ew
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:49 am)I think nasaman was refering to the CMOS battery in all computers. These are not rechargeable batteries, and you replace them maybe every 7-10 years. Not, a lot of similarities to a Volt battery, but I understand the train of thought, and I do agree with it.
Finding the chemistry that degrades slowly over time and charge cycles is kinda the holy grail for batteries, and I believe they will eventually get close, in both longevity and depth of cycles.
Things can only get better, from here on out.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:53 am)In an ideal world sure!
But since the world isn’t ‘quite’ ideal an EREV like the Volt is a great solution.
IF someone never exceeds 40 miles daily and they have a BEV that can make that distance then by all means a BEV might work for them!
Some of however ‘plan’ on our 26 km commute (well within BEV range) but then get called to a client site and have to cover 2 or 3 hundred extra km on that day. No BEV that is remotely close to my budget can do that.
A Volt CAN.
In 10 years… who knows? I’ll happily get mine with a Mr Fusion!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (10:54 am)You well know that a Volt will keep right on going past 40 miles no name.
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+1
Jul 24th, 2009 (11:01 am)I don’t see this as a problem.
Each pack will have it’s own odometer (hour meter) and that would stay with the pack if it were swapped.
The car would have a standard odometer to track the overall car mileage.
Were a pack swapped out the replacement packs odometer would be lower than that of the overall car.
No problem.
A rebuilt pack is a bit of a question, but I think you would NOT reset the odometer on the pack, you would simply document the reading at rebuild and start the aftermarket warranty at that point.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:01 am)To JEC, re: “What a beautiful day, today is…so I will be going outside, eventually, to work on my sons pitching, fielding, and hitting.”
===========
I can’t wait to to be able to this with my son…he is only 3 atm. It will be nice to reconnect with baseball, and to be able to teach my son to pitch at the same time. (I zipped around the US a little playing ball in my ‘youth’),
Sidenote: Don’t teach him the curve when he is young. Stick with the fastball first, then introduce the offspeed. He’ll want to throw the curve of course, but teach him the knuckleball instead until he gets older. It (the knuckleball) is pretty useless of course…but if he gets it even halfway decent, he will be the undisputed king of coolness wherever he goes, lol. /trust me
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:03 am)“The problem I think with ‘used’ Volts, or life expectancy after the 10/150 is up is the unknown usage. One Volt could have 150,000 miles with 30,000 on the pack, the next could have 150,000 miles with 140,000 on the pack.”
That is a very good point, you would know this by keeping track of how many hours the genset ran.. and the computer will keep track of this for maintenance.
This is another reason you would not want to buy a used Volt whose computer has been tampered with by “tuners”.. I hope GM protects it well.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:05 am)Heh, I’m about halfway through and am dreaming of those ‘good’ Monday’s!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:15 am)“Unless you can effectively manage each cell individually it’s very hard to replace individual cells since the new cell would have such different capacities than the existing cells. Impossible for Tesla with its 5000 cells to do this. Hard for GM with 288 cells but perhaps on the module basis. Maybe possible for Mitsubishi with “only” 88 cells.”
Replacing cells is never a good idea.. but they could replace “modules” with other modules from salvaged/used packs.. as long as the modules had a somewhat similar number of cycles/histories it would work out. I envision (in the future) each cell having a bluetooth monitoring chip built-in, this would simplify pack construction and increase its life. I would imagine the factory would keep a supply of used modules with a known history for such repairs.
In a pack with a daisy chain series wiring method, the strength/quality of the whole pack is determined by its weakest link, usually the oldest cell in the pack. New modules can be used but it requires extensive monitoring.. the Volt pack may have this level of monitoring already in place.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:17 am)You’re right, I think he was talking about the CMOS batteries. Completely missed that. Thought he was referring to laptop batteries.
However, it’s sort of the same conclusion. The CMOS lithium batteries are usually rated for 4-7 years. Since there’s no stress — the clock just doesn’t require much juice and the power demand never spikes — this is how long it takes for the battery to just die from old age.
The lithium batteries in the Volt won’t do this. (If they do GM will be in a heap o trouble). But even GM probably won’t know how well the battery packs hold up until they’re actually in use for ten years! That’s the risk from a business perspective.
FWIW I agree that the chemistry will get better but real breakthroughs (Li-air, deep discharge) seem at least ten years away.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:18 am)#21 Tagamet Says:
July 24th, 2009 at 9:53 am
LJGTVWOTR!!
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I assume the return of ‘the’ original acronym means you are feeling better about things again?
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:19 am)Muddyrover
The years go by like the tissue on a toilet roll. The closer to the end you get, the faster they go.
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:21 am)Excellent questions!
1) the battery chemestry is quite different than older laptop batteries. I expect the ‘memory’ issue is much less pronounced.
2) I think you are abolutely correct, 10 years from now it’s quite concevable you could have your Volt’s pack rebuilt to support 200 miles AER with newer tech cells for less money.
We hand down cars in the family all the time, so I absolutely see that happening.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:24 am)As usual all things are relative. My not to distant future would be the next 10 years. And yes, technology advancements in batteries has improved, but not great leaps, but I think the payback and demand for deeper charge depths and longevity will open up the race to build a better battery, quicker.
The fact that you can now afford to do things, such as add environmental controls and complex charge algorithms, for the sake of battery longevity, changes the whole ballgame. In the past batteries have typically been developed for low power, lower cost items (few hundred bucks or less), and adding all the complexities, would have made the application to expensive to market.
Now they can look at different battery chemistries with totally different assumptions and application. This, in my opinion provides the opportunity for that “killer” design, that meets or comes close to that holy grail battery. (lets not bring EEStor into this, at least not yet)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:25 am)“I assume the return of ‘the’ original acronym means you are feeling better about things again?”
Better is pretty accurate. The interview with Jon L helped, but for an old guy, my long term memory is still good (and GM ignoring Lyle goes into the long term memory bin).
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:36 am)I have a couple of questions about the warranty:
First, if you need a replacement battery, do you receive a “prorated” battery that only has enough life in it to get you to the 10 year/150k mile mark or, do you receive a fresh battery ?
Secondly, would the “warranty payor” prorate part of the warranty expense back to the buyer if the warranty is never exercised (cuz $10k is a lot of jack !) ?
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:42 am)Agreed, some form of interactive display tracking the drivers ‘performance’ could be ‘fun’ AND educational!
I can see the challenge glove thown down… who’s better? Mr or Missus?
OK, she’ll likely win because I can’t help but hit the ‘loud pedal’ once in a while! (of course it won’t be loud in a Volt…)
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:42 am)“The problem I think with ‘used’ Volts, or life expectancy after the 10/150 is up is the unknown usage. One Volt could have 150,000 miles with 30,000 on the pack, the next could have 150,000 miles with 140,000 on the pack. ”
Focusing on the wrong thing
The Issue will be how much capicity does the battery have left. Miles will be one of several factors that affect that value.
I am willing to bet that GM will have some function that “knows” within a driving cycle or two what the actual rated battery capacity of the pack is now. It will be simply a matter of reading this value from the car’s computer. IE, having a mechanic/GM dealership read the value directly from the car’s computer before you buy/trade-in/sell the car. Really not any different then getting a normal auto check anyway…
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:46 am)“This means that, for PHEVs, at the pack level you have more charge/discharge cycles than you would have for a BEV pack,”
This is where I still do not get. If those small packs get discharge and charged much more, how do they get away with the 10tr/100mi warranty?
GM seems to have to jump through hoops the get this done.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:48 am)Hey Statik,
Yeah, we are pretty much a sports nut family here.
I have coached (soccer, baseball, and basketball) at the rec league level for the past 7 years, for my older daughter and younger son, who is now 9. To any parent who really wants to be involved, my best advice is to volunteer for coaching.
My wife is even more a sports fanatic than I. My father in-law, used to be a pitching coach, and traveled all over the US with his teams, has “instructed” me on how to approach coaching my son in pitching, and he has said, basically all the things you mentioned. He really wants to me to show him how to throw the junk, but as you mentioned, this will be something he works on when he has developed.
Anyway, nothing to do with the Volt, but like I said, today is my day off, and I can do anything I want (well, I do have to mow the lawn, but hey, the beer always taste better after a little physical labor).
Take care.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (11:50 am)Except, when you use the last sheet, you can replace the roll…
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:00 pm)Muddy re replacing the roll:
If there’s any karma, I’ll be buried in a Volt shaped box (g).
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:12 pm)Yeah, that’s the type of information I’d want to see, and have logged somewhere so I can review it. Cell temps, actual voltages (not just calculated “charge remainng” as a percent), charge/discharge rates, correllated with trip length, speed, accelleration/deceleration, number of stops and regen periods, all of it. Gimme the data. The nerd in me wants to analyze the crap out of it and draw some conclusions (and compare them to the experts’ conclusions). Granted, I’m not the typical American buyer, but maybe GM could throw guys like me a bone here? We would be more than willing to share our spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations with the GM engineers.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:17 pm)What an ignorant remark. Toyota RECALLED more vehicles than they built last year – now, get back under that bridge.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:21 pm)I would expect that other wise why would most owners deep paying for Onstar.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:22 pm)“Can someone tell me if this means the VOLT pack will also suffer from “memory loss” > My laptop stays plugged into the power brick most of the time…Over time the battery has reduced in capacity where it will not fully discharge, or fully recharge, so basically it’s worthless for more than 2 minutes of running the laptop. It has failed.”
no batteries suffer from the memory effect anymore, your battery just wore out.. how old is it?
Nicads used to have this problem, but it was fixed in the late 60s or ’70s I believe.. Lithium cells never had a memory effect problem.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:26 pm)Once that there battery deteriorates what you done got is a used Volt and a used rundown battery. In other words a Used Volt is pretty much worthless (no resale value whatsoever).
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:30 pm)There has been a lot of discussion about how much the Volt is being sweated over to make it as much like a ‘normal’ car as possible. The battery control system is probably the ultimate expression of this.
GM appears to be working to make the electrical storage system as much like a metal gas can as possible. “For this much energy you get 40 miles and no more.” To make that consistent throughout the car’s expected lifetime, the control system constantly adjusts the cell / module / chemical realities “behind the curtain” in order to make certain that is true.
Beyond expected vehicle lifetime, “it is what it is.”
As to the aftermarket possibilities, I’ve always said “Old Volts never die, they just go farther.”
I would expect that much of the uncertainty concerning cycle-life history and age in a used cell or module may lead to a simpler and more direct solution: coming up with chemical tags on the cell casings which give an idea of the unit’s life so far (this would involve finding a color-change chemistry which degrades or changes at about the same rate as the battery’s chemistry).
This would certainly be do-able when it comes to temperature history (similar tags are already in use to assure that frozen food hasn’t thawed and refrozen in transit. Coming up with a chemistry which reacts to actual cycling would be more difficult.
I imagine a system of perhaps 3 indicators on a cell which would react to:
Age
Cycles
Temperature History
… which could be checked against a card or chart and graded.
Or perhaps that chip-based info technology will become as cheap as doing all this by the time it’s needed (I’m a bit old-fashioned, I guess).
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:33 pm)If you are trying to make us believe you have not even a vague amount of knowledge regarding the Volt then set off the fireworks! YOU WERE SUCCESSFUL!!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:36 pm)MuddyRoverRob Reply:
July 24th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Excellent questions!
1) the battery chemestry is quite different than older laptop batteries. I expect the ‘memory’ issue is much less pronounced.
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I was under the impression that Lithium ion battery do not have the “memeory” issue.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:37 pm)Yep, what Herm said.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:37 pm)My folks did the drive to Yellowknife thing in their 2005 Malibu.
It’s a VERY Canadian thing to do!
There was no Cell coverage for a good part of the trip but Onstar worked just fine.
It definately has a place.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:38 pm)Ok, I’ll give you $5 to take it off your hands.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:39 pm)Mr. Hole battery technology will be changing dramatically after the Volt is released thereby making all previous generation EVs worthless. Your typical EV will depreciate much faster than your father’s car ever did.
EVs will be hitting salvage yards faster than Obama can trash white cops.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:41 pm)You guys crack me up!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:43 pm)My $400 dollar watch has a dead battery. I am going to toss it. Thanks for the tip A hole.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:44 pm)1) The VOLT battery pack is “like a laptop battery”? Can someone tell me if this means the VOLT pack will also suffer from “memory loss” > My laptop stays plugged into the power brick most of the time.
Your laptop uses different chemistry and uses less cell count. In LI packs, the smaller the series cascade and capacity the less “Life” it really has. This is because the “Cycle” of 80% DOD used on these cells. Why? Because when they go out, they cost more than $100 for maybe a little less for the OEM packs. This makes the owner decide do I spend the $$ for new batts or buy a new laptop. Most geeks will buy a new laptop. Some hevay computing users will do the same. A cheap bastard like me will rip the cells out and order individual ones and replace for half the price. Also, laptops have simple BMS electronics. Nothing in a form of “Active” monitoring. Also, Li cells have never had “Memory” issue. Just slow long term degradation.
“Will this happen to the VOLT?”
No, The fact that the Volts batt pack is really twice the capacity you intially need, AND have the complex BMS electronics coupled with computer monitoring WILL lengthen the life of the batt pack. You also have a totally differen’t chemistry of a Lithium-Maganese cell.
” I only drive 20 miles per day… So the battery only gets discharged 50% of its capability each day”
As a user you are “Spoofed” into thinking you are using 50%. In the “Real”, remember the batt pack is twice the 8K (16KW), you are actually cycling only 25%. This is called a “Short Cycle” and is a negligable hit aganst the cycle count.
“2) Does all this concern over the battery pack REALLY matter?”
Technically no. I don’t like GM, I like the Volt. However, I believe GM has done a more than adequate job in testing the reliability of the batt pack.
In a quick senetence to answer some of your other question, GM can easilly replace the batt pack with something better when it comes out. It will have to go through rigorous testing but if it is deemed good enough, all they have to do is put it in a “T” pack, or whatever it evolves into, and then it’s good.
The ICEAge is over, Embrace the VoltAge!!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:45 pm)How is this different from ANY well used car?
Rebuild the engine or rebuild the battery or replace the car?
Nothing changes here no name.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:47 pm)Thanks to all. I appreciate the feedback.
I , too, thought I would get drawn and quartered for the post, but, so far so good!
GO GM!
GO VOLT!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:47 pm)30 mile range for the next 15 years will do me well – my commute is less than 5 miles roundtrip a day
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:47 pm)Correct. Even if there was a hint of it, the “Balance” function of the BMS eliminates it by design.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:50 pm)I’ll give you $6.50!!!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:52 pm)Likely the same one. Soon he’ll be ‘talking’ to himself (under several names).
How ya doin’ no-name?
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:53 pm)“I wish I knew how to spell that sound Tim Taylor used to make!”
File or macro not found. Please press any key to continue.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:56 pm)Any electric drive car based on Lithium Ion batteries will need to carry a generator of some description if used in regions which experience extreme heat or cold.
There are going to be a lot of disappointed BEV-users outside of the milder climates.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (12:57 pm)Isn’t the Prius battery warranty 8yr/100mi? In any event, only a small percentage of the pack is used. I can’t remember exactly but I think it only discharges to 40% SOC. Maybe 65% at the top?
Also the discharge rate is controlled because the ICE supplies the power in hard accelerations or whenever a lot of power is required so as not to have the cells discharge too rapidly.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:02 pm)Another good question.
I’m only guessing (which is all anyone can do at the moment), but I imagine it will depend on how many batteries are being replaced.
If it’s most packs which need replacement, look for remanufactured, prorated packs (this would make monetary sense only on a fairly large scale since they’d have to set up a line of some kind to do it. This would still be less than the cost of so many new packs). This would result if the battery guys have gotten something wrong, and it will mean that GM is in recovery mode.
If it’s perhaps 1 in 16 or so packs (or better) that need replacing, I’m betting that the battery guys will have made some pretty good calls, and it would actually cost less to use a new pack than to rebuild a hundred or so old ones.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:05 pm)If you ever read the DIY boards what happens is that the guy does the conversion over a weekend or two, declares mission accomplished, and then has battery problems for the rest of the car’s life. Also, given that the cooling is usually done via an ad hoc air based system, end of life sometimes is a bit fiery.
Putting a battery in is the easy part. Maintaining it is the hard part.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:06 pm)Since the 3V cells are made in Korea its a given that they are high-quality. The big question mark will be can GM write good software management code for the entire pack. Hopefully they will contract that part out to India or China if quality code is really desired.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:08 pm)Who cares!
I’ve never kept a car more than 7 years (and I regreted the last 2 years because the waranty was expired and I had to pay for all the repairs). Usualy I change it the same week my waranty expires. I think that’s the best plan for my needs. And anyway as I have said before, electric vehicles technology and everything that revolves around it should be so much more advanced in 2020, so I’ll surely be dying to exchange my old Volt for a newer model by then!!! With a little luck, competition will have brought us many different models to choose from at a lower price. As for resale value for the Volt, I’m not worried. They will probably all become museum pieces. Think about it! Besides, how much is a 10 year old car worth anyway? A couple of $Ks???
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:10 pm)The EREV concept will present a challenge in terms of how the useful lifetime of a car is measured. We are all used to looking at the odometer as a good overall indicator of a car’s service life, but on the Volt this doesn’t tell the whole story.
Engine and battery usage will vary enormously depending on how the car is driven. If someone commutes 35 or fewer miles daily, the engine may barely turn over. If someone commutes 35 or fewer miles one way (and plugs in at work), the engine may never run and the battery will get more of a workout. If gas doesn’t get back over $3 a gallon for awhile, some users may be satisfied enough with 50+ mpg and rarely plug the Volt in. If so, the battery will have an easy life and the motor is subject to ‘normal’ amounts of wear and tear.
There will no doubt be a normal odometer, since the Volt is being made to seem as much like a ‘normal’ car as possible.
It seems to me that the engine also needs an hour meter, and that the battery will need something a bit more sophisticated than this to estimate it’s remaining life.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:10 pm)I still haven’t gotten a difinitive opinion concerning the way I intend on utilizing/charging my Volts battery…
Leave the house fully charged and drive (mostly Freeway) for 35 miles to work…
Charge all day at work and drive 35 miles back home (never using any gas).
I’ve been somewhat concerned that this procedure might reduce the life of the battery, because I would essentially be “cycling” the battery twice as much as someone utilizing it “normally.”
Although I do get some relief in what Jon told us in his chat box this past Wednesday.
———————————————————
3:17 [Comment From Marc Geller ]
Double the Volt pack, remove the ICE and you’ve got a 100 mile range EV, without CARB 10/150K requirements. Thoughts?
3:23 Jon Lauckner: Hey Marc. It sounds like an easy solution for someone like yourself who lives in a mild climate like San Francisco, but if you want to bring plug-in technology to the entire U.S., it needs to be fully functional in all weather conditions (the deserts of Arizona to the winters of Minnesota). E-REV gives you this capability. I’ll be interested to see how the pure EVs handle the extremely hot ambient temps (impacts cycle life) and the extremely cold temps (battery discharge power much lower) while delivering consistent performance. In your own personal case, you benefit from San Francisco’s existing and growing plug-in infrastructure. You could drive a Volt into town, charge up and double your electric range per day.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:14 pm)It be me understandin that Volt waruntee is only on batery. The rest of Volt is sold AS-IS !
True that.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:15 pm)It would be great. I’m just bothered by the lack of interest from major players. Only being able to get Zenn and a bicycle company to back such a huge breakthrough doesn’t make a lot of sense.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:17 pm)So, Volt still operates after battery down fifty percent. Big Deal. My Duracell still works at 50 percent too.
No news here. Let’s move on. Next….
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:22 pm)1. The Volt battery pack is not anything like your laptop battery. The Tesla battery pack is. Different chemistries. But, in either case, Li-ion batteries don’t have a memory effect. You’re thinking about the old Ni-Cads. The biggest problem for Li-ions are being fully discharged. That really shortens their lives.
2. The battery pack could be a major issue. GM has floated the idea of leasing the battery. Personally I’d prefer a lower price for the car if you purchased a replacement battery a la Tesla. You could then swap out the battery at 8 years or so. I can’t imagine any car lasting much over 16 years.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:25 pm)PDNFTT!!
Be well,
Tagamet
LJGTVWOTR!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:26 pm)The CMOS battery also holds the BIOS settings in addition to the date/time clock.
If you are getting more than 6 years out of the CMOS battery that came with your system, you are really doing quite well!
I have seen them go as soon as 3 years, and most of them go by the 5th year. But they are easy enough to replace, in most cases…
Bul like statik said, very few people keep a laptop that long…..
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:29 pm)Looks like he’s discovered the “vote meter,” too; each of his on-screen personnas is voting for the others.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:32 pm)The main point in this thread is that the
Volt will degrade over time. How fast remains to be seen. GM is just trying to hide the degradation using software tricks. Sneaky is as sneaky does.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:33 pm)“Nothing changes here no name.”
EXCEPT YOUR NAME!!!!
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:35 pm)Thats it, with this media news today I believe, take it to the bank! 250 mile ranges, 5 minute charging, pack cost of only $100 per kWh, limitless raw supply…a car in my driveway at any moment.
And the US domestic market share goes to 15%.
Finally Canada rules the world in automotive construction!!! Huzzah! As ZENN has exclusive rights on this technology in automotive applications, we will be the new superpower! (at least at 3,100 pounds before battery weight…so pretty much all cars under 3,500lbs)
Finally you America capitalists will feel the power of our quasi-socialist society, as we slowly force you all to wear plaid jackets and buy our Chesterfields. NCAA sports…all cancelled. Football will now have 3 downs and the field is 110 yards long…as it was intended.
I can almost feel the tax revenue being generated, soon I will pay no personal/capital gains taxes and will sleep inside my own personal MRI machine…because I can.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:35 pm)$7.25, and I will throw in a set of kitchen knives.
That’s my best offer. Take it or leave it.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:38 pm)Any relation to Crazy Lenny?
So, I guess you have a govt’ job.
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:39 pm)Lots of new names saying silly things today.
The fishing must be slow…
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Jul 24th, 2009 (1:40 pm)