GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Hydrogen powered vehicles is a topic that tends to bring out debate. Before the recent explosion of interest in battery electric cars, talk of a hydrogen superhighway and fuel cells cars being the next big step were all the rage.

Interest appears to be waning.

Tom Stephens is vice-chairman of GM and is responsible for product development. I had the chance to ask him his thoughts on hydrogen and what GM is doing with respect to development and production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

Is the Volt the endgame or is it the fuel cell vehicle?
No. Each of them will continue going forward. My thesis is if you look at what’s going on for energy demand especially in the developing countries, the energy demand is going to continue to grow exponentially and we’re going to have to learn how to utilize energy from all sources if we’re going to have sustainable mobility. We haven’t done that in the last one hundred years. We’ve stayed on petroleum and that’s not a smart thing. It just doesn’t make any sense.

So going forward we are going to break it up

So are you still planning to produce fuel cell vehicles?
Right now what we have is a fuel cell demonstration fleet, Project Driveway, and we’re in one county and we’re going to four more countries and we’re trying to get a lot of customer feedback. We’re doing a lot of work on fuel cells right now to try and continue to move those forward.
At some point in the future we’ll have to decide whether we want to actually go into a production program.

So you haven’t made that decision yet?
No, not at this point. We could do it, but there are a lot of factors. One is our part which is the fuel cell stack and the fuel cell vehicle and how much it will cost. The other part happens to be the infrastructure in order to support the fuel cell and we’ll have to develop both of those.

Right now Germany and Japan are putting in an infrastructure for fuel cells and what we really need is for big US metropolitan cities to decide they want to put in the infrastructure and then it would make sense to go forward.

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Mr Stephens appeared on Autoline Detroit TV today and took some of our questions. You can see the show below:

Fisker Automotive is busy bringing its luxury sports extended-range electric car called the Karma into production. Simultaneous global launch is planned for May 2010. The car will retail at $87,900 and offers 400 HP, 0 to 60 in less than 6 seconds, and a 50 mile all electric rage. A powerful GM built gas-powered range extender generates electrical energy for drives greater than 50 miles or continuously if the user chooses the high power demanding sports mode.

Of course this dream car is out of the range for most folks, especially considering how many even think the Volt’s $40,000 price tag is too steep.

However, just as Tesla has announced a more “affordable” $57,000 S sedan, Fisker too appears to be planning a lower cost model.

Reports indicate that Ray Lane from the Kleiner Perkins investment firm, that invests in Fisker, let slip a rumor that company is set to unveil a new $39,000 model.  Indeed company founder and CEO Henrik Fisker has previously gone on record stating it was his plan to eventually develop and sell  a $40,000 plug-in car.

Fisker is also known to have applied for DOE funding to help it refurbish a US assembly plant from which to manufacture low cost cars.  No announcement has yet been made indicating they have been approved for funding, but Fisker has stated if it gets the loan it could being producing cars in as few as 26 months.

I attempted to find out directly from the source if this low cost rumor is true and whether it would be a plug in hybrid or pure electric.

Mr. Fisker responded to my questions with the following statement:  “We will get back to you next week.”

Looks like some news is coming folks.

When Nissan debuted its all electric Leaf on August 2nd, the indication was that they intended to sell the car and then lease the battery separately for most parts of the world.

At the time, Carlos Ghosn (Nissan’s CEO) told the media that the price of the car would be competitive with its peers, and that “the monthly cost to lease the battery and fill it with electrons will be less than an average month of fill-ups at the gas station,” but declined to ballpark that in actual dollars.

However, when speaking to Le Journal du Dimanche earlier in the week, Mr. Ghosn was again asked if Nissan’s electric cars would be more expensive than similar conventional cars? To which he answered:

“No. The electric car only makes sense if everyone can benefit. It must be for the customer at the same price as his gasoline equivalent in particular thanks to government aid. The battery will be leased for just under 100 euros ($150USD) per month. The cost of electricity consumption and the leasing of the battery will be lower than the cost of gasoline.” (translated from french)

In the United States the decision has not yet been made on whether the Leaf will be lease only on the battery, or if they will offer the car and battery as one package for outright purchase. When asked, a representative from Nissan USA said:

“We are considering the options to provide the best value to our customers. We will say more when we can. ” /big help

As for GM’s take on the subject, Andrew Farah (who is the Volt’s chief engineer) had this to say about the option of leasing the battery inside the Volt:

“We’re designing for the battery pack to have a 10-year life and there has been discussion of all sorts of battery business models, but we’re working from the perspective that it will be sold with the car.”

One thing is for sure, the merits of leasing over buying is a hotly contested debate in EV circles. Leasing of the battery itself puts the driver’s mind at ease when it comes to the long term reliability and performance of the battery, but does so at the cost of a never-ending monthly fee.

One of many attributes of electric cars that distinguish them from those powered by gas is their silence.

This extremely blissful absence of gasoline exploding violently in steel chambers is a fringe benefit of EVs.  I can say as a daily EV driver it is indeed a pleasure.

There has long been consideration though to give EVs artificial sounds, primarily for the purpose of notifying the visual impaired, elderly, and children that a car is approaching.  An increase in pedestrian accidents coming from EV mass adoption is the concern.

GM has given this issue some thought too and as per Volt executive Frank Weber,  the Volt will be equipped with a pedestrian alert that is driver-activated.  It will emit pleasant warning sound when a lever is pulled.

Nissan, however, appears to be taking a different path.

According to a report, Nissan sound engineer Toshiyuki Tabata who used to work on making gas-powered cars quieter, is now working on sound effects for his company’s upcoming pure electric 100 mile range LEAF.

“We fought for so long to get rid of that noisy engine sound,” said Tabata, “With electric cars, we took a completely different approach and listened to composers talk music theory.”

Apparently the sound Tabata came up with is “beautiful and futuristic,” and resulted from consultations with Japanese composers of film scores.

The resulting sound is reminiscent of the flying cars known as ‘Spinners’ found in the 1982 film Blade Runner, it is a high-pitched metallic whir.

Nissan presented the sound to the NHTSA on September 3rd, and although no federal guidelines yet exist, the automaker may equip the LEAF with the sound when it launches in the US at the end of next year.

The sound would start as soon as the car is turned on and would go off above 12 MPH.

“We don’t want to destroy the brand of the electric car,” said Tabata. “We want to have something that will enhance its image.”

Source (Bloomberg)

You can make out the sound of a Spinner in the video clip below:

For some of us interested in electrification of the automobile, it can’t happen soon enough.

The Volt is a great first step, though as GM says it is a car for most people, not a car for everyone.  Even considering the wide swath of those for whom it will be ideal, production volumes are expected to remain relatively low; 10,000 the first year, and around 60,000 in the second according to reports.

Since the Voltec propulsion system is so flexible and scalable, it seems reasonable to believe GM will eventually use it in other vehicle types and sizes. We have seen the Cadillac Converj concept though the car has not be approved for production. We have also heard that GM is at least studying putting a Voltec drivetrain into the upcoming Orlando MPV.

Clearly GM is proceeding with caution largely due to the very high cost and likely, some uncertainty, not too mention the high initial price for consumers.  Recently it was disclosed that the Volt will likely start at $32,000 after tax credits.

GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz was recently asked in a webchat whether he believes GM will generalize Voltec technology.

“The Volt technology is very exciting, but costs will have to come down before it can become generalized,” he said. “And US fuel prices will have to rise to world levels, meaning $5 or $6 per gallon.”

Larry Burns, who has been GM’s chief of R&D at GM for 11 years, and will retire on October 1st put it this way:

It is important to recognize that first generation technology in the auto industry, or industry in general, is usually costly vs. the mature alternatives that it competes with. The key is to kick off a generation-by-generation learning cycle that allows the new technology to reach its mature, high-volume potential. GM believes that Lithium Ion batteries at maturity and in high volume will be cost competitive for personal mobility. This is why we are launching the Volt, to kick off the commercialization dynamic.

So how long will it take for technology costs to come down or gas prices to get so high, and do we have time to wait?

The electric car universe has expanded dramatically an in some unexpected ways since the Chevy Volt concept was first unveiled in January 07.

This year’s Frankfurt Auto Show in Germany has brought with it several new electric car concepts that demonstrate the range of expression cars that do not run on gas can display.

Audi

At one end of the extreme we have the Audi e-tron.  This is a 2-seat performance car based on the current gas-powered R8.  It uses 4 electric motors, one at each wheel which together develop 313 horsepower and a fearsome 3319 foot-pounds of torque ( compare that to the Volt’s 295 ft-lb).  This configuration allows the car to go from 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds but also from 37 to 75 mph in 4.1 seconds.

The car has a 52 kwh lithium-ion battery pack of which 42.4 kwh is useable, that will deliver 154 miles of range.  At 230 V, charge time is from 6 to 8 hours.

Audi noted the value of the supercar’s mind boggling torque:

The e-tron is able to freely distribute the powerful torque of its four electric motors to the wheels as required. This so-called torque vectoring allows for dazzling dynamics and an undreamed-of level of agility and precision when cornering.

Audi also makes it clear they do not believe electric cars are ready for prime-time. announcing “there is still a lot of work to do before electric cars are ready for volume production.”

Though the Volt debuted as a show car concept shell without inner workings, apparently this car is the real deal.  According to Audi President Johan de Nysschen, “the show car itself is a running prototype.”

How would you like to test drive that?

At the other end we have two odd little birds that are paired with more mainstream big brothers.

Volkswagen

The Volkswagen L1, as its name implies, is a one-liter hybrid car that uses a 0.8 L 2 cylinder diesel engine mated to a 10 kw electric motor and a lithium ion battery that is not grid-chargeable. It delivers 40 hp and 0 to 60 time is 14.3 seconds.  Torque here is 100 nm.

Of course this concept isn’t new, VW’s first iteration was shown in 2002.  The main goal of the car is extreme fuel economy, and according to Volkswagen, that will be 170 MPG.

Volkswagen also displayed its mainstream upcoming BEV called the E-Up!, that they are calling “the Beetle of the 21st Century”

The E-Up! will not arrive into production until 2013 and then is only intended for use in city environments. Volkswagen thinks vehicular electrification wont fully take hold until 2020.

The car has 3+1 seating and is powered by a 60 kw motor that propels it from 0 to 60 in 11.3 seconds.  The 18 kwh total lithium-ion battery will allow 100 miles of range fully charged, with charging taking up to 5 hours on 230V.

The car also gets a 1.4 square meter solar panel on the roof that will supply electricity to the drivetrain while in operation or turn a cooling fan when parked in the sunlight.

Renault

Finally Renault introduced four new electric car concepts.

One of them is the rather bizarre Twizy ZE which is similar to an enclosed motorcycle with four oddly-shaped wheels that appear square.  It has a 15 kw motor with a top speed of 47 mph and the two occupants sit in tandem. It is said to have the performance characteristics of a 125cc motorbike.

Renault also unveiled the Fluence sedan which will be the electric car that will be used in Israel for Better Place battery swapping.  It is a stylish and reasonable sedan that has a 95 hp (70 kw) motor and a 99 mile range.  Though it can be charged in 5 hours at 230 V, it has the option of a 3-minute “Quickdrop” at a Better Place station.

No matter what your preference, it is clear that electricity is taking the automotive market by storm.  Concepts are taking very wide artistic liberties now as a automakers explore the boundaries of pure electric and hybrid electric vehicles.

There is no stopping it now, gasoline is dying a slow death.