GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Around 3 years ago, a neurologist named Lyle Dennis decided he just had too much free time on his hands and decided to start a site chronicling the progress and development of a vehicle named the Chevrolet Volt.

Since then, Lyle has researched, interviewed and penned well over a thousand articles on the subject. To date, not a day has gone by without a fresh article for the readership to comment on, no small feat…especially considering his day job.

A few months ago, Lyle ruined his consecutive streak of articles by graciously allowing me to fill in and do some guest pieces, and ever since then I have been nagging him to let me do a story just on him.

Until today, Lyle had rebutted my requests saying that the readership would prefer more Volt-related news, and that the site was not to focus on him, blah, blah, blah. I’m chalking his refusal up to him just being a all around humble/good guy who really doesn’t crave the spotlight…because what he has accomplished here, the hours he puts in, and the access he has been granted inside GM for our benefit is nothing short of remarkable.

So what changed? How did this article come to exist? Well, charity finally got him to buckle…as in, I promised to give Lyle’s charity a pop in exchange for 7 questions. Lyle agreed.

On Sunday Lyle will be running in the NYC Marathon for the American Heart Association. The event looks to have over 40,000 participants and covers 26 miles of New York asphalt. Perhaps you have seen the little ads poking their heads up around the site to donate? I encourage anyone who can, to support Lyle on his run.

…and now the questions.

1.) I’ll start you off easy, can you fill us in on the NYC Marathon, your charity…and how does one run marathons, be a doctor and still find time to run this site?
I love running the NYC marathon, this will be my fifth in a row. It seemed like a good idea to do it for charity this year. As a stroke neurologist, I chose to run for the American Heart Association which is the parent organization of the American Stroke Association.

The only way to find time for all these things is to get up very early in the morning, and go full steam until its time for bed again. Every day is kind of a marathon itself.  As you can see I’m not one to sit idle.

2.) Follow-up question: What does your family think of the site? Does your spouse still speak to you?
I am very fortunate to have a supportive wife and 3 beautiful children ranging in age from 3 to 10. There are times my wife has heard enough about electric cars, and my kids know a little too much about them too.

3.) If you had the option to buy either the Concept or Production Volt in November of 2010? Which would it be?
Believe it or not, I actually prefer the production design. Yes the concept was cool but it doesn’t seem realistic. Also I think making a car palatable for the widest swath of the population will help lead to highest sales volume and thus lead to less oil used. The Camaro, for example, is very striking in design, but not everyone is willing to drive one.

4.) It is a well known fact that all .com owners are multi-millionaires, does it cause conflicts with GM executives when you are able to fly your jet to all corporate events and they now have to fly commercial?
Sorry that .com rule doesn’t apply to bloggers =)

5.) From your own ‘want’ list survey. What is the most you are willing to pay for a Chevrolet Volt (in USD)?
I think $40,000 is the number. I realize its high for the mass market but to me its worth it to be an early adopter.  With time it will come down considerably.

6.) We know you are currently driving a electric Mini, and have tested several electric cars from different manufacturers, if GM gave you a free pass and let you change one thing about the Volt, what would it be?
I’ll pick two; a third seat in the rear and 50 amp 220V charging capability.

7.) What happens to GM-Volt.com past the launch of the actual car? How do you see the site evolving once the car is mainstream?
The site has been a fascinating experiment for me. I started it with no idea if it would ever be noticed, so all of its attention has been a great surprise.

In my very first post in January 2007 I promised to continue the site to the launch and beyond, so that hasn’t changed.

I hope post-launch it will be the go-to place for all things Volt and for Volt owners to hang out and interact, free of corporate oversight and spin.

I also hope to implement, besides the forum, the ability for anyone to create their own microblogs within the site and to be able to post frontpage content in real time, along with what I contribute.

8.) Yeah I said only 7 questions, but this is one is important…and Lyle will probably not answer anymore questions from me. Ever. Who are you pulling for? Yankees or Phillies in the World Series?
I was born in the Bronx and live in NY Statik…do you really need to ask?

Sidenote: My thanks to Lyle for doing this quiz even though he didn’t really want to…and for giving us a little piece of the internet to call ‘home’ everyday.  Please donate to the American Heart Association in support of Lyle’s November 1 2009 marathon run by clicking here.

Those who follow the Volt closely know Frank Weber has been a key figure.

He is the German-born engineer with the job of Volt vehicle line executive, making him as the leader of the Volt program, reporting to the VP level.

I have had the chance to interview and meet Frank many times.  His precision, attention to details and strict demands have made the Volt program successful, high quality and able to move on a very rapid time frame.

Weber will be leaving his post on December 2 to take a promotional leadership position in Opel in Germany on December 2nd.

As per GM Volt spokesperson Rob Peterson, this is not a surprise but has “been in the works a while.”

Frank will be replaced by Doug Parks who is currently the vehicle line executive of the global compact architecture, upon which the Volt is built, and has already seen through the launches of the Chevy Cruze and Opel Astra in Europe.

According to Peterson, Weber has “taken the Volt from theory to starting to put all the pieces into place.”  He also notes that Parks has the specific skills and experience to take the car from where it is to actual launch.

Weber is highly thought of in the organization which is why he was given the Volt project in the first place, and this like most assignments at GM are for 3-year intervals.  By going to Opel and getting a promotion, GM continues to benefit from and applaud Weber’s skills.

Peterson reminds us the key players in the Volt program such as Andrew Farah who carried electric car experience from the EV-1 days and Tony Posawatz who was part of the Volt planning since 2006 are staying in place.

I was able to reach out to Frank for comment. I asked if this had anything to do with the Volt program.

He graciously replied:

“How could it be connected to the Volt program? We delivered ahead of schedule, the cars are performing extremely well and we have an outstanding GM team that has inhaled the mission of the electrification. The Volt has transformed the industry, GM and myself. This program will always be very close to my heart.

There will be more opportunity to say good-bye.”

For fun I have included one of my favorite Frank Weber videos going back to late 2007:

GM has announced that the Chevrolet Cruze’s introduction in North America has been delayed, moving from April of 2010 into the third quarter, namely August. In the meantime, the Cobalt will soldier on until the Cruze’s arrival.

This news is especially of interest to the Volt community, because both it and the Cruze ride on the Delta II platform, share parts and have many commonalities.

When GM first revealed the Cruze to the public, it looked to have a huge jump on the competition, boasting a bold new look and mileage per gallon numbers starting with a four…unseen anywhere else in the GM lineup.

Unfortunately, the Cruze program has been slow to reach fruition domestically, and the lead over next generation offerings such as the new Ford Focus and Honda Civic, is eroding quickly. The Cruze has been on sale in Europe for much of 2009.

The official reason for the delay was because GM wanted to “ensure a flawless launch and to go to market with full availability of high volume content,” however there was quickly speculation in the media that there was supplier issues at work behind the scenes, and maybe even difficulty sourcing the engine lineup in time for the original launch date.

If the Cruze has indeed run into complications with sourcing, it would not be unreasonable to expect the Volt could face the same challenges when attempting to get to market as expected in November of next year.

I spoke to Lesley Hettinger at Chevy Communications, who is unofficially ‘the point for all things Cruze’ at GM, and she happily put those rumors to rest and offered some good information on the program:

“There are no supplier issues. Initially we planned a pull-ahead on Cruze timing with a start of production in the second quarter of 2010 in our plant in Lordstown, OH, we have since revised our production schedule and decided not to compress the program timing to ensure a flawless launch and to go to market with full availability of high volume content. Assembly of pre-production builds will begin in the second quarter of 2010, followed by start of regular production with the full model year in third quarter of 2010.”

Closer to home, on the topic of the Volt, Rob Peterson offered the following reassurances to us here at GM-Volt, “The Volt remains on schedule for November 2010 production launch. The Cruze timing has no impact on the Volt.”

Still, given that this is the second of GM’s new cornerstone products to be delayed (Chevrolet Camaro), and with the added complexities of electric drive added into the mix, one has to wonder if a similar fate to ‘ensure a flawless launch’ might still be in store for the Volt…and that might not be a bad thing in the long run.

Fritz Henderson, the CEO of General Motors engaged in some Q&A with reporters and editors from the Washington Post while in the nation’s capital.

Some issues germane to us were discussed.

He was asked what he thought it would take for electric cars to truly gain a foothold in the marketplace.

He indicated cost to consumers was paramount.

“The three things you need are battery costs coming down, motor costs coming down, control costs coming down,” he said.

“The more companies that actually develop technologies around electric, the more the supply structure will develop, the better off we’ll be,” he said.  “We can’t carry the load ourselves. GM can’t. No way. We need to have more companies. We source most of these things. We don’t do them. We’re not in the chemistry business.”

He also believes range anxiety caused by driving pure EVs is a hindrance to mass adoption.

“Everybody is trying to solve the problem of range because we have range anxiety. The consumer doesn’t want to be strained,” he said. “We had the same problem with EV1, not enough range.”

Henderson said GM is hitting the brakes on hydrogen fuel cell car production.

“Are we putting resources into it? Not as much. We spent through the mid-part of this decade a reasonably high portion of our research and our development money on hydrogen fuel cells,” he said.

Henderson was asked yet again what the Volt’s MSRP will be.

“The price is still to be determined. I have a policy of pricing the vehicle when I get close to the market. I know the cost is close to 40 [thousand],” he said.

Finally, if anyone was wondering, he said GM would not go back to the government for more funding.

Under “any reasonable planning scenario,” he said.  “The amount of financing provided was sufficient.”  This is consistent with what he said when I interviewed him just days after GM declared bankruptcy.

“We’re not interested in doing this twice, we’re doing this once,” he had said.

Source (Washington Post) 

As some readers may know, I am one of 100 people in New York who are leasing the MINI E electric car for one year.  I recently passed 5000 miles of driving the car, and for the most part am very happy with it, especially in that all those miles have been covered without using one drop of gasoline.

As the car is technically a mule or prototype, it is not production-ready and has had some issues.  A month or two ago it began popping loudly into neutral whenever the accelerator was floored.  The power electronics control unit was replaced and after that it  almost never happened (it happened one more time). So I’m gentle with the accelerator.

The other day I was driving to work and went over an unexpected construction zone pothole.  The car was jostled and suddenly it went into neutral.  After that it could no longer be put into drive.  Despite turning it on and off and moving the shifter in and out of drive neutral and park several times, that was it, dead.  A tow truck was called and off it went to the dealership for a MINI “flying doctor” to come and repair it. After a few days I found out it was the power electronics control unit again which was again replaced.

This made me immediately realize the importance of extensive testing of new electric cars over rough road conditions, potholes and the like.  With new technology electric cars there may be cables that can simply come out stopping the car dead in its tracks.  Fickle electrical connections andsensitive electronics may be more vulnerable to these effects than mechanical combustion powertrains which have been road-tested for a hundred years.

I reached out to Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz to see how carefully GM was evaluating pothole effects on the Volt prototypes.

He responded graciously:

We do more tests to our cars and especially the Chevy VOLT than anyone could imagine including some pretty severe potholes on our Milford Provings Grounds and other very difficult road surfaces. As you know, the car quite easily navigated up and down Pikes Peak, through the hills of West Virginia as well as Death Valley during the hottest part of the summer (it was 118 degrees when I called once to check on the team).

So although there may be a lot of new electric car startups on the horizon, the Volt may well have as another advantage GM’s long heritage of specialized quality control testing facilities and expertise.  As has been said before, they must get this one perfect.

GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz was interviewed on Fox Business News.  The entire interview can be watched at the bottom of the post.

Just as vehicle line director Tony Posawatz was asked by Fox the other day, Lutz was also asked what the Chevy Volt’s MPG will be when it is running in charge-sustaining mode, after the first 40 all-electric miles have been driven.

As someone who has followed this Volt story since day one, along with many of you, I have found that Bob Lutz cannot help but be honest.  GM has never officially acknowledged this number though at the time of the initial concept revelation they mentioned 50 MPG was the goal.  However, in those days the generator was to be a 1 L turbocharged 3 Cylinder, and not the normally aspired 1.4L 4 cylinder it turned out to be.

When now asked what the Volt’s fuel economy would be in charge sustaining mode, Lutz replied as follows:

We haven’t published it and it’s not finalized.  Once it’s running on pure gasoline it will be like a highly economical vehicle in that size class. It will be exceptionally good mileage but it obviously won’t be comparable to what it is when it runs on electric.

The vehicle is conceived primarily for urban or suburban use. It’s for that 80 percent of Americans who travel 40 miles or less per day; they will never use a drop of fuel.  If you have a 60 mile commute, you’ll have 40 miles purely electric, the remainder of the mileage on very good gasoline mileage, and your average fuel economy will be somewhere between 120 and 150 miles per gallon.

So let’s do the math.

On a 60 mile commute, the first 40 miles are electric and the next 20 are on gasoline.  At an average of 120 mpg, that would mean 0.5 gallons are used in those 20 miles (40 mpg).  At 150 mpg, it would mean 0.4 gallons are used in those 20 miles (50 mpg).

Thus the Volt will average between 40 and 50 mpg in charge sustaining mode.  Good enough for me, how about you?

Thanks to Philerup for the tip!