GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Electrification of the automobile brings with it some significant tax implications.

For one thing since costs of early models will be high, there is a government $7500 tax credit that buyers of the Volt will be eligible for.

However, some auto executives think even that isn’t enough. Proposed is a gas tax.

The idea is nothing new but the problem is at gas prices below $4 per gallon, electric cars are a hard sell to the mass population.

“Unless gas is $3.50 or $4 a gallon, consumers are not going to want to buy those cars,” said former GM board member Jerry York.

Currently, gas prices are around $2.66 per gallon nationally.

I can also attest that the traffic to GM-Volt.com nearly tripled during the gas price peak in Summer of 2008 when prices were greater than $4 per gallon.

“The U.S. allows the price of gasoline to go back and forth across this line where the consumers don’t care about fuel efficiency and where consumers do care about fuel efficiency,” said Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation Inc.

Jackson proposed a gradual increase of gas tax until an average price of  $4 to $5 per gallon in reached.

Of course this idea isn’t popular, every politician sells hem or herself by pledging to lower and not raise taxes.

“In the United States, we’re afraid to touch the fuel price,” said Tim Leuliette, CEO of parts supplier Dura Automotive. “We’ve got to continue to raise taxes in the United States so that, by the end of the next decade, gas is about $8 a gallon in today’s terms.”

“Energy independence in this country ultimately means that fuel has to be more expensive,” Leuliette said.

Early adopters like us will buy the car for many reasons even if gas prices isnt one of them, but do you believe gas taxes should be raised to promote electric car adoption?

Source (Reuters)

The Chevy Volt is designed to have a sporty feel.  It will cover 0 to 60 in under 9 seconds and can chirp its wheels from a stopped position to to instantaneous torque.

Engineers have found a balance to both achieve 40 miles of gas free driving yet still allow the car to deliver a feeling of power.  It is estimated driving the Volt will as though it has a 250 horsepower engine.

Recently GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz was asked whether GM was moving away from performance cars instead focusing on fuel efficiency.

He responded “as the trend grows for vegetarianism the fruit and vegetable isles will expand but the meat counters won’t go away.”  He predicts performance cars will exist because there will always be buyers, but they will become electrified.

“I would forecast that certainly there will be a growing trend to high performance hybrids,” he said.

When specifically asked if we would one day see a Volt SS he said with a wry smile “I would not discount that possibility.”

“That Voltec architecture with the lithium ion battery and the small engine gives us all kinds of possibility on when we run the engine, when we don’t run the engine, how hard we run it, how fast we charge the battery and so forth,” he said.  “So if we want to sacrifice a little bit of fuel efficiency in the interest of performance and still get over 200 miles per gallon, we can do that any time”

Shortly after this interview the Detroit News reported that anonymous GM sources indicate the Cadillac Converj has been greenlighted for production. In fact Lutz’ wry smile in the video may be due to that fact.

An official announcement is likely coming soon.

The Converj will offer increased performance out of the same battery pack with some limitation in range. Lutz once said the car would cost the same as two Volts, or about $80,000.

The source also said it could be a few years for the Converj to make it to showrooms. I would also expect a name change in this case.

Source (Fox)

and (Detroit News)

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I had the following discussion with Alex Cattelan who is the Volt’s Chief Powertrain Engineer. It explains for the first time anywhere in more depth how the Volt’s two separate electric motors function.

The design of the electric motor, is there a separate generator or does the motor itself just turn the other way and act as a generator?

Very interesting question. There are two motors. One is considered the traction motor and the other one is the generator. However, and they are two motors, the traction motor is  higher-powered and designed specifically to meet the traction requirements.  The generator is designed to efficiently couple to the engine to generate what we need and match the efficiency band of the engine as much as possible in all the operating modes. So we look at that motor as coupled with the engine in system and then we also have a traction motor.

Some of the interesting pieces though of this are, for example, in EV operation I have two motors on board and I typically use the traction motor only to drive the vehicle. However, I do have some mechanisms to couple those motors and in some points of operation these two motors can be coupled and have a more efficient state.

Does that produce more power if they’re coupled?

It’s actually not additive for power, it’s actually the way it’s architected, and a lot of this is proprietary so I can’t get into the full architecture, but what it does is optimize the rotating speed and the losses of the motors so in certain states its better to operate both to propel the vehicle and in some states its better to utilize more of the generator and less of the traction motor. In some states its more efficient to use more of the generator and have more of the traction motor actually be a generator. That would be for example in coast down situation often we use our traction motor as a generator on regen.

We do have the ability to utilize both motors in propulsion mode.

The issue is and the direct answer to your question is we do have a primary traction motor and a primary generator motor and they are designed specifically for those levels of operation. However, we have a little bit of flexibility in exactly how we use them.

A few weeks ago, GM-Volt.com ran a piece on the catatonic state of Chrysler’s electric car or ENVI program, and pointed out that since the introduction of Fiat to Chrysler during bankruptcy last May, not a peep (or official blog entry) had been heard about the program.

At the time we speculated that the program had likely been abandoned, and a new plan (if any) would likely present itself when Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne debuted his “5-year plan” for Chrysler this past past Wednesday.

That GM-Volt article got picked up around the ‘interwebs,’ and was met with some healthy skepticism. Our friends over at Autoblog went as far as to call us out on it, suggesting that no news, was good news… even contacting Chrysler for confirmation of the programs non-death. It never came. Autoblog did logically offer the fact that because ENVI president Lou Rhodes had not been ‘let go’ and was still being paid to manage the program, that was proof enough of its continued existence.

Well…not so much it turns out.

Indeed, shortly after Chrysler showcased its version of what the future would bring (along with a new corporate logo to lead the charge), new boss Marchionne offered some very un-optimistic thoughts on the electrification of the automobile, saying “I think electric vehicles are going to struggle,” and that perhaps they would only account for “1 to 2 percent” of Chrysler’s business by the middle of the next decade.

Not exactly how the ENVI program was represented to the US government when Chrysler went looking for aid to avoid liquidation.

In a not unrelated matter, Chrysler is also still holding onto the theory that hybrids won’t catch on either. They are the only major automaker not currently offering such technology in their vehicle lineup. Chrysler hope is that new small 4 cylinder engines brought in from Fiat will satisfy the public’s demand for fuel efficiency over introducing hybrid tech.

Despite the negative outlook for EVs at the press conference, no definitive word or specifics on the ENVI program presented themselves, that is until this past Friday when Reuters announced that Chrysler had disbanded and reassigned the ENVI team.

Nick Cappa, Chrysler spokesperson, who had previously given out such chestnuts to GM-Volt.com readers as, “stay tuned…lots of activity,” and to Autoblog, on their suggestion that work was progressing quietly, as “quietly is a good way to put it,” now has this one-liner to offer on the current happenings, “Envi is (being) absorbed into the normal vehicle development program”

Dead is another way to put it.

The stylish and Volt-like C200 concept that Chrysler showed in early 2009 (see below), and the company’s pledge to bring one of four electric cars to production in 2010 gone along with it.

One more reason to be grateful the resilient Chevy Volt has weathered GM’s financial apocalypse and remains only a year away from production.

Source: [Reuters]

Toyota is known to be developing a strategy that uses the Prius name as a brand for an upcoming family of hybrid vehicles. It is believed a sports coupe and MPV will eventually be produced under the brand.  Toyota hopes to profit by leveraging the popularity of the car and its recognition for fuel efficiency.

GM has a similar opportunity with the Volt, since it too is a name that has garnered a lot of attention and recognition. They could produce a line of Volts perhaps under different brands, different configurations, and different sizes that use the Voltec powertrain.

As interesting as it seems, that  idea apparently isn’t in the plans according to Global Chevrolet Director Brent Dewar who was asked about it recently at a Reuters summit.

“Our thought is to take the Volt technology to other products,”  he told the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit.  “The Volt was the original vehicle that we started, but I wouldn’t see that as a brand marketing direction for us.”

The only other Voltec products we know GM is considering producing is the sporty and stylish Cadillac Converj which would be tweaked for performance, yet offer the same 40 mile range, and an extended range electric version of the Chevy Orlando MPV which is expected to launch as a gas version.

Source (Reuters)

A few days ago I wrote about an experience I had with my MINI E electric car.  I rode over a construction zone pothole and as a result the power electronic unit failed, making the car undriveable until it was towed and the component replaced.

At the time GM Volt executive Tony Pozawatz assured me “we do more tests to our cars and especially the Chevy VOLT than anyone could imagine including some pretty severe potholes on our Milford Proving Grounds and other very difficult road surfaces.”

Whether by coincidence or not, GM decided to put out a highly-produced one minute 30 second video on none other than…pothole testing the Volt (see below).

Here we actually get to see the fascinating Belgium block and pothole test roads at GM’s Milford proving ground.

The track provides “rough road input on various grades,” says a GM engineer.  She goes on to note that since the Volt is really “a giant computer”, its really important to see how rough roads affects the electronics.

The Volts do three laps per cycle and about 200 cycles per test on the track.  The engineer says if the Volt could withstand that, “it could withstand anything you can see on the roads today.”

Let’s hope so.

Besides robustly holding its own on rough roads the Volt is apparently also very endearing.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time in VOLT IV’s lately,” Posawatz tells GM-Volt.com. “The car is very easy to fall in love with and holds great promise.”

We can’t wait to find out.