Bob Lutz and Jon Lauckner are credited as having devised the Chevy Volt concept in 2006. They charged executive engineers Tony Posawatz, Nick Zielinski and John Bereisa with making it happen.
Though Lutz is retiring, and Bob Kruse, Denise Gray, and Frank Weber have left the program, Lauckner and Posawatz remain deeply involved and committed leaders of the Voltec team.
Recently we heard that GM’s President of North America suspects pure electrics will dominate the market in the long term but believes fully that the Volt will lead the market for the next several years. According to some new information, it seems likely that reflects GMs internal plan going forward.
Lutz in a recent exit interview told the Associated Free Press that GM plans to keep building trucks and SUVs but also expects to hybridize or electrify the majority of them to meet future fuel economy standards.
He also told the reporter that GM is “planning a separate line of all-electric vehicles that won’t have backup gas engines like the Volt does.”
Lauckner made a similar statement to the AP. He said GM plans to spread lithium ion cells across all of its vehicle lines over the next 5 years. The extent to which GM will do so depends on the cost of the technology and fuel prices.
“We certainly understand that the electrification of the vehicle goes beyond just talking about the Chevrolet Volt,” he said. “We need a range of technologies and we have a plan that does that.”
Neither man announced what car will be next, though Lauckner also noted GM plans to put its 2-mode full hybrid drivetrain into sedans. A plugin version has also been demonstrated in the Cadillac XTS concept.
Below are the two top highest voted entries from an initial field of over 100. The winner of the vote below will not only get to test drive the Chevy Volt in New York City at the end of the month, but will get their travel expenses paid up to $500. This generous prize is from GM-Volt.com sponsor NetLook.com. Please vote for your favorite in the forum below.
ENTRY 1
Volt Nation
I have been an active member of Volt Nation, following the Volt from the beginning, even donating my time to do graphic design work. I tell people everywhere I go about the benefits of the electrification of the automobile and why the Volt is going to be a winner. These are all similar reasons that anyone at GM-Volt.com can cite as justification, so what makes me different?
I have deployed several times in support of US operations around the globe and am very proud of the service I have done for my country. That pride is tempered by the knowledge that war, while at times necessary, is exceptionally wasteful. We are wasting lives, resources and time on propping up a system that is harmful to the environment and potentially devastating to a peaceful, verdant future.
Imagine if we as a nation had vehicles that demanded less or required no gasoline. Imagine how that would affect our foreign policy, putting fewer of our troops, my brothers and sisters, in harms way. Fewer dollars would be spent to use the military to protect oil assets in far away lands and more dollars would be spent on the renewable infrastructure and smart electrical grid that is so desperately needed here.
National defense can be secured in many ways. I believe that the electrification of the automobile is one of the most potent weapons we can develop. Promoting renewable energy use and the electrification of transportation with vehicles like the Volt will take value away from oil. The less that oil is worth, the less influence oil rich countries in the Middle East will have on our foreign policy. When that happens, perhaps we really can achieve the dream of peace in our time.
-Harrier1970
ENTRY 2
Why Wouldn’t I want a Volt?! ….I can’t think of even one reason NOT to!
As an astrophysicist who worked on NASA’s “moon shot” throughout the 1960’s, I’ve always thought of GM’s decision to design, develop and market an electric automobile as not unlike America’s decision to design, develop and launch a man-bearing rocket to the moon. It has the same kind of overwhelming risks, heart-pumping excitement and huge potential rewards. It demands developing break-through technologies and facing overwhelming challenges unlike any encountered before. It risks enormous financial losses ….as well as painful losses in global prestige…. in event of failure.
So I have followed the Volt’s development at GM-Volt.com with genuine fervor since 2007. A day seldom passes without my reading most of the topics and comments on this remarkable blog. I even flew from my home near the Kennedy Space Center to a truly milestone event sponsored by GM-Volt.com ….VoltNation in NYC two years ago this month…. where I was privileged to meet and speak with Lyle Dennis, Bob Lutz, Tony Pozawatz, Andrew Farah as well as others on GM‘s Volt development team. Upon returning home afterward, I was PUMPED!
One thought I shared with several GM and other attendees at VoltNation was that I believed we had relied on American ingenuity and hard work to beat the Russians to the moon ….and that GM could count on it to beat their competitors world-wide to a viable EV design ….a design that could be manufactured in large numbers and that would revolutionize automotive design (just as we revolutionized space travel).
And the GM team has not shirked from the task. The car is powerful, quiet, responsive, reliable, handles well and meets the daily driving requirements of most Americans without using a single drop of gasoline ….at a cost for electricity roughly one-fifth that for gasoline! In addition, because the Volt’s EREV architecture embodies two independent sources of power (or “fuel”), the likelihood of ever being stranded along a street or highway is vanishingly small by contrast to present-day cars. Also, an electric motor’s inherently much higher reliability will greatly reduce maintenance requirements (and costs). And “range anxiety”, an unfortunate aspect of ordinary EV designs, completely disappears with the Voltec EREV design.
So in short ….moon shot or not…. there’s simply not a single reason NOT to want a Chevy Volt!
This is the second round of 6 finalists. Please vote for your favorite from the 6 entries below, the top 5 will win test drives in NY:
1. Video
2. When I pull back the curtains in the morning, the first thing I see are the windmills. The sun plays gently between the blades, greeting a new day, as it has every day for the last two years. As I go through my normal morning routine I glance out the window and see the sun now bouncing off the hood of my car, picking out metallic flecks buried deep beneath the black surface. I notice on my energy monitor that the car has started warming itself up, it’s time for me to go.
As I pull out of the driveway, I wave to my neighbor Ted, who I see is on his way to work. He looks a lot healthier, since he started walking the two miles each way. His wife is leaving as well, she’s headed in the other direction. She thought she’d miss her SUV at first, but after finding just how versatile modern hatchbacks are, she rarely thinks of it. Ted finally sees me and he waves back, but I see the sadness in his eyes, where it has been since his son died in Helmand.
I’m half way to work, and I pass the gas station. I last went there a month ago, and I’m glad. It’s a depressing place to be. Every day I see parents watching every drop of gas they pump, knowing they are balancing in their mind the need to get to work, against the need to feed their family. Things are starting to get better now, prices have dropped back to $9 a gallon after Iran finally quit the war. They say the latest Alaskan wells will come online soon, so it might go back to $7. I am still thinking of the young mans’ face we all saw so many times on the news, they’re still not sure who opened fire on the protesters.
After a long day at work I’m glad to relax in the car on the way home. My wife calls me halfway, her hunch was right – I’m going to be a father. As I drive back under the windmills a tear rolls down my cheek, I wish I could have done more to bring my child into a better world. I hope I can teach the next generation something.
We all have to start somewhere.
I started with the Volt.
3. Death of Cynicism by Electric Shock
Over the past eight years, I have studied the integral role that General Motors played in shaping the landscape of our current American transportation system. It has been a sour lesson in the relationship of American politics with business, and I have since developed a highly critical outlook on the actions of General Motors. The cynical man inside my heart blames General Motors for a pervasive culture and philosophy in American motor cars that sacrificed blue collar values of dependability, shared sacrifice, and innovation, for profit. This cynical man blames General Motors for dismantling working rail system of public transportation in cities throughout the United stated, by purchasing them through subsidiaries, negatively restructuring them and systematically breaking transit lines in favor of “automized” bus systems. The sickly cynical man also blames General Motors for developing, patenting and building revolutionary battery technologies, only to see the patents sold to oil companies with competing interest, and those same technologies buried as soon as manufactures begin to use them. I truly hate that cynical man.
That man has spent these past eight years waging a quiet information campaign, spreading everything he has learned among friends, family and in conversations with strangers. However, that man is sick, weak and tired. In his place, a new man wants to be born, to be nurtured and to grow. The new man wants desperately to believe in the ability of an American Motor Company to confront, challenge, and break with its own cultural past in order to rebuild, not only its own future, but the domestic and cultural future of an entire nation. I want the new man to sit in the very driver’s seat of the new Chevy Volt, as it now sits poised on the precipice of just such a historic change. The electrified controls will come to life in the hands of that new creature, and fed by the hum of an electric motor, that new man will cast off the cynical one. An honorable thing will be done, as that old man breaths his last, and the new man looks towards a bright electrified future, with an old enemy, now his new friend, sitting in the passenger’s seat.
4. Volt Nation
I have been an active member of Volt Nation, following the Volt from the beginning, even donating my time to do graphic design work. I tell people everywhere I go about the benefits of the electrification of the automobile and why the Volt is going to be a winner. These are all similar reasons that anyone at GM-Volt.com can cite as justification, so what makes me different?
I have deployed several times in support of US operations around the globe and am very proud of the service I have done for my country. That pride is tempered by the knowledge that war, while at times necessary, is exceptionally wasteful. We are wasting lives, resources and time on propping up a system that is harmful to the environment and potentially devastating to a peaceful, verdant future.
Imagine if we as a nation had vehicles that demanded less or required no gasoline. Imagine how that would affect our foreign policy, putting fewer of our troops, my brothers and sisters, in harms way. Fewer dollars would be spent to use the military to protect oil assets in far away lands and more dollars would be spent on the renewable infrastructure and smart electrical grid that is so desperately needed here.
National defense can be secured in many ways. I believe that the electrification of the automobile is one of the most potent weapons we can develop. Promoting renewable energy use and the electrification of transportation with vehicles like the Volt will take value away from oil. The less that oil is worth, the less influence oil rich countries in the Middle East will have on our foreign policy. When that happens, perhaps we really can achieve the dream of peace in our time.
5. I am 60 years old. I have lived through flower power, the Vietnam War and the protest, the gas rationing, Watergate, rescissions, the Gulf Wars and a half century of change, discontent and turmoil. But I have been waiting. I have been waiting all this time for America to lead again. To make me feel proud again. I considered myself a hippie once – and for all the good reasons. Forty years ago I cried for the environment, for our precious and irreplaceable life as it was being destroyed by the toxins from automobiles. I watched and watched. Nothing changed. Not really. And the worst criminals were us, the United States.
I have never stopped being a hippie – a closet hippie maybe. Kids have come and gone – I am proud of their success. I am proud to have grandchildren to share my life with. I am very grateful and thankful for my own success. Life has changed so much, but day in and day out it was always the same. Cars pollute. But I have kept dreaming and kept the faith that America would make a difference and would someday produce a car that really mattered. A car that I could be proud to drive. A car that when I sat in the driver’s seat would make me smile. A car that made me proud to be American again. A car that would inspire. A car that brought back a dream – a dream of fresh, clean air. A car an old hippie could drive.
Thank you GM.
6. I love Nature, I love hiking in the woods and just being away from all the technology we use in our daily lives. I’m also a technologist, I work in IT and get to try out new techno-gadgets long before most people, I was emailing over my cell phone in the mid 90′s when it weighed as much as a brick. I love this country, but I fear for what we are doing with it, every day more and more land gets gobbled up for development, or is strip mined for limited resources, every day are lungs are filled with the toxic by products of our industrial society, while our capital is shipped over seas to countries that in many cases would rather export war against us. We cant keep going like this, something has to change, we need to become self sufficient, we need to protect the resources and the wilderness we have left, electric driving with energy generated from renewable resources is the answer and I want to help us get there.Over the last year I’ve been blogging about
my experiences driving the MINI E electric car at http://mini-e.blogspot.com Its been a wonderful experience but I’ve come to the realization that I’m not right for a pure electric car. During the weekdays I rarely drive over 60 miles, most days I only drive 40, for which the MINI E is a great commuting car. But on the Weekends I’m either driving to my Fiancee’s (80 miles away) or we are off to the mountains to go hiking on some back trail, or mountain biking somewhere new, we like to explore and get away from civilization, and technology. Unfortunately this means the MINI E usually spends the weekend sitting at one of our homes. I cant have one car for weekday commuting and another for weekend exploring, with the Chevy Volt I’ve got two cars in one, it will give me an almost all electric daily commute (All electric if I can convince my company to put chargers in at work), and it gives my fiancee and I the range and cargo room we need to explore the
great outdoors, what could be better?
We recently announced a special opportunity for 10 GM-Volt.com readers to test drive a pre production Chevy Volt in EV and range extended mode in New York City.
We received over 100 entries of essays and videos answering “Why I Want a Chevy Volt.”
In a very difficult task, myself and a team of judges reduce the field to 12 entries. To favor those who are frequent participators and commentators on the site, 6 were chosen from that group, and 6 from the remaining field.
Below are the first 6 entries. Please vote for your favorite one in the form at the bottom. The remaining 6 entries will appear in the next post. From each group the top 5 will win and then in a third post we will vote for the overall winner who will have their travel expenses to New York covered by site sponsor NetLook.com.
1.I want a Chevy Volt because I want to be an American hero!
The scarcity of the initial Volts, coupled with the accepted wisdom that it will have a huge impact on the electrification of transportation in the USA, will lead to “dramatic” situations. Consider, if you will the following scenario:
(fade from black) Heavily armed convoys guarding the carrier trucks, have delivered the first Volts to the Dealer lots- which are also heavily fortified – surrounded by tall, chain-link fences, topped with rolls of razor wire. Guard towers with spotlights at the corners scan the lot and the angry crowd surrounding the entire area. National Guardsmen help punch a hole in the crowd surrounding the lot, for the poor anemic young man, who has won the National lottery that allowed this single Volt purchase for his State. But then, HE’S ON HIS OWN! He’s gotten his cherished Volt, but the angry mob blocks his way off the lot! Failing to inch his way out, he GUNS it – the crowd quickly parts, as dozens of people leap aside – narrowly escaping injury from the Volt’s instant torque! He’s OUT, but NOW WHAT? he can’t possibly just park it at his house – surely it would be stolen immediately! He needs to make a RUN for it!…. (announcer’s voice cuts in) “Follow the adventures of our Noble Volt warrior, as he tries to protect his car, his life, and LIFE AS WE KNOW IT IN THE U.S. of A!! This trailer rated PG – Parental Guidance suggested. V,AL,BN. Opening Independence Day 2010
2.Why I want the game-changing Chevy Volt
It appears that humanity is headed for a new chapter in our development. For the last 100 years or so we have enjoyed not only the advances in automobile technology but an almost uninterrupted growth in global petroleum production.
Early in the 21st Century, there were signs that all was not well in the energy industry. A flattening of petroleum production growth around 2005 started to raise eyebrows. When July 2008 rolled around, it was obvious (to many who researched the details) that some changes were needed. We needed to find a way to get off of our petroleum addiction or suffer the consequences of not only price instability, but reduced national security and even climate change issues.
What were we going to do? Electric cars have been tried before. GM learned the hard way with the EV1 that the pure EV model would not work. The rest of the major automakers faired no better. Hydrogen cars have been 10 years away for more than 10 years and counting. How are we going to get transportation off of that black gold?
The answer was drawn on the back of a napkin. What if an electric vehicle could be made in high volume that not only eliminated range anxiety, but reduced the size and thus cost of the battery pack? That answer was the Chevy Volt.
An unassuming doctor named Lyle, busy with his practice, heard about this answer and a light went off in his head. Instead of sitting back to watch what happened, Lyle decided to take action and start the now famous GM-Volt website. He wanted to get out the idea to as many people as possible and provide a way for people to discuss this amazing new idea. Little did he know how popular his website would become. Little did he know how influential his website would become for GM.
I was also looking for people to talk to about our problems with energy when I stumbled on to Lyle’s website. Little did I know how long I would stay. Little did I know how much time I would spend debating every energy issue under the sun.
I want a Chevy Volt because it is still the best solution to one of the greatest problems to face humanity – petroleum addiction. I wish to support this great vision and convey to as many people as possible that we do have options. We will make it thought this crisis.
Sometimes it takes a great leap, not only in faith, but in action. That is why I want a Chevy Volt.
3. Video
4. Why I Want a Chevy Volt
My grandfather was an electrician. I was impressed by the technology at an early age. As a child, I read an article in his Popular Science magazine; quoting experts who said that electric cars were just ten years away. Even then, the prospect of a real electric car was exciting. I wondered if one would be out by the time I got my drivers’ license.
Those experts must have been really knowledgeable, because they were right for nearly forty years. Whenever fears of pollution, energy shortages or oil embargoes threatened, research efforts continued to make this claim. The only results I ever saw were consortium or university-project one-offs which vanished as rapidly as they appeared; leaving us with the problems of our future transportation needs unsolved. Of course, over most of that time an enclosed golf-cart type of electric “car,” with very little practical utility, was available: not exciting at all.
Though I had hoped as a young person to contribute to the electric vehicle renaissance, I never did become an engineer. I still kept up with developments, had ideas of my own, and continued to dream of the day that a practical electric car might come within reach. In more recent years, I began to wonder if it would come before I was too old to have a drivers’ license.
New battery technology eventually did allow “rich men’s toys” to be developed, but these cars were so removed from daily life as to seem impossible. An electric car that anyone could drive seemed as remote as ever. To replace the role of gasoline for long range travel required a prohibitively expensive battery (and where could one “fill up” on the road?).
Then, I heard about the Chevy Volt: an electric car plus. With a battery pack inexpensive enough to purchase, yet practical enough for daily driving: even offering a rapidly-refilled gasoline backup for long distance travel. A car which would never leave a motorist stranded on the side of the road with a depleted battery. A meaningful step towards meeting future transportation needs.
I have hoped that I might still have a role to play in bringing the electric car to every person, even if it only means leaving comments at gm-volt.com. If I can participate in the Volt’s beginnings by only sampling that technology, perhaps I will still have that chance.
5. Why I Want a Chevy Volt
The reasons come in 3 flavors.
Flavor 1 — More than anything else, I think it will be a fun car to start up, because you don’t have to, then it will be a fun car to drive, because it has a low center of gravity and smooth acceleration, and then it will be a fun car to ride around in, because it seems to have all sorts of nifty gadgets in the console, and all sorts of nifty displays on the front panel. Sure, all cars are at one level just transportation from A to B, but life is short, so why have a car that is boring when there is another car that will be fun?
Flavor 2 — To show other people, maybe to show off to other people a little bit, but really mainly to show people who are interested already. OK, if my neighbors at home admire it, that is fine. On a much more serious level I work in a university and people think of me as a car person. Having worked where I work for a long time I know a lot of people at all different levels and schools of a wide and wonderful institution. University people are tuned into the future. Some days we think we create the future, through generations of students who go out and do wonderful things. Here there has been a lot of discussion of electric cars and what they will be like, in class and out of class. I want to drive one and then to own one so that it is possible for me to start talking about what the ARE like, not just what they MIGHT BE like or SHOULD BE like. And, assuming that is good as I have every expectation that it will be, I want to be able to show the car to students, staff, administrators and faculty, for all will really want to know.
And flavor 3 — the Volt is a car that has acquired a community of fans and followers through gm-volt.com They are knowledgeable (really are), eccentric, irascible, and intense people. Driving a Volt and owning a Volt, whenever they should be for sale here, is what this community is going to do, and me too. If the driving opportunity becomes a way to meet some more of them in person, so much the better.
6.Why Wouldn’t I want a Volt?! ….I can’t think of even one reason NOT to!
As an astrophysicist who worked on NASA’s “moon shot” throughout the 1960’s, I’ve always thought of GM’s decision to design, develop and market an electric automobile as not unlike America’s decision to design, develop and launch a man-bearing rocket to the moon. It has the same kind of overwhelming risks, heart-pumping excitement and huge potential rewards. It demands developing break-through technologies and facing overwhelming challenges unlike any encountered before. It risks enormous financial losses ….as well as painful losses in global prestige…. in event of failure.
So I have followed the Volt’s development at GM-Volt.com with genuine fervor since 2007. A day seldom passes without my reading most of the topics and comments on this remarkable blog. I even flew from my home near the Kennedy Space Center to a truly milestone event sponsored by GM-Volt.com ….VoltNation in NYC two years ago this month…. where I was privileged to meet and speak with Lyle Dennis, Bob Lutz, Tony Pozawatz, Andrew Farah as well as others on GM‘s Volt development team. Upon returning home afterward, I was PUMPED!
One thought I shared with several GM and other attendees at VoltNation was that I believed we had relied on American ingenuity and hard work to beat the Russians to the moon ….and that GM could count on it to beat their competitors world-wide to a viable EV design ….a design that could be manufactured in large numbers and that would revolutionize automotive design (just as we revolutionized space travel).
And the GM team has not shirked from the task. The car is powerful, quiet, responsive, reliable, handles well and meets the daily driving requirements of most Americans without using a single drop of gasoline ….at a cost for electricity roughly one-fifth that for gasoline! In addition, because the Volt’s EREV architecture embodies two independent sources of power (or “fuel”), the likelihood of ever being stranded along a street or highway is vanishingly small by contrast to present-day cars. Also, an electric motor’s inherently much higher reliability will greatly reduce maintenance requirements (and costs). And “range anxiety”, an unfortunate aspect of ordinary EV designs, completely disappears with the Voltec EREV design.
So in short ….moon shot or not…. there’s simply not a single reason NOT to want a Chevy Volt!
Korea-based LG Chem is the lithium-ion battery supplier for GM’s Chevrolet Volt electric car.
GM has been working closely with LG’s Michigan-based subsidiary Compact Power Inc. since mid-2007 to first develop and then refine the Volts’ 16 kwh battery pack. In January of 2009 it was announced that LG had been awarded the Volt’s battery contract. Since then, hundreds of packs have been built, and GM has launched its own battery pack production facility which has been operational since January.
The lithium-ion cells have been manufactured on a line at LG Chem’s battery plant in Korea, where the cells for the initial production run of Volts will continue to come from.
The source of these cells will soon change to the USA.
Today LG Chem has announced it will invest $303 Million to build a lithium-ion cell manufacturing plant in Holland Michigan. The 650,000 square foot plant will create 400 jobs and be capable of producing from 15 to 20 million prismatic automotive cells per year, which is enough to sustain a production capacity of around 60,000 Chevy Volts per year.
LG Chem has already secured a $151.5 million DOE loan for the construction of the plan. It will match those funds with an additional $151.5 million.
Groundbreaking on the facility, which will be located on a 120 acre site in Holland Michigan, is expected to begin this summer and the plant will be fully operational in 2012.
The plant will be operated by Compact Power Inc, and though it is capable of making cells for other vehicles as well, initially it will only make the cells for the Chevrolet Volt. It is capable of from 50,000 to 200,00o vehicle battery packs per year, depending on their size.
“LG Chem’s selection of Holland to house the company’s battery cell facility was a balanced decision based on the city’s excellent infrastructure and proven, quality workforce,” said Jae Ham, senior vice president, LG Chem. “What’s more, LG Chem was impressed with Holland’s outstanding determination and sincere effort and commitment to be at the forefront of the new green energy economy which will result in Michigan becoming the leader in the electric vehicle industry.”
“Thanks to a bold vision and aggressive strategy, Michigan is now the leader of the U.S. advanced-battery industry,” Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm said. “We thank LG Chem for its commitment to our state, and we are proud to partner with the company, the city of Holland and the Obama Administration to grow a new industry and new jobs here.”
And from a mere concept only three years ago, the Volt and our enthusiasm may well have helped steward the rebirth of the automotive industry in the United States. We are witnessing the first steps of a brand new era.
Later this year and early next year the first mass-produced electric cars will reach the retail market. Nissan will be releasing its 100 mile range pure battery electric vehicle (BEV) and GM will be releasing its extended range electric car (EREV) Chevrolet Volt.
GM has long expressed its strategy with the Volt is to eliminate range anxiety, and many hear among us agree it is a very good solution.
It still remains unknown which architecture will be more popular among the general population of consumers when they finally have a chance to buy them.
I had the chance to ask Mark Reuss who is GM’s new President of North America what his opinion is on this. I asked whether he believes BEVs or EREVs will turn out to be more popular.
“Long term demand (for) BEV could be higher as EREV initially leads the way with battery technology like the lithium ion pack in the Volt…first gen,” stated Reuss.
The initial EREV technology as he sees it “then feeds BEV-like vehicles.”
“While EREV will be wildly popular at first with Volt,” says Reuss. “As the technology flows down to BEV in what will be smaller cars to carry smaller packs, that may be the higher volume play over a longer time.”
Since Reuss is newly in charge of GM North America sales and marketing, his opinions are likely to play a significant role in the company’s strategy going forward.
It appears he believes the Volt is a stepping stone to a market of pure EVs, and that the process of developing the technology for Volt will help lower the costs and broaden the acceptance for EVs in the future.
