GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Today I took the next big step towards becoming one of the country’s first Chevrolet Volt owners. So thrilled with the occasion I felt a need to write about it here.

For the first time I am not writing about something happening in Detroit, in China, in California or anywhere else. I am writing about something happening in my own home.

As a member of the Volt consumer advisory board I am scheduled to take delivery of a Chevrolet Volt on or about October 25, a mere six days from now. Part of this thrilling opportunity is getting a free 240-v charger installed in my garage.

Owners will be able to buy these chargers for $495 from GM’s distribution partner SPX, who will either contract an electrician to do the installation fro about $1500, or let the owner do it themselves. There is also funding for 4100 free chargers, that can be obtained from either EcoTality or Coulomb Technologies.

Today an electrician spent the better part of five hours installing the official Voltec charger in my garage.   I was not present, but it seems much of the work involved running about 30 feet of conduit to the new charger and disconnecting the old charger.

I already had 240 volt line there from my breaker panel, which had been used in my previous MINI E Clipper Creek charger. That unit ran on 32 amps. The GM unit only runs on 16 amps and has a maximum output of 3.3 kw. Using it allows the car to charge from empty to full in about 4 hours.

Some electricity during charging could be used to condition the cab and/or the battery.

Since GM is only using the middle band of the battery’s total charging capacity, recharging is linear. There is no more rapid early phase.

Anyway this charger really is a thing of beauty. It is strong robust and attractive. The wire is thick and curled. GM has tested running it over repeatedly with no loss of function. It is also weatherized.

For those who are interested, I have implemented a Volt CAB Forum in the forum section of this site. It is a public place to interact with CAB members. I have invited them all, but cannot guarantee they will participate. They have a private GM-sanctioned forum to use instead. I have chosen not to join that, as I feel the people, the long-standing GM-Volt readers and long-standing fans of the car should be able to see and participate in all the discussion.

Six more days!  Guess I’ll have to move that rack…yeah I know, paint the wall…

The Chevrolet Volt is a groundbreaking, technologically disruptive vehicle that defies old standard EPA labeling rules.  Despite the fact that Volt prototypes have been running for well over a year, the EPA remains uncertain on how to label the car.  Though we may all have our own ideas, the way the EPA chooses to construct the label, and what values it includes, may have a significant effect on consumer opinions and eventual purchase decisions.

The same holds true for Nissan’s plain battery electric car.  Obviously in both cases the traditional highway/city mpg won’t do.

GM hopes the EPA can produce a label prior to launch, and EPA spokesperson Cathy Milbourne told the New York Times the label will appear “shortly.”

“Right now it looks like there’s going to be a lot on the label,” said GM vice president Tom Stephens. “They’re trying to figure out what are all the variables that customers are going to see out there.”

Recently the EPA announced it was considering changing the labels on all cars, but those won’t come into use until 2012 model year cars are available.  The 2011 Volt needs a label now.  The EPA’s Milbourne did confirm the EPA would still be using standard highway and city cycles to measure the Volt’s performance. This includes a battery of five tests that sum to 43.9 miles.

To be accurate the EPA must include battery efficiency, charge-sustaining fuel efficiency, and expected gas and electric use over time. Other considerations are expected fuel cost and even miles per gallon equivalents of fuel plus electricity.

“There are going to be new and unique numbers to classify the new and unique behavior of this car,” said Volt powertrain chief engineer Pam Fletcher. “We need to talk about electricity usage and we need to talk about gasoline usage and we need to figure out the best way to do that.”

Fletcher conceded, as most media test drives have confirmed, the Volt will get “some kind of combined fuel economy that’s in the mid- to upper 30s,” in charge-sustaining mode.

Though the label is still forthcoming, the EPA has apparently already decided on some level how they will classify the car.  Their website lists the Volt as a “plug-in hybrid” and the LEAF as an “electric car.”

Source (New York Times)

One thing us enthusiasts hope for is high demand and production of the Chevrolet Volt.

The exact planned number had been in flux for a number of years, but in the Summer Volt marketing director Tony DiSalle announced GM would produce 10,000 Volts in 2011, and 30,000 in 2012.  Shortly after that the 2012 number was upwardly revised to 45,000 reportedly based on demand.

At this point GM says Volt orders are coming in “hot and heavy.”  DiSalle also advised me in personal communication that GM already has 150,000 handraisers for the car, not including the 50+ thousand on this website.  He noted GM was “hearing from dealers that many have significantly more demand than allocation.”

At the recent Volt media launch, vehicle line director Doug Parks has further revised the numbers.

He said GM would be building between 10,000 and 15,000 Volts in 2011, and likely will build to the maximum capacity of 60,000 in 2012. This number realigns with the old projections Bob Lutz used to give.

Parks concedes maybe even that won’t be enough.  “Starting in ’12, we’ll be at this max rate of 60,000,” Parks said.  “If we think this thing is crazy higher volume than we thought, we have the ability to increase volume and crank that up.” GM’s Browstown battery plant where the packs are produced is believed to be expandable to at least 100,000 units annually, if not more. Supplier LG Chem has substantial cell capacity in Korea and is already building a Michigan plant which will go into operation next year.

Parks did note that 5000 cars from the 2011 production run will be exported to Canada and other countries like China.

He also acknowledged the high initial price of the Volt is a barrier to mass adoption, and that many people who would wan’t the car couldn’t afford it. The $7500 tax credit and superb $350 per month lease price will help, but GM does plan to get costs down in time.

“Our business model for the Volt is not finalized yet,” he said. “We need to continue to make that (price) better as we go forward.”

Source (Detroit News)

Last week GM hosted groups of media for the Chevrolet Volt launch event in Rochester, Michigan. Each reporter, including myself, had the chance to drive the Volt about 200 miles throughout the region.

On the first day we drove the car will a fully charged battery from the Detroit airport to the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester MI where we stayed and launch activities were taking place. GM devised this leg of driving as a competition. Teams of one or two journalists took turns at the wheel, each completing half of the trip.  Single journalists got to drive the whole time.  The team that could arrive to the destination with the most electric range remaining would get to have a Volt to take home for one month.

As I previously reported, my team traveled the 45.9 miles with 3 miles remaining on the meter. I personally took it easy with accelerating and braking and managed to go 18.9 miles on 8 miles of registered range used, but my partner was a bit more stompy on the pedals.

GM has nearly completed the competition and has announced the results.

There were a total of 24 teams and 38 journalists. My team came in so far tied for tenth place.

The current winning team, composed of EV advocate Chelsea Sexton and Tamara Warren of Gotryke.com managed to traverse the 45.8 miles with 12 miles still remaining, an effective range of at least 57.8 but likely more.

The lowest team had their generator go on on 36.9 miles.

The average distance traveled was 47.1 miles, with 3.3 miles of remaining range.  Thus the average groupo of driver with two or three people in the car were able to manage 50.2 miles of range when they made an effort to be conservative.  The trip included average speeds around 45 to 50 MPH which is said to be an efficiency sweet spot for the car.  There were no highways, but there were a significant number of stops either for traffic lights, stops signs, or traffic.

This experiment confirms the Volt can achieve well above it’s original goal of 40 miles of range set out in 2007 at the time of the Volt concept revealing.

According to sources, one engineer within GM was able to achieve 60 miles prior to the generator going on.

“Obviously these are just beginning data points, and in the context of an efficiency game,” said Chelsea Sexton. “But it reinforces the expectation that many people won’t be seeing a gas station up close very often.”

“Rob Peterson was especially surprised by our results; in addition to the fact that Tamara had never driven an EV before, he noted on my fb page that ‘Chelsea typically drives like she just robbed a bank’!” she added.

Source (GM)

As one of the members of the Volt Customer Advisory Board, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Eric Rotbard, and I am an attorney in White Plains, New York. Coincidently, I live minutes from Lyle. What some here might view as heretical, my interest in the Volt resulted from my interest in GM’s hydrogen fuel cell program. One night, back in 2003 or so, I was griping about how it seemed like every time someone sneezed in the Middle East, our gas prices would shoot through the roof. They would eventually come back down, but never quite to the price they had been. Yet, we would be happy. I found this infuriating, and wondered what the auto makers were doing about it. After all, the auto makers made the most profits on their large, low mileage vehicles, which were precisely the sales that would suffer from high gas prices. So, I did some web surfing and came across an article about how GM was investing over $1B over the course of the decade to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology. After reading about it, it truly seemed like the holy grail of alternative propulsion. Hydrogen is infinitely renewable, and can be produced from incredibly varied feedstocks, ranging from water, to municipal solid waste, to even gasoline. Heck, a dystopian future society could make it from people (soylent clear, anyone?). The only vehicle emission is a small amount of water vapor. It’s like two great tastes that taste great together: energy independence and environmental responsibility. I can see Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher actually agreeing that this is a good idea. When I learned that GM was going to be giving out 100 or so fuel cell vehicles to consumers in NY, LA and Wastington, DC, I was among the first to raise my hand to volunteer. I think it took a lot of guts for GM to choose lawyer in its first round of drivers. They were that confident in the product. I certainly would not have chosen me ☺. From my experience taking part in this program (called Project Driveway), I learned more about electric drive, and became cognizant of green issues. I am currently a hypocrite though, as I proudly drive a 1997 Camaro Z-28 with a climate-busting 350 cubic inch V8.

I was extremely excited by the Volt announcement in 2007. In my opinion, it represented the first true viable paradigm shift away from gasoline. For the first time, a mass market, mainstream vehicle deemphasizes gasoline in favor of electric drive, and provides an almost “have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too” proposition: the driver is not limited by range (as gasoline stations remain ubiquitous), yet most drivers will wind up using far less (if any) gasoline. I am a big fan of the “have your cake and eat it too” mentality. I believe that striving for no compromises is a recipe for great industry. I say almost, because in order for it to be the perfect solution, we need a full range of Voltec vehicles, at the full range of price-points, all with zero emissions, and with convenient fueling for the range extender. And I want power seats.

As you can imagine, I am unbelievably excited to be chosen as a CABbie. I fully intend to tell Chevy the good, the bad and the ugly. I am particularly curious about whether I will get the 40 miles with my driving style. I like torque, and I may not ever turn sport mode off. Well, maybe just to see how high I can get the battery mileage… Come to think of it, it would be cool if OnStar had an auto-Tweet feature when the driver hits a personal battery mileage best… Or maybe something like Xbox 360 achievements- hit 45 battery miles and get a silver medal icon on the OnStar vehicle report page. Hit 50 miles and get a gold medal icon. The driver would earn more achievements for hitting high battery mileage targets on consecutive and/or numbers of drives… Maybe I would leave sport mode off if there were meta games like that which promote green driving habits. Or I might earn the booby achievement for worst mileage. I can’t wait to find out. Now, if only GM could harness the hot air that we lawyers generate, all our energy problems would be solved….

As regular readers here know, I have faithfully followed every detail of the Chevrolet Volt story and every morsel of news since the car was no more than a show car shell and a pen and paper idea.

Over these months and years we’ve run into many controversial moments.

Perhaps none has been as controversial as the present “gas engine driving the wheels” fiasco.

Earlier this week I attended GM’s first media press conference where executive engineer Larry Nitz described how the Volt operated.  In the lecture he specifically mentioned 70 MPH as the point where the combustion engine can contribute power indirectly to the driveshaft.  He was quite specific this can only occur once the vehilce is in extended range mode.

I reported this information in great detail here in a post called Chevrolet Volt Electric Propuslion System Unveiled.

Soon after, news started coming out suggesting the engine can help drive the car at even lower velocities.  I sent a note to Mr. Nitz, and spokesperson Rob Peterson responded:

The engine WILL NOT turn on while the car is in electric driving mode (which for your trip two days ago approached 50 miles) – simply put, it is a full-performance battery electric vehicle.

Once the battery is depleted, the Volt’s gas-powered engine engages to create the power needed to extend the range of the vehicle several hundred additional miles.  In extended range mode the Volt is powered by either a 1-motor series or 2-motor combined mode. The vehicle will select the most efficient mode for the driving condition:  1-motor series – for operations almost exclusively below 30 mph; 2-motor combined almost exclusively above 70 mph.  At speeds in between 30-70 mph, the Volt will select the most optimally efficient drive mode amongst the two.

So it turns out the engine can contribute motive force to the Volt even at speeds from 30 to 70 mph presumably when the power demand calls for it such as hills and strong acceleration.  Perhaps even more than that, Peterson wouldn’t say.

Volt chief engineer Andrew Farah explained this a bit more in an interview.

“The 70 mile an hour thing, we’re really not sure where that came from,” he said.  “Somebody didn’t get the story right.”

He said there were specific determinants when the engine would provide input to the driveshaft.  “Its’ really more an issue of torque and power than it is of speed,” he said.

The Volt has internal programming to determine at what points the engine should be coupled in.  “It has an efficiency map, and based on the efficiency map it will decide what to do,” said Farah.

The gear-heads among us, myself included, want to know exactly how the Volt works, and for that reason these details are important.  In the big scheme of things, though, and to most consumers, it really doesn’t matter.  The car will carry you for 40 miles without gas. That’s the promise.

After that it becomes a hybrid.  It is actually the reverse of current hybrids like the Prius in that in the Volt the electric motor is the main player, and the gas engine is the minor assistant.  In most of today’s hybrids the opposite is true.  This allows the Volt to have the unmistakable feel of pure electric drive in all circumstances.  To that I can fully attest.

Do I feel GM lied to me as some whiny journalists have claimed? No. Lying is too strong a term.  It was more of a corporate decision to conceal these details until an appropriate time to keep a competitive edge.

I don’t feel betrayed, or frankly really care at all.  And to all the journalists getting lit up about all this I’m really not sure what the fuss is all about..ruffled feathers?

What it is about is having the most people use the least oil as possible, without compromising their lifestyles in a car that’s good looking, high tech, and fun to drive.  And to that mission the Volt holds true in a big way.

GM has done an amazing thing here despite all the odds against them, an for that I am extremely pleased that I have committed nearly four years of my life evangelizing this car.  I should be getting my Volt in just 10 days, and I can’t wait.

So let us have a moment of silence and allow this controversy to die a natural death.