GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

This week BMW took a giant step fully into electrification of the automobile.  The company has gradually been working towards a production electric vehicle program beginning with the MINI E test fleet it leased to 450 Americans starting in 2009.

Next it plans a small scale test program of an Active E electric 1-series.

BMW has just announced, however, that it would be investing €400 million, or $568 million, to bring the third stage vehicle in this program, the Megacity into production.

The money would be for development and to retool and prepare their plant in Leipzig, Germany for electric car production.

The company also announced it would bring to production the rather complex and dramatic Vision Efficient Dynamics electric sports car that is a mixture of pure EV, PHEV, and extended range electric drivetrains.  The car has a 3 cylinder turbo 163 hp deisel engine and two electric motors.  The first motor is situated between the engine and the transmission and produces up to 51 hp.  The second motor is positioned at the rear and can produce up to 139 hp.  Combined, the the powerplants can produce 328 hp, enough to propel the car from 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds while at the same time managing over 60 MPG.  The car has a lithium ion battery pack and can also travel up to 31 miles on electricity alone.

This car will be a low volume dramatic and expensive statement that will be available in 2013.

The Megacity electric car will be the bread and butter vehicle.  A design freeze has reportedly been achieved and advanced prototypes will soon begin road testing.  BMW will likely produce tens of thousands of these vehicles starting in 2013.

The Megacity will be marketed as a sub-brand and will likely be a 5-seater similar in size to the MINI.  It will be ultralight weight and made out of carbon fiber supplied by a company in Washington state.

Like GM and Nissan before it, BMW is trying to keep the development open to hook early adopters.

“We have never been this open about an ongoing development process. We sense a hunger for information,” said BMW chief of design Adrian van Hooydonk. “People will see that it’s a BMW, but they will also see that it’s a BMW like no other.”

“By producing the Megacity Vehicle in Germany the BMW Group is demonstrating a clear commitment to Germany as a high-tech location. With this vehicle we are revolutionising automotive design and production, and offering our customers the first purpose-built electric vehicle for urban areas. This will be the world’s first volume-produced car with a passenger compartment made from lightweight CFRP, as less weight enables a longer range,” said BMW Chairman Norbert Reithofer. “We made a conscious decision to produce the car in Germany, at our plant in Leipzig – our newest and most cutting-edge facility with the most flexible structures,” he added

Source (New York Times) and (BMW)

We are finally in that long awaited month of November 2010, the month the Chevy Volt will enter retail production. Yet despite all these months and years of discussion and the full engineering of the car and its performance being recently laid bare, there is still no official EPA label for the car.

We believe the EPA may still issue an 11th hour label, though in the past GM has said it will launch with a temporary label if necessary.

I had the chance to recently discuss the Volt’s fuel efficiency with Doug Parks who is the Volt vehicle line executive.

Parks says for EV range, “we are saying 25 to 50 miles.” He notes that the EPA will test the car and then reduce the efficiency by essentially a fudge factor. “When the EPA runs their test, they get a number and they will cut it by 30 percent, and that will be our label number for EV range,” he said.

Park explains this 30% rule has been developed over time and is applied to every car. “There is an unadjusted number and then they cut it by 30 percent,” he said. “They’ve run tests overtime and they’ve gotten down to this 30 percent.”

To this date the EPA “is still in testing with this car,” he said.

Parks also explained why GM moved from the previous single value of 40 to a range. “There’s one thing about this car that we’re certain, if you tell everybody a number, no one will get it,” he said. “It depends on the driving, the climate and the terrain. We can say around a number but not an exact number, it’s going to move.”

Parks also believes people will regularly get more than 50 miles of EV range, but not less than 25. “We’re saying 25 to 50, but I guarantee some people will get more than 50, some will even get sixty,” he said. “If you go out there and drive 85 miles per hour and hammer it and pay no attention, you might get 25, but hopefully no one gets 25.”

Parks admits despite GM’s insistence on a range, the EPA will still only release a single number. “Let’s say we get an official EV range of 37 miles,” he said. “If they test it at 52 then they cut it by 30 percent it will be 37.”

He believes people may just complain the resulting EPA figure is too low. “We’d love to have people complain to the government ‘hey my car gets way more than that’,” he said. “Usually for the EPA, it’s the other way around.”

Charge sustaining fuel efficiency will be treated similarly.

“When you get to fuel economy, we say mid to high 30s,” said Parks. “We’re trying to under promise and over deliver.”

Parks thinks this will be the official EPA result, though perhaps higher. “We’ll get our label for the car, there will be the city and the highway and the combined, and they’re going to be in the mid to high 30s.”

“Maybe we’ll get a 40,” he added hopefully. Asked what types of values he has been seeing in testing he said ,”we see some people getting 45, 48 miles per gallon.”

Parks believes the official label will wind up having a lot of information. “We think the’yre going to give an EV range, a total range of EV plus charge sustaining, and then they’ll do a traditional city, highway, and combined fuel economy when you’re in charge sustaining mode,” he said. “In addition we do think they’re going to work in an MPGe, and probably have one of those numbers in EV mode and a different number in charge sustaining mode.”

He admits the labeling process has been very challenging.“We spent so much time with these guys trying to adhere to what they want to do and also help try to tell our story, ” said Parks. “One of the difficult things about this car is its so hard to put a single number on it.”

Once in a while in this long saga that is GM-Volt we have to turn our eyes to financial news.

Late Wednesday the company released a trifecta of positive news; sales were up, profits were up, and terms of the IPO were released.

Sales
In the month of October GM sold 183,392 vehicles, 13% more units than it did in Ocotber 2009. By brand, Chevrolet increased 7%, Buick increased 39%, GMC increased 30%, and Cadillac increased 15%. The growth was fueled mostly by crossover and full-sized pickup sales. In fact over 47,000 of the vehicles sold were GMC Sierras and Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks. GM did sell 5048 units of the newly introduced all-important Chevrolet Cruze. Chevrolet sales made up 68% of the total.  GM picked up 2% market share.

GM also became the first automaker to sell 2 million vehicles in China, and in October alone sold 199,641 units there, more than in the US.

Meanwhile Ford sales were up 19%, Chrysler 37%, and Toyota actually dropped 4.4%.  In October the SAAR for car sales overall reached 12 million.

Profits
GM also decided to release preliminary third quarter financials. The company reported it expected revenue of $34 billion for the quarter, with net earnings on that of $1.9 to $2.1 billion attributable to comon stockholders which amounts to $2.2 to $2.4 billion in earnings prior to interest and taxes. The company even says it expects profit in the fourth quater, though lower due to increased cost associated with the launch of the Cruze and Volt.

“We are extremely pleased with the level of progress the company is making,” said Chris Liddell, GM vice chairman and chief financial officer. “We will deliver a solid and profitable first year post-bankruptcy, and we are continuing to improve our balance sheet and most importantly, the quality of our vehicles.”

IPO
GM also announced Wednesday it had commenced its long awaited public offering of stock expect to yeild $13 billion. The company will issue 356 million shares of common stock (to be sold be certain shareholders) that will be priced between 26.00 and 29.00 per share. There will be an additional 50 million shares of preferred series B stock sold at $50.00 per share.

After the IPO there will be 1.5 billion shares outstanding and the US gover,ment will have reduced its holding to 43% down from 61%. It is expected the stock will be priced on November 17th and enter the secondary market on the following day in the NYSE under the old symbol GM.

The IPO would put GMs value at around 41 billion currently and it will still take a few years for the government to sell off the rest of its stake.  If GM can eventually reach a market capitalization of $70 billion, or around $43 per share, the government will be able to recoup all its investment and break even. That value would put the company greater than Ford and less than Toyota.

The stock sale is being underwritten by Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan. BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities and RBC Capital Markets will be the joint book-running managers for the offering.

Source (GM)

Chevrolet has unveiled a new custom exterior and design package for the Volt that its calling the Z-Spec concept.

The package is for unique design elements only that provide visual cue changes but won’t actually affect the aerodynamic performance of the car.

Features include special lower rocker panel, lower front fascia, grille, 19 inch wheels, and taillamps. GM says though this package is still only a concept, it is being considered for production.

“The concept combines the Volt’s advanced electric propulsion technology with the flair of Z-Spec, because efficiency and high style needn’t be mutually exclusive,” said Paul Arnone, lead designer. “The Z-Spec enhancements give the vehicle a sportier look that doesn’t affect its electric driving range or overall efficiency.”





The following are vehicle highlights:

Exterior:
• “Icy White” Metallic paint
• Lower rocker panels and lower front fascia
• Black chrome satin finish on the grille, belt moldings and outside rearview mirrors
• Billet aluminum Chevy “brand bar”
• Rear fascia
• Rear tail lamps
• Graphics package
• 19-inch GM Accessory wheels

Interior:
• Custom Z-Spec graphic door inserts
• Racing-style pedals
• Custom leather-wrapped, flat-bottom steering wheel with Z-Spec logo
• Recaro leather-trimmed front seats with orange accent stitch
• Custom Z-Spec floor mats

GM is also unveiling several other Volt exterior decal packages at the SEMA conference. The first is shown below:

Source (GM)

The battery pack for the Chevrolet Volt is warrantied for 8 years/100,000 miles. GM considers this the best available warranty for a new technology battery of its kind. It does not meet the California Air Resources Board (CARB) requirement; however, necessary for them to consider the car as a partial-zero emissions vehicle. That standard is 10 years/150,000 miles.

As such, CARB designated the Volt as ULEV, similar to a fuel efficient gas car, not considering its EV operation.

GM expects the 2012 model year Volt to meet the CARB requirement, though the New York Times reported Volt director Tony Posawatz as saying GM needed to work out some “kinks” before they could increase the warranty.

I asked Mr. Posawatz exactly what those kinks might be.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “We are leading with the 50 state version with an 8 year warranty before we start the version for CA that requires 10 years.”

“It’s just smart business,” he added.

Pressed further as to whether technological refinements had to be implemented he said, “just continuous improvement which customers would expect of us.”

Another attribute lacking in the 2011 Volt is E85 capability. Engineers previously said the 2012 car will have it. Or will it?

According to Posawtz, E85 “timing (is) being determined.”

GM and IBM announced this week that they have partnered to develop the software which GM used to develop and perfect the Chevy Volt. This includes the sophisticated battery simulation software that allowed the car to be developed in only 29 months from the point of greenlight. GM had to project and simulate how the battery would function and operate over a ten year/150,000 mile lifetime in that compressed period, a feat IBMs software helped to achieve. Both IBM supercomputers and software development tools were utilized in the process.

IBM software and supercomputers were also used to design and develop the multitude of electronic controls systems within the the Volt and to determine the optimal way for them to interact, creating an ideal “system of systems” configuration.

“Software and controls are a key differentiator, and have significant value in driving vehicle development and providing unique solutions to our customers, especially in vehicles as advanced as the Chevrolet Volt,” said Micky Bly, GM Executive Director of Global Electrical Systems, Hybrids, Electric Vehicles and Batteries. “We must have the ability to deliver innovative electronics and software faster than our competitors and that requires us to develop our vehicles with a set of world-class software processes and tools.”

“IBM is focused on providing our clients with higher value capabilities that enables them to transform the way they develop and design not just the products they deliver, but innovate in the markets in which they compete,” said Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President, Middleware Software, IBM. “The Volt represents the convergence of the manufacturing and digital environments that are at the core of building smarter products.”

The Volt contains and relies on 10 million lines of computer code that controls its 100 electronic components. In comparison, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner has just 8 million lines of code. The Volt is 40% electronic, up from the 5% electronic rate of the typical car in the 1980s. Not only that, but Bly states “we can safely say that there’s a 40 percent to 60 percent increase in software code relative to another (conventional) car.”

In particular, it was IBM’s so-called Rational software that GM used to design and test the Volt. IBM acquired the company Teleologic in 2007 and as a result expanded its Rational Software line into automotive applications. The software enabled engineers to quickly make changes in the system and predict the results on-the-fly as development progressed.

It was GM’s goal to design this incredibly complex car so that its orchestra of computerized electronic processes operate seamlessly below the surface to simply create a fun and pleasant user experience.

It is certainly hoped daily Volt drivers never need to learn about all these items, because if they do, it is likely to mean something has gone wrong.

“We haven’t done a vehicle this complex in the history of GM,” said Bly . “The software–the control side–is what ties together (the mechanical components)…It’s really the heart and soul of how the car performs.”

IBM software itself is not used inside the production car.

Source (IBM) (CNET) and (ZDNet)