GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Only about 10% of the traffic to GM-Volt.com comes from Canada, yet our friends to the north seem to be very vocal in the comments (you know who you are).  Earlier this week, GM released the news they have been waiting for.

The Chevrolet Volt will become available in Canada in the second half of 2011. The following seven cities will be the initial launch markets: Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Oshawa, Ottawa-Gatineau, Vancouver and Victoria.

“The Chevrolet Volt is a game-changer, offering consumers an electric vehicle without compromise,” said Kevin Williams, president and managing director of GM of Canada. “These seven cities represent some of our largest automotive markets in Canada, where customers and major fleet operators are known to be leaders in adopting groundbreaking environmental technologies.”

GM is also working closely with Canadian utility companies to prepare these markets for the arrival of the car.  It is expected the Volt will become available all across Canada by the end of the 2012 model year, but service locations will be broadly available from the point of launch.  Canadian pricing has not been determined and will be set closer towards launch.

In addition to the Canadian markets, GM has made some inroads towards getting the car into Asia.  It was previously announced that the car will be exported to China  in 2011, a market that could become quite large.

Apparently, the Volt has also been given the greenlight for a test fleet in Japan.  GM said it would introduce a limited number of Volts into Japan in 2011 for market test purposes.  If this goes successfully it could pave the way to wider export volumes

Furthermore, this week a new trade agreement was reached with South Korea which will remove import tariffs that slow down the purchasing of US-made cars in Korea.  In theory this could open the door to Volt sales in Korea as well.

GM spokesperson Rob Peterson however says currently there are no plans to export the Volt to Korea “at this time.”  Peterson admits in the future “anything’s possible,” but notes at this time “Korea is a unique market where we have a strong presence already.”  A test fleet of pure electric Cruzes are already on the roads there.

So not only will the Volt be able to help get the US off of oil, but has the potential to help to do so for the world, underscoring how the Volt may eventually become a very large volume product for GM.

Check out below a cool new two minute time lapse video of the Volt being built at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant:

Source (GM)

Chevrolet has just released a video of a new 30 second 2011 Chevy Volt television commercial.

The ad is minimalistic and centers around a plain 120-v household socket sitting in a garage.

Narrator Tim Allen talks in a soothing manner to the simple socket advising it to “breathe, just breathe.”  The premise is the little socket now has a very important if not intimidating job to do recharging the Chevrolet Volt with its athletic looks, instant torque and 100 mile per hour top speed.

Allen tells the socket any one of them can do the job of recharging the Volt for about $1.50 per day.

“It’s a big step up from the leafblower,” he adds.

It is a short, simple, sweet and cute commercial that really tells the whole important story of the Volt in a nutshell.

More ads, more demand, less gas.

See the ad below:

This is now the second national ad spot GM has created for the Volt. The first one, called Anthem, that appeared during the World Series is below:

With the release of the EPA testing result we finally have a good idea how much electrical energy the Chevy Volt will consume.

Its lithium-ion battery back contains 288 cells which combine to a total of 16 kwh of energy storage capacity when full.  From the days of the concept GM said it would only use half of that energy to travel 40 miles, keeping the rest as a gradually receding buffer to keep the battery healthy.  Over time engineers realized they were comfortable using more of that energy safely.

In the final configuration, according to GM’s Director of Battery Systems Mickey Bly, “we moved the state of charge usage from 50% (8kwh) to around 65% (little over 10kwh) during the development and validation phase as we learned how capable this battery really was.”

Sixty-five percent of 16 is 10.4 kwh.

That is the exact amount of energy the Volt has at its disposal to complete its full range of pure electric driving.  The EPA has determined that will be 35 miles on average. They also report that energy use works out to 37 kwh/100 miles, or 2.7 miles per kwh.  This will depend on driving style, cabin climate control use, and terrain.  Most people will see between 25 and 50 miles of range.  In my experience at mostly high speed highway driving, I range from 32 to 38 miles of range (40 degrees outside and 72 degrees cabin mostly).

One member of the Volt consumer advisory board was able to get more than that when he really tried.  ”The most miles I drove on battery mode was 53.8 miles,” said NY CAB member Robert Becker. “It was 53 degrees outside during the trip.”

“I made an effort to drive as efficiently as I could during this trip,” he said. “I tried to keep the car between 40 and 50 mph and used as little braking as possible during the trip.”

The lowest range I have gotten was 31 miles when I was really hightailing it in the 70-75 mph range on the highway in sports mode and using 72 degree comfort mode HVAC setting on a 32 degree day.

It turns out, however, that the energy in the battery isn’t all the energy the car consumes.  The EPA’s testing shows that the car will consume 12.9 kwh from the grid to fully recharge a depleted battery, considerably more than the aforementioned 10.4 kwh.

“On the EPA rating of 12.9 kwh used, you need to remember they are measuring total energy pulled out of the wall, not what makes it to the battery,” said Bly.  ”(This is) so you know your consumption on electricity.”

“There are losses from the house to the battery from transportation and conversion over the cords, charger, conditioner, and inverter,” he added.

Thus when determining the cost of electricity in driving the Volt one must use the cost of 12.9 kwh divided by the total number of miles it allows you drive, even though the car is going those miles on only 10.4 kwh of on-board energy.

The Chevrolet Volt is a heroic and landmark vehicle, and a grand achievement by General Motors. We here have been following the car’s development since its inception as a concept, and along the way have often wished GM would plan to sell many hundreds of thousands of them. The more Volts on the road, the less oil used.

Of course GM shouldn’t build more cars than can be sold, and more importantly for the newly profitable company, they shouldn’t build cars they cannot make money on.

According to multiple GM executives there is little or no profit being made on each Volt built at a present cost of around $40,000. Furthermore, the $700 million of development that went into the car has to be recouped.

GM does have a plan to make the Volt business case profitable, according to vehicle line executive Doug Parks. “In reality, it won’t be profitable at the beginning,” said Parks about the Volt.

The plan to profitability is to reduce cost on a yearly basis as opposed to waiting the full development cycle to a second generation, typically 5 or 6 years for most cars.  “It is our hope, every year as we have opportunity to improve the performance and even take cost out, that at the end of the first lifecycle we make money,” he said.

Parks also disclosed GM is trying to improve efficiency with each yearly iteration too, but that itself wont help bring down costs, except if less lithium ion cells are needed to achieve the same range.  “We’re developing technology that can lead to minor increases in performance but a big cost reduction,” he said.

“No big changes to range and/or performance, just ongoing tweaks and refinements in many different areas, including battery,” Parks told GM-Volt.  ”We will have a strong focus to improve costs,  but will make sure we at least maintain performance – or even improve it slightly if possible.”

Parks also reported that the entire 2011 build inventory has already been sold out. Those units, he said, “are gone.”

Despite this high demand and low volume, GM has no immediate production modifications.  “There’s really no plan to change that slow ramp-up through next year,” he says. “Then, when we really open it up in ’12, we’ll build our planned volume and see what the market says. If we want to do a lot more, we’ll look at it.”

Source (Wards Auto)

Hat tip to JeremyK.

And finally production of the Chevrolet Volt for consumer delivery has commenced, and with it this country’s first big steps from oil dependence.

The Volt has turned out to be a success from a technology perspective and from the perspective of industry accolades, sweeping four key vehicle of the year awards.

GM has long expected demand for the car will far outstrip supply. Only 10,000 to 15,000 Volts will be produced in 2011, and 45,000 in 2012. How much the demand is remains unknown. As of this writing, GM has now signed up 240,000 interested parties or potential buyers through the Chevrolet.com website.

If there are really that many buyers surely GM will have to build more.

According to reports, outside yesterday’s launch ceremony, GM’s CEO Dan Akerson said the company is actually now studying how they could either double or triple production of the car if the demand materializes.  ”(We have) studies underway to see what we could do if we had to double production [or] triple production,” said Akerson.  ”I have a sense this is going to be a game changer, we have to be prepared to meet that.”

GM North American President Mark Reuss confirmed that the major bottleneck for increasing Volt production is the production and supply of lithium-ion battery cells by LG Chem. Though the Koeran company has massive capacity, only a a certain volume is earmarked for Volt.

Akerson also disclosed GM plans to begin exporting Voltec in the form of the Opel Ampera starting in 2011, increasing the need for supply even more.  Akerson also admitted there is almost no profit per each Volt sold at this point, and that they are being sold “for close to cost.”

E85 capability was also discussed. Though the Volt was initially planned to run on E85, this will be not true at least for the first model year of the car.  Actually, according to VP Tom Stephens, GM has not definitely decided if it ever will be an option.    If they do decide to make the car E85 capable, it would not become available until 2012.

GM will start delivering Volts to dealerships this month and will roll them out to the seven locations already announced (NY, NJ, CT, TX, MI, CA, DC) over the next 12 months in limited supply. Over the first half of 2012 it will become available nationwide.

Source (Automotive News)