GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Recently General Motors conceded it began 2011 Volt roll out too conservatively, but aims to catch up with its now-in-production 2012s to the Nissan LEAF as soon as possible.

“It’s fair to say GM underestimated demand for the Volt,” said Volt Line Director Tony Posawatz. “By January, the capacity we need will be online.”

That capacity at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant is expected to be 5,000 Volts per month, which by the way, is more than GM has sold to date.

A Volt on the line at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.

It was expected these kinds of numbers would be announced for calendar year 2012 to meet GM’s commitment to produce 60,000 Volts and Amperas for worldwide sales next year. Of these, three-fourths will go to the U.S. market with the rest divvied up among Chevrolet’s other markets.

Nonetheless, this will be a significant year-over-year increase for the new kind of car, and GM is now expected to be on better footing to compete with Nissan’s all-electric LEAF.

According to the latest end-of-month tallies, Chevrolet’s Volt trails Nissan’s LEAF, having sold 2,745 Volts compared to 3,875.

In fact, these are only the U.S. numbers, which is all GM has had for the U.S.-only Volt, but Nissan’s CEO Carlos Ghosn recently said that 10,100 LEAFs have been delivered worldwide.

Thus, if anyone is keeping score, Nissan is really well ahead in getting its LEAF in the hands of drivers.

All this said – and as we independently observed not long ago – it is not even a race yet. This week our intuitive analysis was confirmed by at least one professional analyst in an interview with Bloomberg.

When will the real race be on? It will start in 2012, said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive, a firm based in Lexington, Mass.

“This is very much about supply constraints as opposed to a sales race,” Lindland said. “Next year will really show true demand for these kinds of cars and which one wins.”

Volts share the road with some other low emission vehicles at a GM event in Brazil.

Bloomberg reported that both vehicles are actually in short supply and both companies have thousands of people in various regions on waiting lists.

As new models of both pure electric and electric-plus-gas-generator equipped vehicles come online to add to the fray, in question will be which approach gets the most votes.

Will it be EVs or extended-range EVs?

And for those who believe the Volt will be the winner, will the 45,000 units for U.S. delivery be enough? Further, will 15,000 Volts and Amperas for the rest of the world be enough to meet that expected demand? Or will it be their turn to wait as Americans have all year under the circumstances of having some Volts, but with excessively pinched availability?

On this supply question, yesterday we asked GM Spokesman Rob Peterson whether Detroit-Hamtramck could significantly escalate production mid-year if GM determined market conditions would allow for more than the forecast production.

“We’re not publicly discussing production capacity or forecasts beyond 2012 at this time,” Peterson said. “The fact that we provided forecasts for 2011 and 2012 is highly unusual for the industry, but publicly stated as part of the transparent communications approach.”

Although he could not offer the information we asked for, Peterson did clarify another issue. Since Chevrolet has said it would produce 10,000 Volts for the U.S. market in 2011, and we know it has not sold nearly that many but has started producing 2012s already, we asked him to confirm that Chevrolet is counting 2012 Volts built from July onward toward the 2011 total.

Peterson said this the case – Chevrolet built fewer than 4,000 2011 model year Volts, and the rest of 16,000 Volts to be distributed worldwide this year are to be 2012s, albeit built in 2011.

“We produced 3,900-plus 2011 Volts. Roughly 500 were sent to dealers as demos, 200 for internal purposes and the remainder delivered to dealerships (fewer than 100 remain unsold),” Peterson said. “We will produce 16,000 Volts in calendar year 2011 – 12,000 of which will be 2012 model years.”

The same scenario will be true next year he said. In short, Chevrolet is counting the widely published “60,000″ 2012 Volts and Amperas due for global distribution based on units made during the 2012 calendar year. He did not disclose when the 2013 model year will begin, but, he said, “60,000 includes both 2012 and 2013 model year vehicles.”

Bloomberg

The “world’s first extended-range EV” was launched recently by its American-based company to the applause of techies and green-oriented people of many stripes.

Old news you say? Not so fast. This was not the Chevrolet Volt, but a Fisker Karma delivered July 26 – not to Leonardo DiCaprio as had been reported – but to another VIP.

We will get to the delivery shortly, but first will explain that according to the Irvine, Calif.-based company, a subtle but significant distinction defines the petrol-electric-powered Karma as “extended range” – a description that Chevrolet has contended that it pioneered.

2012 Fisker Karma.

This assertion notwithstanding, these were opening lines to Fisker’s recent press release:

“The Fisker Karma is the world’s first extended range EV – offering responsible luxury, incomparable performance and seating for four. Powered by twin 201 HP electric motors that may be augmented by an on-board engine generator, the Karma is capable of delivering over 300 miles of responsible driving – and a top speed of 125 mph.”

The press release does not say whether “responsible driving” includes a top speed of 125 mph on American roads. The likely answer is probably not, but if you have not noticed, it is very easy to misunderstand or react to things read in cyberspace.

Case in point: Since this looked like an example of one-upmanship being played by a company that sourced its engine from GM, and is working to re-purpose one of its old assembly plants, we put in an inquiry to GM’s two media reps assigned to the Volt. Unfortunately, we were told, “Sorry Jeff. We don’t have a comment to respond to this.”

Next we tried Fisker’s Spokesman, Roger Ormisher, and he answered his cell phone – minutes before he said he was ready to call it a day at his hotel room in Milan, Italy. We had been told to direct inquiries to him, but not that he was in Italy instead of California, thus inadvertently managed to get him at 11:45 p.m. Oops.

Although he said he had worked a long day answering questions at a European media driving event, Ormisher instantly forgave apologies for the inopportune timing, and cheerfully invited a several-minute interview.

It’s not an EREV, it’s an EVer.

We told him GM had refused to comment, so he dove right into that topic to diffuse some of the feelings his company’s press release might have stirred up.

“We don’t see it as competitive, we see it as us, GM, others,” Ormisher said. “We don’t see us as direct competitors, we see us as people involved in the future.”

GM has one solution, Fisker has another, Tesla has another, and so on, he said. Development of electric cars of various sorts is collaborative; the effort is toward a common goal – but Ormisher was otherwise clear that there is a difference between Fisker’s solution and GM’s.

Ormisher said the Karma is truer to the “extended range” concept in that petrol power never mechanically contributes to the wheels turning in the way that the Volt can at times.

“Our understanding is that’s different from the way the Chevrolet Volt is configured,” he said, and there is “no direct connection with the driving wheels.”

Undisputed

Given that Chevrolet is not touching this one, we don’t know if there is a debate, but we can report that without controversy Fisker is now fully open for business and working on delivering cars as fast as it can.

This effort began two days ago when Ray Lane became the first person to get one. In addition to being the company’s chairman of the board, and despite being not as famous as Leonardo DiCaprio, Lane is quite accomplished in his own right.

Plush, snappy and functional interior.

Fisker says Lane is a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers in Menlo Park, Calif., also serves as chairman of Carnegie Mellon University and Hewlett-Packard Corporation and as vice chairman of Special Olympics International.

“To be one of the first to have a Fisker Karma in the world is a uniquely satisfying honor for me. Our country, and our business environment – especially here in the Silicon Valley – has been inspired by those who dream and then commit themselves to making their passion real. Henrik Fisker and his devoted team have done just that – combining my passion for driving and the environment,” Lane said. “This is so much more than just another car. The Fisker Karma represents a new era for the automotive industry and I am proud to be driving the dream of all those who have worked so hard to bring this uniquely green and elegant vehicle to market,” Lane concluded.

Good Karma

The Fisker Karma’s 260-horsepower, 2.0-liter, turbocharged, GM-sourced engine feeds power to the two electric traction motors when the approximately 50 miles of all-electric range runs out.

Given a 9.5-gallon fuel tank, Fisker says the Karma should be able to cover about 300 miles in all. Ormisher believes the engine was intended for a Pontiac that was never built, and otherwise spec’d for the Karma.

When in Sport mode which the driver must select, Fisker says the Karma’s engine provides maximum electric power to hit a limited speed of 125 mph, and 0-60 time of 5.9 seconds. In the default all-electric Stealth mode, performance is tuned for range and efficiency, these being 0-60 mph in 6.9 seconds and top speed limited to 95 mph.

Ormisher said the company has 45 dealers in the U.S. so far, and did not speak of restrictions in any American regional markets, as Nissan and Chevrolet made by limiting initial roll out of their LEAF and Volt to several states.

Solar roof.

More limiting may be that the California designed and engineered, Finnish-made Karma is still rare, although Ormisher said it will be produced at about 300 units per week.

If interested in test driving one, you may have a better chance in the near term – better than the media, in fact.

Ormisher said Fisker is reversing the usual order of preference and giving dealers first dibs at test drives, then customers, then media.

We at GM-Volt may be able to sample one by October in Pennsylvania, he said, but you might be able to sooner.

Ormisher said Fisker will be doing a “retail road show” with two cars offering demo drives in 45 cities over a period of 104 days.

So far 2,800 test rides are booked for the two cars. Do you think the Karmas will be hammered after a few thousand people hop in and punch-it?

Such is the cost of doing business – one which Ormisher said he feels very good about being a part of. Fisker was founded in 2007, and Ormisher said it is very much an American company and over the past 18 months it has created 550 American jobs.

Fisker also intends to start production of its “project NINA” which for you to read more about, we will break policy and link to Wikipedia because Fisker itself links to it. In short, plans in The First State are to begin production by 2012 of a sub-$40,000 family friendly plug-in hybrid, and by 2014 Fisker expects to be producing 75,000-100,000 vehicles per year.

Well-proportioned from just about every angle.

Ormisher said also the company wants to succeed globally, which explains what he was doing in Italy besides being commendably polite in answering questions so late.

“We believe in the brand,” Ormisher said with enthusiasm. “I think what we are trying to do is redefine luxury so people can define luxury without guilt.”

The Karma starts at just under $100,000. A very thorough media site has all specs, photos, videos and more.

A story has been making the rounds about Chevrolet Volt charger cords discoloring because of excessive heat, even melting and burning owners.

We know these anecdotes are not new to readers here, as one publication has cited GM-Volt owners and even based its speculation of the ultimate cause – one that is not GM’s fault – on a GM-Volt forum member’s post.

But before we get to that, as background, the cord in question is the standard one included to plug into household 120-volt outlets, not a dedicated, 240-volt Level-2 line.

A volt recharges in one of the Carolina states, where Chevrolet reports the car will be available through dealers next week.

All Cars Electric reported another Volt driver wrote on Facebook that the temperature of his Volt cord was well past the point of coming down with a fever.

“I actually measured the temperature of my unit and reported it to GM directly. I measured 51 degC (124 degF) on the [short] cord and the plug when the plug was connected to a 20 Amp rated 120V socket,” he told the Facebook Chevy Volt Owners group. “GM stated that was within their specifications and OK.”

GM otherwise knows about these issues, and is replacing them under the three-year bumper-to-bumper warranty, but they have not been updated to a new design, said GM Spokesman Rob Peterson. An unknown number of the earlier cars came with a cord believed to be more susceptible to overheating.

Another GM-Volt member All Cars Electric quoted reported being burned by a cord’s metal plug.

“My 110v cord got so hot it caused a 2nd degree burn to my wrist when one of the prongs brushed against me while winding it up,” wrote a GM-Volt.com forum member from Delaware. “I didn’t notice discoloration, the plug is close to the car so I usually had about 2 winds left around the EVSE and the day of the burn I was preconditioning the A/C immediately before unplugging the car.”

Further mining GM-Volt reader comments, All Cars Electric, speculated the ultimate concern may not be GM’s fault at all, but may be simply faulty wiring or overloaded circuits. Following is the account the publication based this on:

“Last Friday I parked the Volt in my carport and plugged it into the same 120v outlet that I have been using for the last month. An hour later the house experienced a power surge. Seeing that a pair of (ganged) 70 amp circuit breakers that feed the sub panel in the carport had tripped, I went to the carport. There I smelled smoke and saw that a slot, 1 1/2″ long and 1/4″ wide, had been burned through the steel faceplate of the sub panel.
When the responding fire fighters removed that faceplate we saw that a feed wire had partially melted its insulation and had completely burned through under the slot.
My electrician replaced the burned out feed wire (black, No. 6 size) and determined that the failed wire had been supplying not only the Volt’s outlet, but two air conditioning units, resulting in an imbalance, such that the black side of the circuit was carrying almost 20 amps more current than the red side. The Volt’s outlet has now been re-wired to the red side and I have used it for an uneventful charge cycle.
I certainly do not blame the Volt in any way, as it was simply the (big) straw that broke the back of the electrical system. Clearly I had too much on one circuit. No one, so far, has been able to tell me why the feed wire burn through occurred prior to the circuit breakers opening.
I plan to have an independent electrician review all circuit loads and I offer this only as a cautionary tale to other Volt owners and welcome feedback from this group.”

One poster showed this discolored cord.

This same poster later followed up, as follows:

“Member 719 was indeed correct in that my 6 gauge feed wires were too small for the subpanel load. I have upgraded to 4 gauge wires which the electricians say are good for 85-90 amps. To be conservative I have kept the original 70 amp circuit breaker that protects these wires and also downgauged the breaker that protects the Voltec Charge Cord outlet from 20 to 15 amps (in accordance with the recommendations that come with the cord set).”

The moral of the story?

“The condition (worn, damaged or age) of the electrical outlet in the wall is often the culprit due for the increase in temperature to the UL certified cord,” Peterson said. “If the AC wall plug feels hot while charging, then the owner should simply unplug the charge cord and have the AC wall outlet replaced by a qualified electrician.”

So, in sum, make sure your household outlet is not overloaded and to code. A Level-2 charger with its own dedicated line may be worthwhile too, but is not strictly necessary.

Source: AllCarsElectric

The Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant is now able to deliver more Volts as well as export-bound Opel and Vauxhall Amperas.

In the meantime General Motors is getting European journalists charged up by introducing them and others to its solutions for exorbitant petrol.

Recently, UK journalist Robert Llewellyn posted an over-10-minute video review of the Vauxhall Ampera. The video features him driving a left-side-drive (American style) car.

UK buyers are eligible for a £5,000 government grant for the Volt or Ampera. The Vauxhall Ampera is £33,995 (about $55,435) and will be made available in the UK Spring, 2012.

The quite similar Chevrolet Volt will be £28,545 (about $46,548).

Since the Volt is so much like the Ampera but $8,887 less, we asked a European Chevrolet media spokesperson why this was.

“Technically the cars are identical. Every brand has its own pricing strategy,” said Cornelia Harodt. “Chevrolet bases the price on the U.S. price for a comparably equipped car plus costs for transportation, homologation, duties, etc.”

CORRECTION:
Various sources are in the habit of publishing the UK Volt/Ampera prices as either pre-grant or post-grant. The actual price discrepancy is about £500 (around $820). When we first saw the price discrepancy reported in another reputable publication, we thought perhaps this was either a mistake or a radical price change since last time we reported on these cars, We attempted to avoid error by quoting these widely varying prices in question, and specifically asking several GM media reps. Unfortunately even though we eventually got one to comment, and another to say she had nothing to add, no one corrected the error so it made it to print.

What ever the case, Llewellyn is a regular reviewer of plug-in vehicles, and if his reaction is any indicator of how the buying public will respond to the Ampera, GM should be in for a fairly warm reception.

That is all we’ll say, lest we spoil his commentary.

First of all I want to say hello to everyone. I know its been a long time since I’ve written a post here, but I am always out there lurking. Its hard to believe it has been five months since I stopped running GM-Volt.com. I do appreciate the stellar job Jeff Cobb and the crew at VerticalScope are doing with the site, and I hope you are too.

Anyway, I wanted to come back and write about my current experience with my Volt. I picked up my own personal Volt VIN #8 back in December and have been enjoying it thoroughly every single day.

I actually switched my jobs from my old practice location 26 miles from home to a new practice and position which is only 3 miles from home. I now drive just 6 miles per day, but do occasionally make long road trips and will use the gas engine on those occasions.  Finally I too fit into the 78% demographic of US drivers covering under 40 miles per day – obviously one of the best ways to conserve automotive energy is to drive less, whether gas or electric.

To date have amassed 6380 miles on my Volt and have a lifetime average 203 MPG.

The car has performed flawlessly and sweetly all the way – I still get a thrill each day  I get inside and start her up.  I also still get freaked out when I forget and leave the car fob inside – that horn blast reminder remains a bit startling.

I got a postcard in the mail the other day from the Chevy dealership I bought my Volt, inviting me to come in for service.  It is shown above.  This struck me as unexpected because I had come to believe I wouldn’t have to service the Volt for a long while – even up two years if I rarely used the engine.

I realize all cars need regular tire rotations, but why would my Volt need service?

I emailed my friendly Volt advisor Rebecca for advice.

She wrote:

The only two things you need to have done are tire rotations and oil changes. The tire rotations are first done at 7,500 miles, and then an oil change at least every 2 years. The oil changes are depending on how much you are using the extended range. Also, the oil life system in the vehicle will tell you when to change the oil.

That sounded about right to me.  I figured I would also ask my friend through these years and eternal source of Volt enthusiastim, Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz what he thought.

“I would take it in,” said Posawatz.  ”They will update your software to the latest version.”

That sounded like a good idea.  After all as an early adopter I always want the latest version of software!

My question for the day.  Have any of you serviced your Volt yet or thought about it?

Dr. Dennis is the founder of GM-Volt.com and currently writes the blog Extreme Longevity.  You can also follow him on Google Plus and Twitter.

Old Volts don’t die, they just morph into grid storage.

OK, admittedly that does not sound as fanciful as riding off into the sunset or some such, but it is one possibility General Motors and ABB Group have been working on to profitably re-purpose used Volt batteries.

Since last year, GM and the Raleigh, N.C. based group have contemplated how to squeak the best use out of batteries expected to have 70 percent of energy storage capacity remaining.

Its first life is in the Chevrolet Volt. Its second could be as grid storage.

Last September the partnership between the two companies was commented on by Micky Bly, GM Executive Director of Electrical Systems, Hybrids, Electric Vehicles and Batteries.

“The Volt’s battery will have significant capacity to store electrical energy, even after its automotive life,” Bly said back then. “That’s why we’re joining forces with ABB to find ways to enable the Volt batteries to provide environmental benefits that stretch far beyond the highway.”

On Tuesday this week, the partners showed they have made headway by demonstrating an energy storage system combining EV battery technology and a proven grid-tied electric power inverter.

“Partnerships with organizations such as ABB provide real-world applications that prove what we’re doing is real, not fiction,” Bly said.

At this point, GM is predicting that 33 post-consumer Chevrolet Volt batteries will have enough capacity to power 50 homes for four hours.

Or, scaling that down to workable size, the ABB and GM team is building a prototype energy storage system for 25-kilowatt/50-kWh applications, about the same power consumption of five U.S. homes or small retail and industrial facilities.

ABB has determined its existing power quality filter (PQF) inverter can be used to charge and discharge the Volt battery pack to take full advantage of the system and enable utilities to reduce the cost of peak load conditions.

The system can also reduce utilities’ needs for power control, protection and additional monitoring equipment. The team will soon test the system for back-up power applications.

“Our tests so far have shown the viability of the GM-ABB solution in the laboratory and they have provided valuable experience to overcome the technical challenges,” said Pablo Rosenfeld, ABB’s program manager for Distributed Energy Storage Medium Voltage Power Products. “We are making plans now for the next major step – testing a larger prototype on an actual electric distribution system.”

A Volt battery in the lab.

GM said it has appointed Pablo Valencia to the new position of senior manager for Battery Lifecycle Management. Valencia and his team will focus on assuring battery systems used in future Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles provide environmental and societal benefits beyond their use in the vehicle.

GM said single-source responsibility assures the design of future battery systems is compatible with reuse and recycling applications.

Many questions remain

While it has shown some progress, GM has said it is still in the very early stages, and does not have answers for what would happen in the case of wrecked Volts that leave the road early.

Also unanswered were a few questions we lobbed over to GM’s Kevin M. Kelly, Manager, Electric Vehicle and Hybrid Communications, about costs and practicality involved in extracting Volt batteries and integrating them as components of local grid storage systems.

“We’re still in the working stages of a ton of this stuff and a lot of it is unknown at this time since we have an 8-year / 100,000-mile warranty on our battery system,” Kelly said. “ We are working on building business cases on many outstanding issues. Stay tuned.”

UPDATE:

Kevin Kelly got back to me again today (Friday) explaining he was short on time to answer more the other day, but offered what info he could. I asked more questions than these, but these were what he had answers for …

GM-Volt: Is this the most likely scenario GM is contemplating for post-consumer e-vehicle battery usage?

“We are focused right now on finding ways to reuse the batteries to maximize their benefit beyond the vehicle,” Kelly said. “We’re also researching and studying the potential for recycling of the materials after the batteries have exhausted all potential use applications beyond the vehicle.”

GM-Volt: Are other scenarios being seriously considered?

“We have said that we would look to studying ways we could use the battery system cells for other applications beyond the vehicle like industrial equipment,” Kelly said. “It all depends on whether there is market demand and how the potential business cases evolve in the future.

GM-Volt: How many regulatory or other hurdles would need to be overcome to create a viable business models for the grid storage idea?

“We need to work with utilities and regulatory agencies to determine how this would pan out and it’s too early to know specifics at this time,” Kelly said.

GM-Volt: (Also, where would a 25- or 50-kWh unit be sited? If it is only good for five houses, would you put these in neighborhoods, or cluster them somewhere? Who would pay for these? Would it be the local utility? Are utilities on-board with this as a solution?)

“The prototype units we talked about (25 and 50 kWh) could be used for residential, small industrial sites or retail malls, for example. We have not determined how they would be marketed at this time,” Kelly said. “We have been working with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)to assure the prototype we are working on will meet the potential needs of utility customers.”

GM-Volt: I have no idea how tough it would be to extract a Volt battery and install and wire it in to some for of box or the like. I have no idea the recycling value as compared to this elaborate scenario. Which is simpler and most cost-effective?

“Again, we would want to assure we’re using the storage capability of the battery to its fullest before we consider recycling,” Kelly said. “We want to make sure we can provide societal benefits beyond the vehicle.”