GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Would-be American electric and extended-range electric vehicle manufacturer, Aptera, ended the week saying it has ceased operations and will liquidate after failing to raise sufficient capital.

Company CEO Paul Wilbur said Aptera had gotten so far as to receive conditional approval for a U.S. Energy Department loan for $150 million, but additional attempts to gain more fell through.

Wilbur, a former Chrysler brand manager and CEO of ASC Inc., said plans wavered for its first vehicle, a mid-sized electric sedan, because in his view the EV investment market is wavering.

“A couple years ago, there were a lot of people who thought the automotive industry is easy,” Wilbur said. “It isn’t.”

Wilbur said venture capital firms had initially led Aptera to believe they’d be willing to ante up funds if the federal government did first.

Although the government did what they asked, investors balked when it became apparent launching EVs can be more difficult than first anticipated, he said.

An American company

Like Fisker and Tesla, Aptera had positioned itself in California and aimed to build in the states – and the company intended to source 90 percent from domestic suppliers.

The Carlsbad-based startup was also discussing an agreement with GM that would allow it to use a former GM assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, Wilbur said.

The first model – the aerodynamic and lightweight electric sedan – was to have an all-composite body, deliver 130 miles range, return as high as 190 miles per gallon equivalent, and its airplane-without-wings look definitely caught people’s attention.

An Aptera model had been a finalist in the competition for the Progressive Insurance X-Prize, and the company had attracted a fair amount of press, including a 2007 feature by Popular Mechanics.

The company had initially hoped to have vehicles in production in 2009, but those dreams were tempered by delays. Even back then HybridCars.com noted Wilbur’s earlier takeover after ousting company founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony over disputes about the company’s direction, and observed Aptera’s future looked rocky indeed.

According to the company’s far more bright-sounding marketing copy on its Web site, other vehicles to follow, would cost from the high-$20,000s to mid-$40,000s.

Planned powertrain options included extended-range electric and the company said it was pleased to design, engineer and manufacture in the U.S.A.

“Aptera embraces this American spirit through our Efficient Vehicle Design Formula,” Aptera wrote on its Web site. “It brings the practical notion of low energy consumption inline with the passion to drive and the freedom to go when and where we want. The result is a full complement of ultra-efficient passenger vehicles.”

Aptera had about 30 employees, and Wilbur said they have been let go. On the company’s Web site home page is a note thanking suppliers and supporters of the company’s efforts over the past five years.

This video is from December 2007. The fundamentals of the design were strong, but backing wasn’t.

Following is a letter from Paul Wilbur:

Dec. 2, 2011

After years of focused effort to bring our products to the market, Aptera Motors is closing its doors, effective today. This is a difficult time for everyone connected with our company because we have never been closer to realizing our vision. Unfortunately, though, we are out of resources.

It is especially disappointing since we were so close…

Aptera executives had been engaged in exhaustive due diligence with the Department of Energy (DOE) pertaining to an ATVM (Advance Technology Vehicle Manufacturing) loan. Our business plan was examined from top to bottom by internal agency representatives, independent consultants and experts in academia. They did an amazing job of vetting us and they tested every possible weakness in our plan. And after nearly two years of discussions, we had recently received a Conditional Commitment Letter for a $150 million loan.

The ATVM loan would have provided funding for the development and commercialization of a five-passenger, midsized sedan (similar to a Toyota Camry) that would be base priced at less than $30,000 and deliver more than a 190 mile per gallon equivalent. The concept of this vehicle had been in place since the very beginning of Aptera, and we had been wholly focused on its development for the last year. The last remaining hurdle was finding new funds to match the DOE loan.

We were so optimistic that the company would move forward that we were in discussions to reactivate a mothballed automotive plant in Moraine, Ohio. In the past months we had engaged with the labor union that operated that facility to discuss the hiring of 1,400 new job opportunities. These jobs would have reactivated talented workers who had been dismissed when the facility was closed.

During the same time, we continued development of our patent-pending composite manufacturing system that enables energy efficient vehicle production by drastically reducing vehicle weight (by as much as 30%) while tripling its strength. This same patent pending system allowed us to finish the surface of our composites without manual finishing and without the high capital cost of a typical automotive paint shop. In all, the process would save nearly $750-million versus a typical volume auto assembly plant start-up.

We were well on the way to satisfying the vision of efficiency on which the company was founded and we are confident that with time and capital we could still achieve our goal. The Aptera formula: aerodynamics plus light weight design (through composites) delivered efficiency of 206 EPA miles per gallon in tests at Argonne National Labs. That wasn’t a simulation; it was real measured performance. Despite that promise of efficiency, this challenged market – specifically large private investors – did not have an appetite to lead an investment for the perceived low volume return of our three-wheeled vehicle. So we reprioritized our product plan to four-door sedans, which also cost us time.

We remain confident, even as this chapter closes, that Aptera has contributed tech new technologies to build a future for more efficient driving. Through the dedicated staff at Aptera, our board and suppliers we have touched this future. All that remains is for someone to grab it. We still believe it will happen.

Paul Wilbur

President and CEO

Aptera Motors

Source: Automotive News

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dear GM-Volt Readers: We value everyone’s feedback on our daily stories, but – please – don’t post breaking news or other stories that we could be working on as a post here. Doing this will help ensure fresh daily discussions, and will be better for everyone. If you would instead, please e-mail story ideas to jcobb@verticalscope.com Thank you!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

As GM continues to manage public relations implications from a federal battery investigation, its executives say that while the Volt’s battery is safe already, minor redesign may be necessary and more thorough post-crash protocols are being formulated.

“We want to assure the safety of our customers, of our buyers, and so we’re just going to take a time out, if you will, in terms of redesigning the battery possibly,” said GM Chainman and CEO Dan Akerson to Reuters.

Akerson also said GM would hold off on delivering Opel Amperas in Europe until safety regulators and engineers have finalized how to handle the Volt/Ampera’s battery after a crash.

As previously reported, GM has gone above the call of duty to offer loaner cars to customers if they want them, while the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration works on issues surrounding the Volt and other electric vehicles’ batteries.

Regarding this, GM has clarified reports by saying there are no specific plans to “buy back” Volts from concerned owners. What was meant, it has since explained, is if a customer complaint escalated up the ladder, it would consider buy backs on a case by case basis.

All this said, it should be understood that no Volts have caught fire in any accidents. The perception in the public’s eye has been driven by extensive reporting of the Volt’s new technology which when put through extreme testing has been shown it can ignite.

Since the Volt’s battery pack is an energy source, GM has long said post-crash Volts need to be “depowered.” NHTSA has crashed stand-alone batteries then left them charged, even rotating one, to see what would happen.

To help balance the perspective, consider that conventional cars also represent a fire hazard, and 215,500 in the U.S. were involved in fires last year. Because thousands of ordinary cars catch fire and never get the level of media attention the Volt received due to lab tests, it’s believed that excessive scrutiny is driven by concerns for the relatively unknown.

NHTSA and GM both have qualified recent events by saying the Volt continues to be viable transportation, but it has not prevented GM’s top brass from hopping in response to put out public relations fires, even if no Volt fires have ever happened for any drivers.

On Friday, Mary Barra GM’s global product development chief, followed up on statements by Akerson that the company would consider tweaking the Volt’s battery.

“We are looking to say, ‘Are there some design changes we can make, something even more robust in this location or that location or with this component,’” Barra said at an Automotive Press Association event. “If we have to do something, we will.

“The one thing you don’t want to do is jump to conclusions,” she added.

The way GM Spokesman Rob Peterson characterized it is GM is an engineering company, and the Volt is an engineered solution. If you give engineers a task to fulfill, they will. But whether this will be required has yet to be determined.

Barra said there are a “few avenues that we think could increase the robustness for this specific condition,” but added NHTSA’s probe was still in early stages, while declining to say how long she thought it would go.

Notwithstanding new hoops GM is being made to jump through, preparing emergency service personnel to tackle the Volt is not unfamiliar territory as evidenced by this January 19 photo. This crash-tested Volt was used to train 400 Detroit-area first responders in how to deal with emergency situations involving electric vehicles. The training was part of a joint program sponsored by Chevrolet, OnStar and the National Fire Protection Association. Detroit was the final stop on a nationwide tour where more than 1,600 fire and emergency service leaders had been trained.

GM has said issues experienced are not the fault of the LG Chem battery cells in the Volt’s 400-pound T-shaped battery pack.

Barra assured those present that what ever might be done will not compromise the Volt’s present efficiency.

“We understand one of the very important premises of the Volt is the EV (driving) range and we plan to protect that,” she said.

She also said NHTSA’s investigation has not affected the planned roll out of any electrified vehicles GM has announced, particularly the Spark EV and Voltec-based Cadillac ELR.

Reuters, Automotive News

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dear GM-Volt Readers: We value everyone’s feedback on our daily stories, but – please – don’t post breaking news or other stories that we could be working on as a post here. Doing this will help ensure fresh daily discussions, and will be better for everyone. If you would instead, please e-mail story ideas to jcobb@verticalscope.com Thank you!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Editor’s note: When it rains it pours – Volt news that is. Following is a (partial) weekend roundup – three Volt stories briefed into one and we’ll have more on Monday.

Yesterday Chevrolet reported another record Volt sales month for November amounting to 1,139 delivered in North America. This narrowly improves on last month’s 1,108 Volts sold. The end of month total was recorded as 6,142 Volts sold.

In other news, Consumer Reports said yesterday that the Volt is number one in owner satisfaction – topping even the vaunted Porsche 911 costing twice as much.

And in yet more news, as the Chevrolet Volt approaches its first full year of production and accomplishes nationwide roll-out, U.S. Rep Mike Kelly (R, Pa.) has said he’d like to end the federal tax credit available to electric automobiles.

Sales

Last month we reported the number of Volts sold jumped 50 percent from September to October, and it appeared going into November that the monthly numbers had a fair chance of cresting progressively higher – but they didn’t.

Yesterday, GM Spokesman Rob Peterson said he does not know whether the company will reach its goal of 10,000 North American deliveries by the end of the calendar year, but to do so will require 3,858 sales this month.

This is less than likely, and Don Johnson, GM’s vice president of sales operations has already conceded to CNNMoney that GM will miss the target.

“We’re not at all disappointed,” Johnson said, “We’ll hit it early next year.”

Peterson noted the Volt is all-new technology, 10,000 is an “aggressive target” for GM to reach for, and also said the Volt will reach 10,000, and keep climbing,

It probably did not help much that the Volt has been aggressively questioned in the media this month, although Peterson said he did not know for certain whether this was a measurable detriment to sales.

It’s at least clear that issues surrounding the Volt have been in the media’s eye more than GM would like.

GM’s offer of an alternate gasoline-powered loaner car until an ongoing NHTSA investigation into batteries is resolved was its attempt to “get out in front” of the issues, Peterson said.

Oh, and by the way, yesterday USA Today reported GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson said this loaner plan includes the contingency that GM would go so far as to buy back a Volt if an owner’s complaint called for it.

GM Spokesperson Michele Bunker said this is not “new news” and it was part of Monday’s announcement, but if that is true, we and everyone else missed it until yesterday.

Consumer Reports

Reasons for Volt owners being happy enough to top the charts – 93 percent said they would buy it again – include the fact that early adapters are EV enthusiasts to begin with, plus GM has done a great job overall with its customer outreach, particularly via its Volt Advisors.

GM has provided kid glove service to its early adapters giving them a Cadillac-quality ride and treatment, even if there is only a humble bow tie on the Volt’s front grille.

The results tallied by Consumers Reports came prior to the NHTSA investigation, but Volt owners have continued to say they are not all that worried about it.

Without specifying a number, Peterson said he knows of only “a handful” (reportedly 33) of Volt owners so worried about the NHTSA evaluation as to request a loaner.

Tax credit threatened?

Whether the Republican congressman from Pennsylvania can gain support for his saber rattling remains to be seen, but disgruntled Chevy dealer U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly keeps on trying.

The Detroit News recently reported Kelly said the Volt “has become the poster child of President Obama’s failed green agenda.”

“Like many green initiatives promoted by this administration and bankrolled by the American taxpayer, the electric car is better in theory than in practice; has limited consumer demand; is heavily subsidized; and has fallen short of reaching its targeted goals,” he wrote. “Despite the fact that the federal government has no business subsidizing a product that a manufacturer could just as easily promote through rebates and other buyer incentives, the tax subsidies are largely going to the affluent few who can actually afford to buy an electric car, which costs anywhere between $40,000 (Chevy Volt) to $97,000 (Fisker’s Karma).”

Kelly observed that the average annual income of Volt buyers is $175,000, and a large percentage are in Southern California.

“GM has made some of the finest automobiles known to man. They are master marketers, and every product researched, designed, and developed was done through rigorous market research and analysis,” Kelly said. “However, when the model changes, when a manufacturer puts politics ahead of market demand, when the return on investment is measured in terms of political gain rather than financial gain, the results vary drastically.”

Kelly shared his thoughts on the Volt at the end of October.

We called Kelly’s Washington, D.C. office yesterday and spoke to his Press Secretary Julia Thornton. She replied later via email with answers to our questions whether he had specific legislation proposed, or how he intended to accomplish a reversal of the tax credit.

“Rep. Kelly is keeping his legislative options open,” Thornton wrote. “Rep. Kelly’s primary focus is to reduce government spending, decrease our nation’s $15 trillion debt, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are used as wisely and cost-effectively as possible. As Rep. Kelly always says, you can only spend a dollar once.”

Perspective

The Volt – which got underway during the Bush administration – threatens the established order by offering a viable, well-engineered electric car with no range anxiety. Drivers who stay in EV mode can go many months and several thousands of miles without stopping for gasoline.

At the same time, its gasoline backup means longer trips as far as desired are nothing to worry about, as the Volt can also be filled up at any gas station and offers close to 40 mpg.

GM did deliberately roll the car out slowly, starting with just seven states in the beginning, and various interests have seemingly made it a mission to tear the vehicle down pointing at first to slow sales as some form of evidence it was a flop out of the gate.

Frankly, some critics have been like a pack of dogs nipping at the Volt’s heels, looking for anything to accuse it of. Several near-scandals have been alleged this year, and the knee-jerk reaction in the media has been to cover the story. Some have been fair, some have not.

What’s important to remember is the Volt and GM have been vindicated in all defamation attempts thus far, and owners and would-be buyers have been reported as saying they can see past the smokescreens.

Meanwhile, the sheer number of awards and accolades the Volt has earned – including the most recent tip-of-the-hat from Consumer Reports which initially thought to criticize the car – has been astonishing.

Our best guess is whatever does not kill the Volt will make it stronger. We predict it will come out looking better in the long run, and the first months will be looked back on as exciting times.

While they have been alarming times to some as they happened, we think the first year will be remembered as one of trials the Volt weathered and overcame.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dear GM-Volt Readers: We value everyone’s feedback on our daily stories, but – please – don’t post breaking news or other stories that we could be working on as a post here. Doing this will help ensure fresh daily discussions, and will be better for everyone. If you would instead, please e-mail story ideas to jcobb@verticalscope.com Thank you!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Editor’s Note: Another guest post from Dr. Destler, president Rochester Institute of Technology.

By Bill Destler

The recent tests conducted by NHTSA on Chevy Volt battery packs have raised concerns about the relative safety of the Volt, and other electric vehicles, compared to conventional gasoline powered vehicles. In the tests, Volt battery packs subjected to the kind of damage that might occur is a severe accident have caught fire or smoldered. In two of the three cases in which this behavior has occurred, the fires did not start until days or weeks after the crash tests. In the third case, sparks and smoldering were observed soon after the crash test but after the battery was flipped 180 degrees to simulate a car rollover. In a fourth test, no fire occurred. In none of the tests did NHTSA drain the battery of its stored energy after the crash tests. In fairness to NHTSA, the GM de-powering protocols were not issued until after their first Volt crash test, although they were in place well before the latest tests.

To date, however, NHTSA confirms that no fire attributable to the Volt’s battery has been reported out in the real world, either as a result of collisions or other circumstances. Given the publicity that any Volt mishap seems to generate, I feel pretty sure that if a Volt caught fire in a collision, we would have heard about it. Two fires have occurred in garages where Volts were parked, but in both cases the Volt was determined to not be the cause of the fires.

To put this information in context, we need to look at several factors that should, in a rational world, inform our decision as to whether the Volt represents a greater-than-average risk of fire in a collision than do conventional gas-powered vehicles. I realize that these considerations will not matter in the non-rational world of Fox News, but nothing we say here would deter their anti-Volt propaganda campaign, so let’s not waste our time with them.

First, let’s do a non-scientific, oversimplified statistical analysis to see if there is to date any indication that Volts are at higher risk for fires in collisions than other vehicles. There are only about 6,000 Volts out in the real world, which is not a large number compared to the roughly 250,000,000 passenger cars in the U.S. The most recent NHTSA statistics I could find indicate about 6,100,000 accidents occur annually involving passenger cars, and that about 3 fires per 1,000 crashes occur in which gasoline-powered automobiles are involved. If we assume that roughly 2,500 Volt-years of driving experience have been acquired to date (I think this is a pretty good estimate), we should expect statistically that about 61 Volts have been involved in collisions to date. Although a few Volt collisions have been reported on this site, this number seems high to me. I suspect that the Volt will have a lower rate of collisions given the excellent handling, braking, and road traction characteristics of the car. If this the case, then the risks associated with driving a Volt are even lower than estimated here.

Nevertheless, if we assume that the likelihood of a fire in a Volt collision is the same as it might be for other cars, 0.2 Volts should have caught fire to date, a number significantly less than 1 but greater than the 0 fires reported to date. On the other hand, if Volts were, say, 10 times more likely to catch fire in a collision than conventional cars, than one might argue that 2 Volt crash fires should have been observed. The point of this simple analysis is that there is no evidence in the real world to date to indicate that the Volt is substantially more likely to catch fire in a collision than any other vehicle.
Interestingly, unlike gasoline powered vehicles, the Volt has two energy storage systems that might contribute to the car catching fire in a collision, the battery pack and the gasoline tank, so it’s a good sign that collision fires do not seem to be happening at a rate greater than that for other cars.

Now let’s look at the Volt battery from a stored-energy perspective. At 16 kwh, a fully charged Volt battery contains the stored energy of only a half gallon of gasoline. In addition, the stored energy density in the Volt battery is much less than in gasoline, and the energy cannot be extracted at anything like the rate at which gasoline burns. The fire danger in a Volt battery pack, therefore, is not so much in the stored energy, which is relatively modest, but rather the possibility that sparking might ignite a fire that could spread to other flammable materials, including the gas tank. For that reason, the pack should be discharged as rapidly as possible after an accident per GM protocols. The unwillingness of NHTSA to own up to their failure to discharge the batteries after the latest crash tests is, in my opinion, both deceptive and unfair. Draining a gas tank in a car after a collision is standard practice everywhere, and I am sure that NHTSA does this routinely for their other test cars. Had they followed these protocols in the latest tests, the results would almost certainly have been dramatically different.

Nevertheless, GM might consider putting an auto-discharge feature in place in the Volt that would be activated in any collision that inflates the air bags, for example. This should be relatively simple to achieve on a cell by cell basis using the cell monitoring circuitry already present. I don’t think NHTSA should require GM to do this, as it would be the equivalent of asking other car makers to provide an automatic gas tank draining feature (to be drained where?) in the event of a collision, but it would add a measure of added safety to an already safe vehicle.

I think NHTSA is doing the right thing in looking into this issue, since they need to gain experience with this new automotive technology, but I do not believe Volt owners have any more reason to be concerned about the safety of their vehicles than do the drivers of other vehicles.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dear GM-Volt Readers: We value everyone’s feedback on our daily stories, but – please – don’t post breaking news or other stories that we could be working on as a post here. Doing this will help ensure fresh daily discussions, and will be better for everyone. If you would instead, please e-mail story ideas to jcobb@verticalscope.com Thank you!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————