GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

[ad#post_ad]Nissan has been working hard to achieve positive publicity since they first began discussing the LEAF program.  By then the Volt had been in the spotlight for two years and they had a lot of catching up to do.

Nissan has repeatedly contended they would make a profit from selling the LEAF, which contrasted from GM’s admission that they wouldn’t profit from the first year or two of Volt sales. GM always said the Volt was an investment in the future where Gen 2 and beyond economies of scale and price reductions would make the car profitable. After all lithium-ion batteries are very expensive at today’s prices.

Nissan has now admitted they are in a similar position to GM.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Nissan US sales and marketing cheif Brian Carolin said the LEAF also would lose money in its first two years.

“Over the course of the vehicle life, it is profitable—in year three,” he said.

The intial supply of LEAFs  for the first two years will be built in Japan.  That plant has an annual capacity of 50,000 cars, 20,000 of which will be shipped to the US.

In late 2012, Nissan will open its US-government funded Smyrna Tennessee LEAF plant that can build 150,000 cars per year.

It is at that volume when the cars will first turn a profit said Carolin.

According to Nissan USA director Mark Perry, the 24 kwh, 600 pound battery pack will cost less than $18,000 ($750 per kwh).  The packs will eventually be made in the US at a plant in Tennessee that will have an annual capacity of 200,000.

Nissan has an internal target of $9000 ($370 per kwh) for the pack which it hopes to achieve when US high volume production starts.

The caveat here is Nissan can thus only turn a profit if the cars can sell at the projected volumes.  Despite its low cost of $25,780 after the tax credit, and assuming no major gouging, concerns about range anxiety may hamper sales, especially if prospective buyers directly compare the car to the Volt and the flexibility it provides.

Though some will adjust their lifestyles to avoid using any gas at all cost, and they are to be commended, a larger segment of the population are more likely to consider EREVs for now.

Source (WSJ)
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[ad#post_ad]Nissan has a problem, but it is the kind that every automaker, including GM with the Volt, hopes to have when introducing a new product. Underestimating demand.

As of the their last update, Nissan had taken in over 14,200 reservations for its 2011 Nissan LEAF. To get a feel for this kind of demand, GM’s latest highly anticipated/heavily advertised car, the Chevrolet Camaro, took in 10,000 pre-orders in the first 10 weeks it was made available, and 15,000 by the time it was actually in production, around 6 months after their order system opened to the public.

Of the those LEAF reservations, over 9,500 are from the US, with another 4,700 coming from Japan. The US number is significant because the reservation process has only been available for a short time (3 weeks), and has been a closed system. Only those who had pre-registered as being interested in the LEAF have been able to commit thus far. That all changed today as Nissan is accepting any reservations made nationwide through their website.

The demand for the compact, 5 seat, 100 mile electric car has even caught Nissan by surprise. Originally in the fall when they announced the reservation process, they expected “at least 20,000 reservations for Nissan LEAF by the time we deliver the world’s first mass-market zero-emission car in late 2010,” (Nissan’s Carlos Tavares) then the number was bumped to 25,000 reservations just in the US, which would rival the number of pre-orders taken on the latest Toyota Prius in this country. (The Prius would go on to reach 75,000 pre-orders worldwide).

With Nissan just beginning to advertise the Leaf, and the reservations system going live today, it is a good bet that number is going to jump significantly again…and Nissan knows it.

Nissan boss, Carlos Ghosn, in response to this demand said that Nissan is actively seeking to boost capacity out of their Oppama Japan facility to satisfy demand. In so doing, he also estimated they could already produce up to 12,000 cars by March of 2011, which in itself seems like a pretty big number for initial production, but would already fall short of the reservations they have in hand. Nissan begins deliveries the end of 2010

Ghosn also took the time to underline Nissan’s commitment to the electrification of the automobile, “No other automaker will be producing electric batteries or cars at such a scale. And customers are ready.” On the demand he noted that, “From everything we’re seeing … interest in zero-emission cars is very high and we don’t think it’s going to require too much efforts in marketing.” /it would seem not

Sidenote for the 5.9% of the readership that hails from Canada: Nissan has gone live with a interactive LEAF website for Canadians, with such tidbits as “60% of Canadians travel less than 10km to work – one way.” Nissan has also stated that deliveries in that country will begin in the fall of 2011…still no pricing as of yet

Editor’s Note:
Co-incident with Nissan’s announcement I had to chance to ask the following questions of Darryl Harrison Jr. a Nissan USA communications manager:
How are the 9500 geographically distributed?
We received orders from throughout the U.S., unfortunately, we haven’t broken down specifics just yet.

How will you prevent dealer markup?
We as a manufacturer can only recommend a suggested price. Dealers set the actual purchase price.

When do people pass the refundable barrier, ie when is an official contract signed? It looks like someone on the list lets say in Idaho or Utah through early on the list may not get a car until 2012 from what I see.
More information regarding the Nissan LEAF purchase process will be shared in several weeks. Stay tuned for more details about this after June 30.

Are people given priroity with regard to how early they registered on the NissanUSA site?
Yes, consumers who have made reservations will be placed in order for their particular market.
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[ad#post_ad]I had the following discussion with outgoing GM vice chairman Bob Lutz about the Chevy Volt and pure EVs.

How do you see the difference in demand between the Voltec vehicle and the pure EV? You said the pure EV was your initial idea, and now Nissan now is racing to get the public affection for it. How do you see the split? Im worried there could be difficulty with public comprehension. For example when you were on Dave Letterman, even Dave got it wrong when he first heard of it.
Well he got it badly wrong. That’s why we got the session with him was to straighten him out. We have stopped calling it an extended range electric vehicle and we now call it an electric vehicle with range extension. We’ve kind of swapped the emphasis on that.

We did some research in various areas but predominantly on the West coast, and we conducted this research several times. We have reason to believe that Nissan conducted the same research and is now somewhat less bullish about the volume for their vehicle.

We asked people to pick from three concepts. Once is an electric vehicle of about 40 miles range but with a gasoline powered generator that would permit when necessary another 250 to 300 miles of range. Choice B is an electric vehicle with quick charging of a range of a hundred miles, and Choice C an electric vehicle with swappable batteries, with a range of 100 miles and you find a battery swapping station and you swap out.

83% of the vote went to the Volt concept.

If that’s true then the small EV market is so small then why bother? You went on the record in the past saying you could just simply take the engine out of the Volt and you have an electric car.
I will tell you that there is a high probability that we may well do some pure electrics. Maybe not necessarily for the US market but there are markets where traffic is extremely dense , it moves at extremely low speeds and the daily driving distance are very low. Im thinking of markets like India where we have announced our intention to do a pure EV off of our mini car architecture. So selective we will do pure EVs.

You haven’t committed to the US for that?
No, not yet. Its not to be excluded, we might do some of that.

It seems interesting to me that Nissan is pursuing that so aggressively and GM is not.
No No Look the whole control technology and all that stuff for the pure EV is trivial compared to the development effort that we what to put into the Volt. Trivial. Because you’re only dealing with one power sources.

So it would be quick and easy to do if you decide to?
Yes. Once you’ve got experience with the lithium ion technology, you’ve got the cooling down pat, you’ve got the charging down pat. Whether its more or less lithium ion bigger or larger batteries whether there’s a piston engine going along with it or not, its just doesn’t matter.
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[ad#post_ad]On April 20th Nissan opened up the registration process for consumers wishing to buy or lease the all electric car when it first becomes available in their area.

Nissan stated there were 117,000 US people on their handraiser list who had expressed interest in the car by registering on their website.

Emails were sent out to the whole group offering them a chance to reserve an early spot for the car in exchange for a $99 fully refundable deposit. The registration process took the user’s credit card and allowed them to choose either the base model for $349/month lease or $32,780 or an upgraded SL trim including a trickle charging solar panel spoiler for $33,780.

So how many people put their money where their mouth was?

“As of this morning,” Nissan spokesperson Katherine Zachary told GM-Volt, “6,635 consumers have reserved a Nissan LEAF.”

“We had 2,700 reservations in the first three hours,” Dave Mingle, Nissan’s senior director for customer management and business strategy told Wired. “It exceeded what we expected, though we knew from what the hand-raisers were telling us this is an exceptionally passionate crowd.”

Interest was strongest in the so-called smile states of the coasts and Texas. The car will initially only be available in California, Oregon, Seattle, Phoenix-Tucson and east-central Tennessee when it first rolls out in December. Nissan has said it will roll out nationwide in 2011.

In a poll of GM-Volt.com readers, only 21% said they would be reserving a LEAF on April 20th, with 70% stating they had no interest at all.

I also asked AutoblogGreen to run a similar poll. There 21% said they had reserved a LEAF, 23% said they were waiting to give GM money for a Volt, and 56% they were still waiting for the EV market to mature.

Reservations will open to the greater population on May 15th.
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Indian e-Spark

[ad#post_ad]GM has formed a joint venture with Indian carmaker Reva to develop an all electric version of the gas powered Asian Chevrolet Spark.  This vehicle is a plain vanilla, considerably differently styled car than the upcoming North American gas powered Chevy Spark.

According to a report by Just-Auto, development on the e-Spark has been going to plan and the first prototype cars will be built by the end of this year.

Reva CEO Chetan Maini says, “the model likely will be launched in the Indian market in the first quarter of 2011″

Volumes will be low. “GM would manufacture 5,000 units annually of e-Spark initially,” said Maini.

This vehicle is a low-cost car with quality and safety features only applicable to the Indian market.  It is not intended for sale in the US.

However, according to a top executive, GM is studying bringing a pure electric car to the US market.

GM’s director of electric cars, batteries, and hybrids Micky Bly, says GM expects demand for pure electrics to remain low and thus the car would not be given its own unique vehicle platform.

It would be considered a commuter car or urban car with up to a 100 mile driving range, and likely will apear as a version of either the Chevy Aveo, or more likely the North America Chevy Spark slated to arrive in 2012.

I asked GM spokesperson Brian Corbett what “studying” of a pure electric car actually means.

“We continually review applications of our current and potentially future technologies,” said Corbett. “If there is a market for the technology, where is it, when would it be ready to debut, which vehicles and brands would offer it.”

“It is product and portfolio planning,” he said. “You’ve got to be ready, and you’ve got to get it right.”

Source (Edmunds) and (Autoblog)
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[ad#post_ad]We are here because we want to wean off of oil. GM is to be applauded for bringing the Volt to fruition. So too should Nissan be praised for trying to make the Leaf pure EV a mainstream vehicle.  Even though they are in different segments, the two cars and the categories they represent will compete for the hearts, minds and wallets of the early adopters, and eventually the mass market.  Aaron Bragman is a leading automotive research analyst with IHS Global Insight in Troy Michigan, who is frequently quoted in the media. I asked him whether he thinks Volt or Leaf will wind up being more popular.  He shares with us the following insights:

There really isn’t any data yet on the popularity of either Leaf or Volt, as of course neither is on the market yet. We’re also not really a consumer market research firm, so we don’t track things like “desirability” like some of the other organizations do.

However, we often do comprehensive market studies and analysis for clients, and have basically come up with a few conclusions about both vehicles.

1. Leaf is likely to look very appealing to many, but only make practical sense for a few.

It’s not an urban car, as most urban dwellers have nowhere to charge it. There’s no plugs in the high-rise garages in New York, or the street parking in Chicago. If you live out in the country and commute to work in the city, you have to be sure you live within the vehicle’s 100 mile range, or have to make sure you can charge it when you get to work. Leaf will make the most sense for suburban dwellers who go from point A to point B commutes out in the suburbs, where they can either charge it at work or stick within their 100 mile range for the entirety of their commute, and charge it in a garage at home nightly. Volt, on the other hand, has no range anxiety issues at all, and is likely to both appeal to and be usable by a much wider range of consumers than Leaf. It’s also a bigger vehicle, which is also likely to appeal to Americans, who are not yet entirely sold on small cars in big numbers.

2. Neither car has a price advantage.

Leaf may be $25K after tax rebates, but it is not usable as an only car. Anyone who owns a Leaf will almost certainly have to own a second vehicle for longer trips, or be very familiar with their local rental car companies or ZipCar outlet. Either way, this is an added expense. Generally not talked about is the home charger system that Leaf buyers will also have to have installed, at a cost of several thousand dollars, if they want to charge their Leaf in anything under 9 hours. Consider that a 100 mile range is roughly about 1/4 of a tank of gasoline in a conventional sedan (or less in an SUV), which is right about the time where most people stop to fuel their vehicle. That range anxiety is likely to be a factor for the Leaf buyers who are not early-adopter types. Volt, on the other hand, can be used as an only car, as it can make long-distance treks as easily as short around-town hops, without any worry of range anxiety. You do not have to buy a second car if you buy a Volt.

Volt may be more expensive initially, but given that people pay $30,000+ for a Toyota Prius, I doubt that people will balk at paying $35K+ for a Volt, which has gotten even more press and hype than the Prius, especially if is viewed as novel and cutting-edge. The price of Volt is also likely to come down quite a bit for the second and third generations, as GM concentates mainly on taking cost out of the battery pack and expanding use of the Voltec system to other vehicles globally.

All in all, I think Leaf is a fantastic car that will have very limited appeal due to the limitations of both the vehicle and the American infrastructure. Volt will have some of those similar challenges, in terms of infrastructure, but it is not being billed as an urban runabout like Leaf is. It may be more expensive initially, but I think the greater utility of the Volt and its ability to be used by a greater sampling of consumers will make it the more popular choice long-term.

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