GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

In 2006, GM unveiled a plugin hybrid 2-mode Saturn VUE concept six months before unveiling the Volt concept. Since the 2-mode hybrid system was already near production, and the plugin version would require a smaller battery than the Volt, it appeared likely that car would make it to market first.

However, since the Volt met such strong public praise, and GM was desperate for positive press, product guru Bob Lutz pushed the Volt program ahead to leapfrog all else.

Over these years we have seen and heard about the 2-mode plugin hybrid in various forms; there was the VUE, then after Saturn folded a Buick version. Later the system was shown in a Cadillac XTS flagship concept.

The system has been operational though in small test fleets for years. In fact, more than two years ago I test drove a perfectly satisfactory 2-mode plugin SUV on GM’s proving grounds. At the time I heard off the record from GM insiders that a Cadillac SRX 2-mode plugin hybrid was being brought to production.

Now the latest iteration, and in my opinion the one that makes the most sense, is leaking into the media, though not yet of course officially announced.

Jim Frederico, who is GM’s electric vehicle chief, alluded to reporters in Australia that his company was readying a plug-in hybrid version of the Cruze.   When I met Frederico in the past he told me GM had extensive future electric vehicle plans, but was very tight lipped about them as the Volt was about to be launched.  Currently, he didn’t say the Volt would be abandoned but that the two would complement each other in the product portfolio.

“The Volt will always be a plug-in electric vehicle,” Federico told GoAuto. “Plug-in Cruze doesn’t make Volt redundant at all. Plug-in Cruze would have a different powertrain. Plug-in hybrids use both the engine and motor all the time.”

The plug-in Cruze would be able to compete directly with the plugin Prius for which Toyota is currently accepting orders.

The car would presumably have a small battery, perhaps 1/3 the size of the Volt, and be able to travel 10 or 15 miles on electric only at low load demand. High loads and speeds would cause the gas engine to go on and it would drive the car once the battery reaches the depletion point.

The car’s small size lends to more fuel efficiency by the 2-mode plugin system than larger vehicles like SUVs.  Also since the Cruze is in mass production and priced below $20,000, it is likely GM could make the plug-in Cruze affordable – think under $30,000 without rebate.

Furthermore customers going into showrooms to see the Volt and instead buying the Cruze for cost reason, would likely be more tempted to get the plugin version.

Before we get too excited, GM communications as usual gives us the official party (pooper) line, this time attributable to Kevin Kelly:

We have not announced a Cruze PHEV and currently have no plans to produce a Cruze PHEV. Federico was providing direction on the multiple technologies that GM continues to work on in the hybrid space. We have said on several occasions that PHEV technology is something GM continues to work on, but we have no production plans or timing announced yet.

And so just maybe our horizon of a world less dependent on oil slowly widens.

Source (Go Auto)

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Back on its feet after its IPO, and GM is now beginning to put its money where it’s most needed. One place in particular the company thinks it needs to expand is in the production of small engines.

Earlier this week GM announced it would be investing an additional $162 million in three of its facilities; Flint engines, Bay City components, and Defiance castings.  The lion’s share of $138.3 million will go to the Flint, Michigan engine operations plant where 135 jobs will be retained.

GM is investing all this money in the Flint facility because it is where the engine critical to three vehicles that are the core of GM’s future will be built.  This engine is the 4-cylinder 1.4 L ecotec model that serves both as the generator for the Chevy Volt and in a turbo-charged form for the Chevrolet Cruze compact car.

With the announcement GM also disclosed this engine will serve in a future Chevrolet small car the company apparently hasn’t yet unveiled.

“This is the replacement for the Aveo,” GM spokesperson Pat Morrissey told GM-Volt. “It will be built at the Orion plant.”

Unnamed and unseen, we still don’t know when we will find out more about this car.  It is not the Spark that one time GM had planned for US launch.  ”We have not discussed reveal timing for this product,” said Morrissey.

GM’s investment in the engine is good news for fans of the Volt and other fuel efficient cars.

“This investment is essential in ensuring we can meet the expected high demand for the Chevrolet Volt, Chevrolet Cruze and a small car that will be produced at our Orion Township facility,” said Kathleen Dilworth, Flint Engine Operations plant manager. “These three facilities will continue to play a key role in GM’s resurgence and efforts to bring to market vehicles with segment-leading fuel economy.”

Engines for the Volts currently being built are being imported from Austria.  By early 2011 GM expects to build 400 engines per day in Flint and that will increase to 800 engines per day by then end of that year.  This new investment allows for the possibility of building 1200 engines per day in 2012.

Source (GM)

A number of important GM related news items recently broke that are worth recognizing.

General Electric Commits to Deploying 25,000 Electric Cars
The first was an announcement from General Electric that the company plans to deploy 25,000 electric cars into its global fleet by 2015.

It will acheive this goal both by converting half of its global fleet of 30,000 cars to electric and by purchasing electric cars from autmotkers.

Its initial purchase will be 12,000 Chevrolet Volts from GM. Cars from other automakers will be added as they become available.

“Electric vehicle technology is real and ready for deployment and we are embracing the transformation with partners like GM and our fleet customers,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “By electrifying our own fleet, we will accelerate the adoption curve, drive scale, and move electric vehicles from anticipation to action.

GM CEO Dan Akerson said, “GE’s commitment reflects confidence that electric vehicles are a real-world technology that can reduce both emissions and our dependence on oil. It is also a vote of confidence in the Chevrolet Volt, which we will begin delivering to retail customers by the end of this year. We are pleased that the Volt will play a major role in this program, which will spur innovation and benefit our companies, our customers, and society as a whole.”

Dont worry about GE taking all the Volts away from consumers. “It’s between now and 2015,” says GM spokesperson Rob Peterson. “So the volumes are manageable.”

Cruze Eco Officially Gets 42 MPG Highway

GM also announced that its Chevrolet Cruze Eco model had been given an official fuel economy designation by the EPA. The $18,995 sedan received an impressive 42 MPG on the highway, and 28 MPG city, the highest of any non-hybrid vehilce on the roads.  These impressive numbers are only for the manual transmission.

GM points out this compact car’s fuel economy is better than the Ford Fiesta sub-compact, the Honda Civic, and hybrids including the Ford Fusion, Toyota Camry, and Nissan Altima hybrids.

The Cruze Eco achieves its success though a combination of aerodynamics tweaks similar to the Volt that give it a CD of .298.  It is also mass optimized and uses the efficient 1.4 L turbo Ecotec 4-cylinder engine which can produce up to 138 horsepower.

“Chevrolet Cruze continues to redefine the compact segment, offering class-leading standard safety features, upscale amenities – as well as hybrid-like fuel economy without the price,” said Chuck Russell, vehicle line director. “The Cruze Eco is in a league of its own and will challenge perceptions of the efficiency available in a more affordable non-hybrid.”

Opel Ampera Pricing Released

Finally GM announced pricing on the European version of the Chevrolet Volt known as the Opel Ampera.  The car is identical from an engineering perspective though exterior design as mildly different, and tailored to the Opel brand and the European market.

Unfortunately for them, our European brethren will have to fork up quite a few Euros for the pleasure of Voltec-based driving.  The car will start at 45,900 Euros which translates to almost $59,000 dollars.  There is a 19% value added tax (VAT) in Germany which brings the cost to 36,050 Euros or about $49,000.

Online reservations started on Thursday on opel-ampera.com.

Living with the Volt Update

In my second day of driving the Volt, my love for the car grew stronger.  It’s really an amazing car.   Solid, sleek, satisfying and brimming with technology and real-time connectedness.

I began the day with a charged battery reading 36 miles of EV range.  I reached my first destination 22.7 miles away with 15 miles shown remaining.  My office was another 7.5 miles and I got there with 7 miles EV range remaining.  I was able to charge at 120-v at my office from 9:30AM to 5:00 PM and when I left for home, 33 miles of EV range remained.  I made it home for a total daily drive of 59.3 miles with 4 miles of range left, and never burned any gas.

Thus for my first two days in total I drove 122.8 miles using .32 gallons of gas, or 384 MPG.

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DON’T MISS the NJ Volt Meetup with myself and three other CAB members and our Volts. It will be on Sat 11-13 at 11AM here: Nauna’s Bella Casa 148 Valley Road Montclair, NJ 07042 www.naunas.com

The Chevrolet Cruze is the gas-powered sister car to the Chevy Volt, riding atop the same global compact delta platform.  It is also one of GM’s greatest hopes for its future, a feature-packed luxury-like small car in an affordable price range.  It is designed to sell at high volumes and compete head on with bread and butter cars like the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic.  And unlike GM’s past small cars is to be sold at a profit.

The car has been on sale for more than a year internationally with over 165,000 having been sold, and starting today launches in the United States.  The first US retail Cruze rolled off GMs Lordstown Ohio production line at 10:30 AM today and will be delivered to a dealership. The configurator is now online, and pricing will begin below $17,000.

Accompanying the launch of GMs most important car next to the Volt, will be an advertising blitz including television commercials.  Movie and TV star Tim Allen, perhaps known best for his most famous role on the Home Improvement TV series, is GMs choice for the voice and spokesperson for the car, and indeed the Chevrolet brand as a whole.

Joel Ewanick who comes from Hyundai and is GMs new marketing chief told Automotive News his views on advertising the Chevrolet brand.  He said GM wont hammer home the message that Chevrolet is an American icon.  ”The nice thing about Chevrolet is that people know it’s an American brand,” he said. “We don’t need to remind them of the obvious.”

Ewanick doesn’t prefer the term social media it seems.  ”Maybe we need to change the language, it’s not media, it’s social engagement,” he said. “Aren’t we causing a conversation? Media is when you buy television or print.”  Whatever you call it, he promised some new social initiatives.  ”We’re going to do interesting things ,” he said.  ”Even this fall with the Cruze launch. ”

He also doesn’t believe Chevrolet needs a special theme or tagline. “I think the bow tie speaks for itself.” said. “And you’ll see us use the bow tie prominently and proudly in everything we do. ”

Ewanick feels strongly about having halo cars for the brand, and sees them as a good thing.  ”We should be using the Corvette to make a statement about Chevrolet,” he said. “Tying the Corvette to Chevrolet is a beautiful thing.”

“The Chevrolet brand has several halos, he said.  ”The Camaro could be a halo. You could look at the Volt as a halo product.”

“I hope we turn the Cruze into a halo in that segment,” he added.

GM has released two 30 seconds commercials including Allen’s narration which have begun appearing on national television.

You can see them below:

Source (GM) and (Automotive News)

Lets start off by saying the obvious. GM needs the Cruze to be a winner in the US. It has never been more clear given GM’s August results. The bulk of GM’s 25% downswing was because of not being able to compete in the compact and mid-size car market. Well, that and being up against CFC (cash for clunkers) in the summer of 2009.

The Chevrolet Cobalt production has long stopped in Lordstown, Ohio, and there has been a very large gap between that car and the new model because of production delays. The Cruze finally starts production on September 8th of next week, and with no current compact in production, many GM customers are either delaying their purchase, waiting to see if GM’s latest offering will be worth it, or going elsewhere. August sales of the Cobalt fell 67% to 5,643 cars from 17,393 the year prior. /yeesh

Part of GM’s solution to get the word out on the Cruze, and to regain lost market share from their Japanese rivals, is to return to a old strategy. Namely, asking their 3,000+ Chevrolet dealers to go out and buy a new Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic so potential Cruze customers can compare the two, right on the spot…at a Chevy dealership.

The thinking behind the promotion is fairly straight forward, and makes sense at first glance. The Civic, like the Cobalt, is very long in the tooth, and is scheduled for a much anticipated, full model overhaul for May of 2011. Likewise for the Corolla, which is the best selling car of all time, now having been on the market since a more slight model upgrade happened in October of 2006 (as the Axio in Japan), and is also firmly behind the curve, looking dated at this point.

Margaret Brooks, Chevrolet small-car marketing director, said at a press conference for the Cruze that she expects customers to “come away with a favorable view of the Cruze,” but is that good enough.

The bottom line for GM with this promotion, and why it is not likely to be a success, is that people are coming to your dealership to see your car…why show them what the competition has to offer? Even if your product is better, if it gets consumers in the mood to start shopping around, like to Ford with the Fiesta and upcoming Focus, or to Hyundai/Kia-who really know how to sell a small car, why do it? People might start to wonder why the Cruze doesn’t have a hatch, or a two door option, or why you have to pay the premium dollars to get the 40 MPG version?

I commend GM for the effort and having faith in their cars, the Cruze is as good or better than just about anything in its segment right now, but they have tried this before with the Saturn Aura, and more recently with the Malibu against the Camry/Accord, and it just did not work.

Sell the car…not the competition.

(Source: Automotive News – sub)

Editor’s Notes: You can also check out brand new pictures below of the Chevy Cruze hatchback.  This car is going on sale in Europe though won’t appear in the US.

US Chevrolet Cruze retail production will begin next on Wednesday September 8th at the Lordstown Plant in Ohio and the official Chevrolet configurator is now online. Pricing begins at $16,275.

Tim Allen has been hired as the official celebrity spokesperson and will appear in advertising also slated to begin next week.