GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

GM’s outspoken Vice-Chairman, and father of the Volt wrote an opinion piece for the Feb 25th edition of Newsweek entitled “The Road Ahead.”

His task was to predict the future automotive landscape and writes that it will be “markedly different than today”.

First he predicts some change in “proportion”, cars will be smaller, but feels that those in the U.S. won’t reach European sizes until gas climbs above $ 10 per gallon. He writes that Americans still have a need for trucks, and, memorably:

“Not everyone is suddenly going to switch to very small cars, or tiny little pickup trucks, unless they suddenly decide to haul tiny little horse trailers carrying tiny little horses. ”

His other prediction is a change in “propulsion”, and agrees with his own prior statement “the electrification of the automobile is inevitable”.

He tells us GM is “pouring resources” into developing the E-Flex platform which will power not only the Volt, but “a generation of vehicles,” and he re-iterates his point that the Volt “is not a hybrid” but an E-REV.

Finally he mentions the planned Volt mule test drives this summer and promises “then you’re going to see, gradually but emphatically, this vision of the future of the automobile turn into the present.”

Source (Newsweek)

Some GM news coming out of the North American Dealers Association, besides GM CEO Wagoner asking dealers to fight state level emissions regulations, had to do with the Volt.

A report noted that dealers were told by GM that brands other than Chevrolet could also one day get E-Flex technology.  This shouldn’t of course surprise us as GM has indeed already shown us Saturn Flextreme and Cadillac Provoq concepts.

Certainly since the Volt may be the holy grail of success for GM, telling worried Pontiac dealers they may too one day get E-Flex on their showroom floors are important words of hope.

How about this for an idea?  Should GM license E-Flex to other manufacturers the way Toyota does it’s hybrid system? I didn’t think of it.  A reader once emailed me that he was actually invited to a focus group to discuss this proposal.

Source (Autonews)

The Cadillac Provoq is GM’s latest E-Flex concept car, a luxury crossover with all wheel drive and fuel cell range-extender. Nick Zielinski who used to be the ICE Volt’s chief engineer is now the chief engineer of the hydrogen Volt and Provoq, as well as the fuel cell Equinox. I had a few moments to speak with Nick at the Provoq Detroit unveiling (see post).

What brought about the Provoq design?

We’ve been intrigued with trying doing something with Cadillac, its our high line vehicle, our technology leader, taking our most advanced technology propulsion system and marrying that with Cadillac made a lot of sense.

When you figure fuel cells as we introduce them are going to be low volume and they’re going to be more expensive than traditional propulsion systems. So it made sense from a marketing standpoint to link up with a high line vehicle. It was just a nice marriage between the image of Cadillac and the technology of our most advanced propulsion system. So my role in that one was around the propulsion system of E-flex, since I’m doing the E-Flex fuel cell off the Chevy Volt, we also did the Provoq.

Are you actually in the production pipeline, moving towards a hydrogen fuel cell Volt?

Were working on an E-Flex version of the fuel cell as opposed to the generator set, and were working in the same way were working the regular E-Flex for the Volt. We are moving towards production. We are not making any commitments on production timing. We’ve got a number of issues. We are working on our fifth generation fuel cell stack. Similar to the battery, the readiness of that fuel cell is going to take whether we introduce it and when we introduce it.

Is the fifth generation lighter or smaller or more efficient that the fourth generation?

There are a number of drivers. One of the big things we are doing for the fifth generation is physically making the stack part of it smaller. In our Equinox program the fuel cell stack is pretty tall and what we want to do is get that system smaller. That way we can pack it into a broader range of vehicles. Because of the height of the current stack there were some limitations on the vehicles you could put them into. So the next generation will have much broader application, also some new technologies to address durability which is an issue we continue to need to work on in our fuel cell systems.

What do you mean by durability? Are they fragile and not handle road vibrations well?

No. Thats not really an issue. The way a fuel cell works is they like to be what we call a steady-state device. They like to produce power at a certain operating level and stay that way. A car is a dynamic device. You have to increase the amount and oxygen and hydrogen to get more voltage to make a car accelerate. What happens in a fuel cell is those transients take a little bit of the life out of the stack. So we have to make sure we understand the materials and the chemistries and the membrane that does the conversion to electricity. Things like starting it and stopping it affect that durability. So a lot of work to pull all that stuff together.

Read full release below:

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GM has just revealed the Cadillac Provoq, a 4 door crossover concept, which uses the E-Flex platform with a hydrogen fuel-cell range extender.

It runs on GM’s svelte 5th-generation hydrogen fuel cell stack married to an E-Flex propulsion system, which is the all-electric powertrain powered by a large rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. It is a zero-emissions vehicle.
The vehicle is designed to go 20 miles on a charge with an additional 280 miles of range provided by two hydrogen tanks each capable of holding 3 kg of the compressed gas. No gasoline here.
This one is all-wheel drive, with a pair of 40 kW rear wheel hub motors and a 70 kW front coaxial motor, and goes 0 to 60 in 8.5 secs.

Per GM VP of R&D Larry Burns, “This is proof that alternate fuels and advanced technologies create even greater opportunities to satisfy the luxury buyer.”

Additional cool stuff included: solar panel in the roof for small electricals, front grille that closes at highway speeds to reduce drag, stylish double front bumper charging ports, uncompromising interior, and sleek unmistakable Cadillac exterior.

Read all the details by clicking below.

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In our last post we heard about an interview with GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz in which he suggested a possible tempering of production date for the Volt. He didn’t exactly say that, for we have never really heard him quote confidence at hitting the 2010 delivery date, only his confidence on actually producing the car.

These statements nonetheless make us wonder whether something is going askew at team E-Flex. If felt it was necessary to reach out for their response.

Kindly, GM E-Flex spokesman Rob Peterson responded as follows:

Program timing has not changed, nor has the confidence level of the team. The team is driving toward late 2010 (assuming batteries are available) which is nearly three years from now. Our confidence grows each day, but there are still risks and unknowns that could alter the timing.