GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Later this year and early next year the first mass-produced electric cars will reach the retail market. Nissan will be releasing its 100 mile range pure battery electric vehicle (BEV) and GM will be releasing its extended range electric car (EREV) Chevrolet Volt.

GM has long expressed its strategy with the Volt is to eliminate range anxiety, and many hear among us agree it is a very good solution.

It still remains unknown which architecture will be more popular among the general population of consumers when they finally have a chance to buy them.

I had the chance to ask Mark Reuss who is GM’s new President of North America what his opinion is on this. I asked whether he believes BEVs or EREVs will turn out to be more popular.

“Long term demand (for) BEV could be higher as EREV initially leads the way with battery technology like the lithium ion pack in the Volt…first gen,” stated Reuss.

The initial EREV technology as he sees it “then feeds BEV-like vehicles.”

“While EREV will be wildly popular at first with Volt,” says Reuss. “As the technology flows down to BEV in what will be smaller cars to carry smaller packs, that may be the higher volume play over a longer time.”

Since Reuss is newly in charge of GM North America sales and marketing, his opinions are likely to play a significant role in the company’s strategy going forward.

It appears he believes the Volt is a stepping stone to a market of pure EVs, and that the process of developing the technology for Volt will help lower the costs and broaden the acceptance for EVs in the future.

After releasing some conceptual art a couple weeks ago, the public got its first chance to get a “taste of the future” from Opel in person at the Geneva auto show. GM bills the Flextreme GT/E as giving customers the ability “to enjoy zero CO2 driving emissions Opel-style “while illustrating that size doesn’t matter.”

As reported earlier at GM-Volt.com, the Flextreme GT/E is based on the same Voltec powertrain, featuring the same 16 kWh battery pack, 1.4l 4-cyl engine for extended range driving as the Volt, but with a slightly larger electric drive unit, rated at 120 kW. This is were the similarities end.

Seeing it in person, the Flextreme GT/E is big. Really big. In fact it is 4762mm long, (almost a foot longer than the Volt) and its wheelbase is over 114 inches, thats Cadillac STS territory, and it is just as wide. Like the Volt, and despite its size, the Flextreme seats four.

In the US, this E-REV would be classed at the very top end of the large family/mid-sized car segment, but in Europe, (where it would be theoretically sold) most cars in this segment are much smaller, it would certainly be classed as a full-size or large car. (The Volt at 4,500mm is right on the cusp of being a mid-size in the US…one mm less, and it is a compact).

But what of the range and spec forecasts? Since announcing the GT/E, another GM EREV (Cadillac Converj) was cancelled, and part of that reason was that range would have be halved due to the performance requirements and additional amenities, therefore you would expect a projected electric range on this car to be not dissimilar, maybe even less. (both use the same electric drive unit)

Not so. And here is where the line between concept and reality gets blurred. GM claims this car has the same 40 mile electric range as the Volt, can sprint from 0-60 in the 8 second-ish range, and of can go faster than 200 km/hr…all the while rolling on 195mm, 21″ tires. Yet the Converj could only go 20?

Working from what we know from the Volt, these performance specifications seem highly unlikely. The only place where the Flextreme has it over the Volt is the drag coefficient, which is a sparse .22 (which is helped by some very conceptual vertical fins that pop out when the car is travelling over 30mph to extend the tail). Side note: It also has no side mirrors…those pesky things are always messing up the drag.

For its part, Opel suggests the new concept “expresses its mission of offering accessible German engineering,” and is the “logical next step in Opel’s unfolding strategy for the electrification of the automobile”

From looking at the design and spec, logically I would say the first buyer of the Flextreme GT/E would come from the planned ‘mega city’ of San Angeles in the year 2032…and the glove box may or may not contain 3 mysterious seashells with instructions for people of that time on how to use them.

Though Audi President Johan de Nysschen famously went on record calling the Volt “a car for idiots,” apparenly the allure of the EREV was just too compelling.  The German automaker has pulled a complete 180 and has just unveiled an interesting extended range electric car concept of its own that shares surprising similarites to the Volt.

Based on the compact A1 platform, the Audi A1 e-tron is a 4 seat 2-door premium class vehicle that always drives by way of its 75 kw (102 hp) peak, 45 kw (61 hp) continuous electric motor.

It contains a “T-shaped” 12 kwh lithium ion battery pack that contains enough energy for 31 miles of all electric range.  After that, an on-board range extender kicks in to produce electricity for continued driving.

Audi is using a very small 254 cc single rotor Wankel engine for electricity production, running at a constant 5000 rpm for peak efficiency.  They have included a tiny 3.17 gallon gas tank and the option for drivers to manually switch the generator on and off as desired.   GPS is also used to determine from the route and destination whether to activate the generator which can output 15 kw of power.

Audi notes its use of the tiny engine generator and gas tank along with the required power electronics, thermal management and exhaust only weigh 154 pounds collectively.  The small single RPM generator operates nearly silently and vibration free.  ”The Wankel engine in the back can barely be heard when it is running,” Audi states.  A brake by wire system is employed and recaptures kinetic energy when slowing.

The 2600 pound car can do 0 to 60 in 10 seconds and has a top speed of 80 mph.  Total range with a full tank of gas after the battery is depleted is an additional 124 miles.  Audi reports this translates to 123 mpg combining the two modes using the current draft standard for EREV fuel economy.

The car can be recharged in 3 hours at 380 Volts.

Lighter and slower than the Volt, with less electric and total driving ranges, the A1 e-tron is specifically suited to the big or “mega” city environments.

Source (Audi)

Jaguar intends to be the third automaker to mass produce an extended range electric car,  joining Chevrolet’s Volt and Fisker’s Karma.

The British automaker recognizes the advantage of the extended range over pure electric design.  They foresee a time when large cities create emission free requirements for vehicles within their city limits across the globe.  Therefore Autocar reports Jaguar executives say “only a self-charging electric car could have sufficient zero-emissions range to be practical transport in such scenarios.”

PHEVs would not have the pure EV range to cover distances into and from those cities

The Jaguar XJ will be powered by a  145 kw electric motor (195 hp) running on electricity supplied by a lithium-ion battery pack.

The range extender will be the 1.2 liter 3-cylinder gas system designed by Lotus specifically for use in range-extended vehicles.

The planned range of the vehicle will be 600 miles and it is expected to achieve a combined fuel economy of 57 mpg (British) and a top speed of 112 mph.

Jaguar executives told Autocar that performance and handling will be surprisingly positive, “because of the bulk that’s removed from car when you strip out the conventional drivetrain.”

The new car is being c0-developed by Jaguar and Lotus in an effort partly funded by the British government.

Source (Autocar)

It is fitting that on the day the Nissan LEAF began its US viewing tour I happened to forget to plug in my MINI E electric car the night before, and only had a few miles of range left on it. Luckily, I have a third backup gas car for just these reasons.

The Nissan LEAF offers up to 100 miles of electric range and will go on sale in selected US markets late next year.  According to Nissan executives the car will priced so that monthly cost of operation is equivalent to that of a fully-loaded Civic (including fuel). Nissan still hasn’t decided whether to lease the battery separately or sell it with the car.

The LEAF began a four day display in Los Angeles marking its first stop on a national viewing tour that ends in New York City next February.  It is a non-functioning car.  A Nissan Versa outfitted with the LEAF powertrain will be around for VIP and media test drives, public drives will not be permitted.

On the same day the LEAF tour began GM decided to put out a viral video.

This short and simple cartoon attempts to illustrate why EVs are cool, EREV’s are cooler and can be seen below.

If you forget to plug in your EV and it’s the only car you got, not cool.  If you have a Volt it won’t matter.

Of course, forgetting to plug one’s car in may not happen very often but needing to drive continuously beyond its electric range will.

May the best car win.

As the story goes, GM planned to leapfrog the Prius with what was called the ‘iCar’ in 2006.  Starting with Bob Lutz’ idea of a pure electric car, GM VP Jon Lauckner recommended adding a gas generator to eliminate issues of range limits and the Chevy Volt concept was born.  The resulting tremendous public interest caught GM by surprise and they had no choice but to produce the car.

Moving to production brought about many technical and engineering challenges, and few have followed in GM’s footsteps with most companies opting instead to go with simpler pure EVs.

Tony Posawatz is the Volt’s vehilce line engineer who has been involved in the Volt program since day one. Here’s how he answered the following question.

Does GM plan to offer a portfolio of electrical vehicles or just Voltec and its derivatives?

GM’s general position is going forward we will have a broad choice for customers. We see the option of a Voltec system continuing forward. How many alternatives off of that is interesting. Theoretically a pure battery electric vehicle would still be a Voltec. That’s one of the beauties of why we like the option we’ve taken, because it has that level of optionality.

This issue is now, for example, if you start with a pure EV there no place to put a range extender, or if you start with a hybrid that has at its roots an internal combustion engine, you take the engine out and it does nothing.

We will still do hybrid systems, further enhance them, get costs out because there are certain applications they work better in until we get further development on pure electric systems.

Many people ask us why there aren’t others following us in droves in developing EREVs. It’s a very hard configuration to make work. Once an engine is burning it changes the game, and we have non-intentionally thrown some agencies for a loop, like EPA and CARB, because their existing rules don’t apply. A lot of regulatory compliance stuff goes along with it not to mention the pleasability, the noise, the efficiency of the operation and the maintenance of it.

Therein lies the challenges associated with it and why maybe some companies never made the leap, because its hard.

In an absolute technical sense its hard because of its overall complexity, and the balance and interface and integration of all these things together add to the challenge.

It doesn’t mean the Volt can’t be a second or third car, but (if it is) you can never get to the volume we want, the building of interest to drive the cost down to get suppliers engaged and involved, and to get competitive bids for our components. This is the big picture. Everyone is so focused on the price of the car, but remember the price of the first cell phone.

We are in this for the long haul. There was a lot of deep thought in how to play the endgame here. Even there’s still debates such as shouldn’t it have been a Cadillac. Maybe in the near term it would have been great, because maybe we could have lost less money or even made money because we could have charged more.

/Special thanks to our Veterans today.