GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Jon Lauckner

“A second battery pack, incorporating improvements from the first one, is being delivered to our battery lab today for similar testing. Now, it’s far too early to declare victory, but the results of cell and pack testing to date are very encouraging.”

He also mentioned that the first pack, which GM received on October 31st, has already undergone extensive testing.

He said:

“This prototype battery pack, shown here in a test stand in our battery lab in Warren, has already run a number of test schedules, (including some pretty severe ones) that showed both the individual cells, and the pack, performed according to our math-based expectations. These tests are an important first step to assess the performance of the battery pack under a range of speeds and loads.”

On December 2 at EVS23, A123Systems publicly unveiled the lithium ion battery cell that they have co-developed with GM specifically for the Volt. It is a flat “prismatic” cell that is significantly larger than the cylindrical cells that we are used to seeing from A123. The cell is rectangular, and is designed to be stacked within the pack like slices of bread. GM chose a stackable, space-efficient battery format for the Volt so as to minimize the volume of the pack.

Exact specifications of the cell have not been released.

According to A123 engineers at the event, they have also developed proprietary algorithms that can precisely monitor their battery technology’s voltage and state of charge – thus eliminating concerns that the battery could suddenly drain completely empty without warning. They developed this software as a part of their hybrid electric bus program, which is independent of their collaboration with GM.

GM’s Denise Gray has stated in the past that they are developing their own battery management software “in-house”, so it is unclear if A123′s software will be shared as a part of the Volt program.

[Thanks to AES for this guest post! - LD]

Rick Wagoner

The bill has not been fully presented publicly yet, and Bush will still have to vote on it.

GM Chairman Rick Wagoner has already issued his comments saying the rules pose:

“a significant technical and economic challenge to the industry”

and that GM plans to meet the goals:

“with an array of engineering, research and development resources. We will continue our aggressive pursuit of advance technologies that will deliver more products with more energy solutions to our customers”

Source: (Bloomberg)