GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Today GM announced that they are moving 500 fuel cell experts out of the laboratory and on to the production front. Their collective work will focus on mass production of the 5th generation hydrogen fuel cell system that was unveiled in the Hydrogen Volt in Shanghai.What this means is that GM is serious about getting these cars on the road. We still want our combustion-linked Volt to come out first, but it wont surprise us if GM becomes the first company to put hydrogen powered cars on U.S. roads.

Indeed the Project Driveway program will allow about 100 U.S. people to drive a Hydrogen Sequel this coming November.

Many people have misgivings and concerns about hydrogen. Right now it costs energy usually in terms of fossil fuel burning to electrolyze water to form the hydrogen in the first place. H2 is really just a storage medium for energy. Also the infrastructure for hydrogen delivery doesn’t exist. Micky Bly had mentioned to us previously though that one could target infrastructure to highly populated areas, thereby allowing most of the population to utilize it, but without requiring an extensive nationwide infrastructure redevelopment.

GM rolled out its new Volt concept variant in Shanghaii yesterday. As mentioned, the vehicle is different than the predecessor concept in that instead of a combustion engine linked to the battery, the car uses a hydrogen fuel cell, which can both charge the battery and drive the engine.

Because of the hydrogen fuel cell, the battery pack is smaller and lighter, letting the car drive for only 20 miles on electric only as opposed to 40 miles in the first version. The fuel cell system itself is also lightweight and is considered GM’s 5th generation device.

There are a few important considerations about this vehicle. Due to the lack of hydrogen refueling infrastructure, pure hydrogen vehicles are impractical for among other reasons, inablity for drivers to refuel. The Hydrogen Volt, will allow drivers to do more driving without hydrogen, and refueling can be much less freuqent. Another issue is that we are aware that Big Oil and Big Goverment are pushing the hydrogen economy. This vehicle will allow GM access to government funding dollars to help develop the car. Remember, the pure electric car isnt a favorite of the goverment and big oil. Third, the fact that the vehicle could be built with different non-electric fuel sources, demonstrates the flexiblilty and robustness of the E-flex platform and allows a “roadmap” of future vehicle to roll out on the platform, with the ICE Volt coming out first.

As we predicted in our previous post, the new version of the Volt to be displayed at the Shanghai Auto show will demonstrate how the E-flex system can be configured with a hydrogen fuel cell as opposed to the internal combusiton engine.

This concept illustrates the “Flex” portion of E-flex. Since it is the battery-powered electric engine which powers the vehicle, one can hook up any supply they would like to charge the batteries, including, in this case a hydrogen cell. Less batteries and range will be needed as the fuel cell can directly power the electric engine.
More information will be forthcoming when the car is unveiled.

Source:here

Sure, wed all like to drive off in an all-new, dealership-supported, warrantied, and well-made GM Volt. But there are folks who dont want to wait until 2010. Indeed the do-it-yourself movement is rapidly underway. As we’ve discussed previously there are a variety of ways to “grow your own” electric car.

There are several companies that will take your Prius, swap out the stock batteries and swap in hand-made Li-ion batteries, allowing for an extended all-electric driving range, and mpgs >100. These companies include A123 Systems and Hybrids Plus. Other companies, such as AC propulsion, can swap in entire electric engines. You can even buy a production electric car from Tesla called the Roadster.

As gas prices rise and the momentum for electric cars increases, expect more and more of these companies and options to appear on the road ahead of the Volt.

Source: Voice of America

We talk a lot about the electric engine, plugin capability, and lithium batteries when we discuss the Volt. It is time we discussed another very important aspect of the vehicle, the fact that the combustion engine can run on E85.

E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, not the other way around!

Due to the explosion in demand for fuel ethanol, America’s farmers have been ramping up corn production, as most of the ethanol is derived from corn. This year, U.S. farmers are expected to produce 15 billion bushels of corn. This translates into about 15 billion gallons of ethanol.  The U.S consumes 146 billion gallons of gas per year, 75 billion of this by passenger cars. So right now we are potentially capable of reducing our gasoline consumption by about 15% through using E85. Also, keep in mind, every barrel of oil consumed produces about 20 gallons of gasoline, and the U.S. consumes about 7 billion barrels of oil per year.

Now, we’ve already calculated that if every passenger car was like the Volt, and 50% of drives were less than 40 miles, 30 billion gallons of gas could be saved per year. Of the remaining 30 billion gallons, we could replace half with corn ethanol, which would result in only 15 billion gallons of gas being needed for passenger cars, a savings of 60 billion gallons of gas per year! This would translate to about 3 billion less barrels of oil per year being needed by the U.S, that’s 1/2 what were consuming now.

If we extend the electric E-flex engine to commercial vehicles, we could reduce oil consumption by 90%. Now that ain’t too corny!!

The Volt is powered totally by an electric engine..thats right its not an internal combustion engine. The system is an electric drive unit consisting of a 120 kW electric motor that turns the drivetrain with 161 hp. This can generate decent speed, with a 0 to 60 of 8.5 seconds, current Prius is 9.8 seconds.

The electric engine is powered directly from 16 kwH Lithium ion battery.

We see from multiple sources that the car could travel up to 40 miles at “normal driving speeds” before a fully charged battery is emptied. The battery itself will have two methods of recharging; an on-the-fly method which is supplied by a 1.0L 3 cylinder on board combustion engine whose only job in the vehicle is to refill the battery. This engine alone give 71HP and can tool the car along from 50 up to 150 mpg depending on the length of the trip. The second method for charging the battery is by plugging it into a 110 volt outlet and draining from the power grid.

Questions for thought?

1) what does this car sound like driving

2) what is the electric cost of a daily 2-way 40 mile commute from typical utility power rates