She recently had the chance to drive a pre-production Volt out among a fleet of seven cars to Knoxville, Tennessee.  Cattelan also noted she has previously driven pre-production and mule Volts in cold Canadian winter conditions, high altitudes in Denver, and the scorching heat of Death Valley, and through it all “we have not found any surprises,” she wrote.

Cattelan says that the “twisty, winding roads” of Knoxville are particularly a place where “you really get to see what a car is made of.” And in that place she said of the Volt’s performance from a driver experience standpoint “we are happy with the results.”

She explains it was in those mountains of Tennessee that GM worked to “calibrate how the Volt’s battery energy, fuel efficiency, and drive quality work together in real world conditions.”

She explains that a car must give back to the driver what he or she would expect, and the Volt is no exception. It must feel right and respond intuitively. She says it should have the same feeling both in EV and charge sustainting mode, should climb hills as needed and if its 95 degres outside “take the heat.”

In all these ways on those mountains the Volt lived up to her expectations.

In an almost poetic fashion she writes:

As I stood next to the Volt on top of a mountain last weekend, I felt overwhelmingly enthusiastic about its capability.

I’m confident that Chevy Volt drivers will feel invigorated like I do by its exciting, smooth, quiet, and fuel-efficient performance.

I imagine there’s a lot of people just waiting to get their chance to see for themselves, myself among them.

Source (GM)

While the first benefit can’t be disputed, a newly publicized study suggests that electric car use may actually be worse for the environment.

The study was performed by the group Transport Watch and found that diesel cars produce half as much CO2 as electric cars when the fossil fuel required to make the electricity is taken into account.

The study concludes “We conclude that the notion that electric cars will reduce emissions is a fiction.”

The study also took into account electrical energy leaked lost between the powerplant and the point where the vehicle would be charged. This leakage was estimated to be an astounding 76%. Diesels on the other hand achieve a 45% efficiency.

The research was done in the UK where only 20% of electricity is generated by renewable energy. It was estimated that in China, for example, where most electricity comes from coal, a change from diesel to electric vehicles would double CO2 emissions.

The research implies that burning fuel within the vehicle produces less emissions than creating electricity and sending it down the grid.

A conclusion drawn from this research by Philip Gomm, of the RAC Foundation is; “Electric vehicles are not a panacea. They are good for generating headlines but not necessarily at saving the planet, at least not in the short term. For today and tomorrow, a lot more attention needs to be paid to refining existing petrol and diesel technology, and making cars smaller and lighter as a way of saving fuel – something recognized by the Committee on Climate Change. These are proven solutions to an immediate problem.”

You can check out the details of the study here and draw your own conclusions.

Source (Telegraph)

Since the lithium ion battery was first invented in the early 90s, lithium production has been ramping up rapidly for use in consumer electronic devices. Car batteries are of course much more massive, and if they are produced globally in very large numbers, reserves could theoretically be an issue.

Lithium is currently obtained from dried salt ponds, or “salt flats”. Most of the natural supply base exists in South America and China, and one expert predicts future growth will strain the ability of these locations to export the salt.

This expert, William Tahil of Meridian International Research, predicts that with a growth rate of 25% per yer of lithium containing consumer electronics, that by 2015 there would only be enough supply of lithium to build 1.5 million Chevy Volt-type cars.

Another concern is the environmental impact of increasing production.

Not all experts agree with these projections.

EnerDel CEO Charles Gassenheimer had told us that perhaps at a market of $100 billion, there might be a bottleneck, but that in fact lithium is even present in the sea (see post).

A123 VP Ric Fulop has told us that he believes there’s enough lithium on the planet for “several billion” electric cars (see post).

Source (CNET)

A new study was just published in which researchers estimated it would cost $200 Billion in research and infrastructure to bring fuel cell vehicles to mass market levels.

The study analyzed the cost of bringing 2 million fuel cell cars to the roads by 2020 and 25 million by 2030. It was determined that to achieve such a ramp up, the government would need to spend $55 billion between 2008 and 2023 and private industry would need to spend $145 billion.

It was noted in the article that the high and rising cost of platinum makes of 57% of the cost of fuel cell stacks and was a significant barrier, as well, from the article "future platinum supply is a critical issue in forward projections of fuel-cell costs."

So while a production-intent fuel-cell Chevy Volt program is underway at GM, there remains serious considerations whether fuel cells will become the dominant vehicle type.

The study logically concludes that the best approach to displacing petroleum will be to develop a portfolio of alternative fuel vehicles including battery EVs, hybrids, and bio-fuel cars in addition to fuel cells.

Source (Marketwatch )

On a somewhat related note, Al Gore just gave a speech in which he challenged the U.S. to an initiative to achieve 100% fossil-fuel free electricity in 10 years. He cited not just environment concerns but those of national security as well.

Source (Text of Speech )

Just while we’re busy discussing whether GM will put a solar roof on the Chevy Volt, and we begin to hear rumors about the next year Prius getting a solar roof option, GM has taken the idea to the next level.

Today GM announced that they have placed a massive solar panel array on the roof of their Zaragoza assembly plant in Spain where the Opel Corsa, Meriva and Combo models are built. This will be the world’s largest rooftop solar system and will be built by Energy Conversion Devices.

The solar array is 10 megawatts in size and can produce 15.1 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year, enough GM Europe’s President Carl-Peter Forster states to power 4,500 Chevy Volts through typical yearly commuter cycles.

Source (Reuters )

UPDATE : Here’s GMs video about it:

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB9Ly-6wmgQ]

As many of you know, Bob Lutz recently was quoted as saying global warming was a crock of sh*t. This resulted in an impressive run of internet and print media discussions, in the end Lutz made it clear that his personal opinions should not reflect the companies activities.

Now GM CEO Rick Wagoner has gone on the record as regretting Mr. Lutz’ comments.

Wagoner said “I would have preferred to pass on the comment”.

He also said “the data is pretty clear that the temperature on the earth is rising. It makes sense for us to put the business in a place where can respond productively,” and “a lot of things need to be done to address CO2.”

Source (Wall Street Journal)

A more recent study by GM suggests E-REV use will reduce tailpipe emissions by 80%.

In the USA Today, two studies , one by the National Resources Defense Council and the other by the  Minnesota Pollution Control Agency were reported.

As we already know, the Chevy Volt is essentially a coal-burning car, because right now, the majority of U.S. electricity is produced at coal-burning powerplants.

As per the NRDC report, if the elecricity is generated in older-technology coal plants, “there is a possibility for significant increases of soot and mercury,” .

The second study suggested “plug-ins also could result in more sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions,” and mentions “SO₂ is toxic in large amounts and is a component of corrosive acid rain”.  This study also apparently contradicted the prior EPRI study in concluding that PHEV use could increase CO2 emissions.

Source (USA Today)

By now many of you have probably heard about this. Originally reported in D-magazine is a “closed-door”conversation between GM Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz and several journalists. On the topic of the Chevy Volt, Mr Lutz reportedly called global warming “a total crock of sh-t”.  He went on to say he’s a skeptic rather than a denier and further clarified that the desire for GM to build the Volt was more to replace foreign oil than to reduce CO2 emissions.

On this site we examine all the Volt news, and it isn’t clear what type of PR this statement will generate. The comment was picked up by Jalopnik on Tuesday and made it to Popular Science and WIRED on Wednesday.

We here, of course, were dealing with some important politics and science in the interim, but hey, why not stir the pot a little.

One thing that’s clear about Mr. Lutz is he tells it just like he sees it.

Peter Savagian is an engineer at GM who worked on the EV-1. He recently presented data from his study on the effect of driving electrified vehicles.

The presentation examines and discusses the implication of plug-in hybrid and E-REV utilization.

Per Peter, “GM’s Advanced Propulsion Technology Strategy is to remove automobiles from the environmental dialogue.”, and “another key element of the strategy is to allow automobiles to shift significant portions of their required energy from petroleum to other sources.” This is otherwise known as petroleum displacement.

The definition of an E-REV is proposed as “a vehicle that functions s a full-performance battery electric vehicle when energy is available from an onboard RESS (rechargeable electric storage system) and having an auxiliary energy supply that is only engaged when the RESS energy is not available.” He also says “the E-REV is unique from a PHEV in that the vehicle, battery and propulsion system are sized such that the engine never is required for operation of the vehicle when energy is available from the battery.”

In the study, Peters group analyzed real-world detailed driving data from a cohort of over 600 actual drivers in Southern California. As opposed to running simulation a on pre-defined test cycles such as the US06, the study analyzes what the effect of this real-world driving behavior would be if it occurred in a conventional vehicle, plug-in hybrid, or E-REV.

One key finding was that the hybrid reduced fuel consumption by 23%, the PHEV by 54%, and the E-REV by 80%.

When measured as a function of number of engine starts, the study showed that emissions were not significantly reduced using a HEV, but were reduced by 72% using an E-REV.

Peter concludes that “electrification that enables E-REVs may be well worth the effort.” and “while PHEVs can make improvements when compared to HEVs, an E-REV appears to realize a much greater portion of societal benefits.”

Further he says, “By offering full-performance on electric power alone, the E-REV operates as an EV for the majority of real drivers. By retaining an ICE-powered charging capability, the E-REV overcomes the “range anxiety” limitations of earlier BEVs. We anticipate that the E-REV will be an important and practical step forward in the electrification of the automobile”.

See Peter’s blog post and presentation of the data: (LINK)

Ethanol supply produced from corn grown on U.S. croplands has been increasing and is thought by some as an opportunity to reduce petroleum consumption. Indeed carmakers like GM have been promoting E85 engines, and the U.S. government has been subsidizing farmers to produce corn.

The use of corn ethanol as being net energy positive is controversial with estimates ranging from 1 to 1 – 1 to 1.3 in terms of energy put in to energy gained. Burning ethanol produced from corn has been proposed to have a net decrease on carbon emissions, the theory being that the corn absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows, releasing it as in burns in a 1 to 1 ratio, whereas fossil fuel use produces new atmospheric carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) from sequestered stores.

Today the leading journal Science published an expedited study which calls this second potential benefit into question.

The study by Searchinger et. al. actually looks at the global effect when U.S. farmers use land to produce ethanol. As a a result, farmers in other parts of the world will have to ramp up crop production in order to make up for the net loss from the U.S. They will clear grassland and forests to do so. The study suggests that the net effect of this behavior will be to double greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years. Also if U.,S. farmers use cropland to produce switchgrass for cellulosic ethanol, greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 50%. The authors conclude that if ethanol is produced from waste materials, however, there will be a net reduction in GHG emissions.

The study concludes that U.S. policy should take this potentially deleterious global effect into account before continuing to endorse and subsidize corn production from ethanol.

GM admits to planning for 50% of its cars to be flex-fuel capable by 2012, but also has partnered with waste-ethanol producer Coskata.

Source (Science, subscription req’d)