Silver Emerald Volt

The decision process was in the form of a contest.

GM claims nearly 13,000 creative entries were received from which they were able to whittle down three finalists.

They are:
1) “EV-ergreen by Devin McQuarrie, 30, of San Jose, CA
2) “Viridian Joule” by by Dave Thomas, 40, of Sanford, FL
3) “environMINT” entered by Matthew Valbuena, 30, of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

These finalists were decided “based equally on originality, creativity and the ability to capture the innovation and spirit of the Volt.”

Staring today you can vote for your favorite name below. The winner will be chosen by this public vote and will be flown all-expenses-paid to the LA Auto Show next month where it will be announced on December 1.

Not only will the winner go down in history as having named the Volts’ paint color but will also get an exclusive test drive of a pre-production integration Chevy Volt including in the now-ready-for-primetime charge-sustaining mode operation.

VOTE HERE

Editor’s Note:  There are reports on the Internet about an Ohio Chevy Dealer taking deposits on eBay.  The dealer claims to have Chevy Volt allocation.  This is denied by GM who report no dealer allocations have been given yet.

It currently provides real time assistance, directions, theft prevention and other features to 5.6 million drivers who pay from $199 to $299 per year for the service.

Its no secret that GM believes the Chevy Volt could gain significant value-added utility from having access to OnStar. In fact, Volt executive Tony Posawatz says the possibilities for this relationship are “mind-boggling.”

GM has yet to confirm or finalize all the OnStar-mediated features the Volt will offer, but have just shown off their new testing facility called the OnStar EV Lab.

Currently the lab is using OnStar to monitor 19 of the Chevy Volt integration prototypes.

Engineers are collecting all sorts of data from these cars each of which have 20 different independent modules that are capable of transmitting back status updates to the system.

The data includes performance and diagnostic information and relays such things as battery state of charge, temperatures, and thermal management operation.  Though the primary focus for now is real-time observation of battery health and function, GM is using the lab to develop the final features for the car once it reaches production.

Posawatz notes that OnStar could be used to communicate with the utility companies. Using this method, the cars could actually charge slowly or not at all when rates or demand is high, and then more rapidly when rates are lower, reducing the drivers expense.

A more simplified approach would be to simply let the driver manually program in those parameters in the same way one programs an automated household thermostat.

“The car will have to talk to the grid and be able to pull very sensitive (utility) data,” Posawatz told CNET. “Electric vehicle customers want to manage their energy–they’re very into data. OnStar is an enabling tool for us.”  GM is currently working with EPRI to collect some of this data nationwide.

Posawatz also cautions that the ability of the car to communicate with local utilities will limit the pace of the car’s rollout.

“It certainly won’t be a nation-wide roll-out (at first),” he said.  The whole nation might not see these cars until sometime in 2011.

Another potential use for OnStar will be in the other direction allowing for example firmware upgrades to the car.

And for those who might ask, Tony Posawatz has confirmed to GM-Volt.com, “OnStar will be standard with VOLT.”

Back in late 2008 we heard then GM executive Bob Kruse say that “OnStar gives us the opportunity to know more about the environment the driver is driving in,” implying that terrain could be taken into account to show the driver the most energy-efficient route home.

If it was clear that a driver was returning home, OnStar could also shut off the ICE to let the driver arrive “as close to zero as practical or possible,” minimizing the use of petroleum.

In response to that post, readers generated 180 responses, some of which I’ve been told by reliable sources were actually integrated into the car by the Volt team.

Any more ideas?

Source (CNET) and (Autoblog)

Clearly there will be an effect.  During the recent 30 to 40 degree mornings I, for example, have been driving my MINI E electric car with the heat on moderately for the first time since I got the car in June.  This is resulting in around a 10 to 15% decrease in range.

Conventional gas cars are able to use the heat of the gas engine to heat the car but pure electric cars and the Volt in EV mode don’t have that luxury instead having to rely on electric heating elements.

Indeed GM announced in August that using some unspecified average amount of HVAC and city driving schedule, the Volt would achieve 25 kWH/100 miles.

As was reported yesterday, a fleet of eight integration Volts are currently on a three day extended test drive which will total 1200 miles of driving.

Among many other things, engineers have been testing the HVAC and Volt engineer Andrew Farah explains how the Volt will handle this issue when he was asked how HVAC draw will affect range.

There is going to be an effect , there is no question about it. What we’re trying to do is give the customer an opportunity to decide how much they want it to have an effect.

For example, one of the things that the Volt has that other cars don’t is not only do you select what temperature you want and things like that, but you can also select if you want it to use full available power because you’re interested in being 100% comfortable 100% of the time, or whether or not you want to restrict how much power the system can use.  Yes that will take a little longer to heat or cool the cabin, but again it really has to do with what the customer is interested in doing. We try to make it easy for them to make that kind of choice.

So it seems the Volt will let you dial in an economy HVAC option to extend your EV range if desired.  It is also believed that the Volt will be able to programmably precondition the temperature of its cabin while plugged-in, using grid energy, therefore requiring less energy from the battery once driving begins.

So what are the priorities of we early adopters?  Will you choose to limit your HVAC power to extend range, or just go for sheer comfort?
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

We understand a lot of information will be available on those displays, they are configurable, and the driver will be able to choose among many options.

A primary function will be to provide the driver with feedback on how fuel efficient he/she is driving and utilizing accessory loads such as HVAC.

As anyone who like to hypermile hybrids knows, seeing real-time instantaneous MPG is a useful measure to adjust driving behavior as one moves along varying road conditions.

I asked Tony Posawatz who is the Volt vehicle line engineer if that value will be provided while the car is running in charge-sustaining (generator) mode.

“I don’t think we will show instantaneous mpg,” he said. “We are working a lot on what information to show and how to present it right now.”

“The OnStar capabilities with VOLT will be mind boggling,” he said. “Stay tuned.”

I would imagine driving style will affect the Volts’ electric range. Hyper-milers probably will try to get the car to go 100 miles without going into generator mode.
Yes. I can probably get it to do several hundred miles downhill with tailwind. To be honest with you there’s several driver interfaces that try to teach drivers. We’ve not talked too much about the man-machine interface, but it will have the necessary tools to allow drivers to modify their behavior for maximum electric range.

Will you have an interface like Ford or Honda that show these green leaves and things?
The Volt will have a very cool set of graphic interfaces for the drivers. We’ve got two different reconfigurable display areas, a primary right in front of the driver where the traditional cluster is and a secondary at the top of the center stack that will have content unique for a driver interfacing with an electric vehicle.

You haven’t shared what that’s going to look like yet.
No but it’s very well done. It’s very impressive.

Very similar to the charge sustaining story, ongoing refinement. While we have time were going to make it perfect. All the fundamental basic functions are already done, we’re making it perfect, cool, and sexy.

Some of these schedules that some of these companies make when they say they get hundreds of miles of electric range, the schedule that you’re on can help influence that.  In the Volt if you do 35 mph flat terrain steady state there’s upside potential over the 40 mile range. One thing we’ve got to look out for is that the US consumer is not happy with the EPA mpg ratings in that they don’t necessarily represent real world driving conditions. We’re being very careful to not allow the perception to exceed the reality. You don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver

It seems to me you feel you are going to underpromise and overdeliver?
That’s fair. Were being somewhat conservative again because we want to be successful with the technology.

People ask if they will be able to access that energy to power their home during a blackout, or for camping, by attaching an inverter to the Volt.

“This capability won’t be available on gen 1,” says Volt spokesperson Rob Peterson, “At this point, our priority is getting the vehicle right and delivering on time. This type of functionality would likely be considered for future gen vehicles.”

People also ask whether the Volt could be used to jumpstart another car.

I had the opportunity to pose those questions to Andrew Farah who is the Chevy Volt’s lead engineer.

Will the Volt be able to jump start another car? Does it have a traditional 12v lead battery too or will drivers have access to the high voltage terminals?

These are very interesting questions. About a year ago we worked through them and here is where we are…

1.  Customer access to High Voltage
The customer will have no access to high voltage. In fact, if the customer accidentally takes some action that might get them close to high voltage (e.g. disconnects a HV connection) then the system will cut off that voltage up stream of the potential breach. As with all systems, “nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool”, but we have a number of layers of HV protection for the customer, the service technician, and the vehicle assembler.

2.  “Jump” Start
We had also wrestled with this issue on the EV1. Answer there was no jump start of any kind, but the EV1 had a different electrical architecture that offered other remedies. For Volt the answer is a bit more conventional. Yes, we have a 12v battery. It is not a typical automotive “flooded” lead, but a sealed “acid starved” type…. and it is capable of providing enough power to jump start another vehicle.

The Volt will have some capacity to regulate its charging function, but more advanced features are expected to be coming in future generations.

I had the chance to ask Britta Gross who is GM’s direct of infrastructure some questions about this.

Are you involved in what technology will actually be in the Gen-1 Volts to communicate with the grid?
There will be some capability in the first generation volts to key in charging preferences. It won’t have all the smarts and broad capability of future generations. But it will have the smarts for you to be able to go into the vehicle and key in, for example, that you prefer to be charged after 7PM at night because you know the rates will be lower.

I am also working on how to (facilitate) that relationship between the utility companies and the new Volt buyers so they will be knowledgeable about their particular utility company’s best off-peak rates. We’re setting up systems now for utility companies to communicate with their customers about this.

So you may come home at 6 PM and plug-in the car, but your preferences are for charging to begin at midnight, and so your car will delay charging until then.

And, for example, if there is a different situation say for two weeks you need to be charged right away, let’s say your wife is pregnant, then you could override it.

Will the Gen-1 Volt communicate to the utility companies?
We’re looking at a lot of studies with OnStar right now, but there are other ways to do it. Through SAE and EPRI and our relationships with the utilities, we are very actively engaged in how we would communicate with the vehicle.

There are wireless means already, such as Zigbee, we’d have to have a chip on the vehicle that allows wireless communication about the charging and what’s happening. There are many ways out there to do this, we are looking through all of them to figure out what is best for consumers.

Will the Gen-1 Volt have something in it along these lines?
Well Gen 1 is a little different. The Zigbee chips aren’t even available today. These are nice to haves, but not must to haves. Even if the chip were available it would have to go through our very rigorous validation process which takes at least a year.

I had the chance to ask Jon Lauckner who is GM’s VP of global program management what has been happening with control development on the current Volt mules.

GM has already “laid out all of the concepts that we want to use and written a lot of the preliminary code,”  said Lauckner.  He notes the car’s behavior “has to be software driven” and that all the code has already been “put into our mule cars and we’re evaluating and testing it.”

GM has apparently figured out most of how the vehicle will behave. “I would say that conceptually we’re most of the way there if not all of the way there,” in terms of behavioral programming said Lauckner, “but there’s a lot of work to be done still to make sure that the whole thing operates seamlessly.”

Lauckner feels it is imperative GM makes this car absolutely perfect.  He said “we need an experience where people say ‘Wow’ this is really something special. These guys have put a lot of thought into the technology, a lot of thought into the interface between me as a driver and how the car behaving that it tells me the kind of information I need know when I need to know it and that it operates very intuitively.”

“That’s the level of refinement that requires very little explanation for people to understand exactly what going on,” he said.

He says having the car operate completely intuitively and with very little driver explanation is “the reason why we do development.”  He says GM really has to “love this thing a little bit to make sure that you not only get it that it actually works but you get it working in such a way that its completely intuitive.”

As to why this development process seems so long to us he said “we need the time with the car and we need the time over a wide variety of conditions to simulate certain things, so that we can see just exactly how the car is going to behave and what sort of information the driver is going to get to make sure everything works in as seamless a way as we can possibly make it.”

1.  The graphic renderings are described as being bluish, curvy, Nintendo Wii-like and show that state you are in, EV or range-extended.  The screen will appear different depending on which of the two modes the car is in.

2.  Vehicle speed, battery level, and fuel level

3.  Braking, acceleration , and tire pressure  meters

4.  While plugged in, the screen will show how much more time until full charge is attained and whether at 110V or 220V

5.  Stereo, A/C and optional navigation

6.  A climate control efficiency gauge

7.  An extensive menu to to program charging start and end times

And finally, the author got the answer to a question people have been asking for a long time here on GM-Volt.com, the Volt cannot be driven while it is still plugged in.

Source (Cars.com)

Here’s an email I just got today:

THE NEW CAR THE VOLT.WHY DIDN’T YOU PUT SOLAR PANELS ON THE ROOF. IT WOULD CHARGE THE BATTERY WHEN IT SAT OUT SIDE IN THE SUN??????????

The idea that a small panel of solar cells sitting on the roof in sunlight even for hours could do much to actually recharge the battery and justify its expense are unfortunately unrealistic at the present time.

However, the public “green-demand” for it has led GM vice chairman Bob Lutz to infer that a solar roof could be a Volt option. It was supposed to be shown at the Detroit Auto Show, but never made an appearance.

Toyota though, rode the PR wave and introduced a solar roof option for its new 2010 Prius, which is base-priced at $22,000, gets combined 50 mpg fuel efficiency, and went on sale in May.

Here’s how Toyota describes their solar panel option which retails for $3500:

An available sliding glass moonroof is packaged with solar panels, located over the rear seating area, that power a new ventilation system. This solar powered ventilation system uses an electrically powered air circulation fan that does not require engine assist. The system prevents the interior air temperature from rising while the vehicle is parked, making the cool-down time shorter when the driver returns to the vehicle, thus reducing the use of air conditioning.

Check out the following video and see how that Prius solar panel roof actually works out in real word testing: