GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

GM-Volt.com has now been in existence for 29 months. Throughout this remarkable turbulent ride I have had the chance to meet with and question many GM executives including former CEO Rick Wagoner on a few occasions.

Now of course Fritz Henderson is at the helm. He has inherited a company that is in bankruptcy, and is charged with the herculean task of restructuring it into a leaner meaner four brand form. The government and bankruptcy court are of course making that job easier.

We here have focused on the Chevy Volt’s development which we have been assured remains on track, in good health, and undeterred.

There may come the day when I get to meet and interview Mr. Henderson. If I did, as always, I’d want to bring all of you with me to ask him any questions you might have.

Please use the comments of this post to write down your one question for him. Please keep it short and concise, and watch out for repeats. If I do get the chance, I’ll pick as many as I can.

Henderson already answered some public questions on GMs Fastlane blog. He told a “Volt skeptic” who wondered if Volts could actually get into the hands of people other than the rich and famous, “this will not be an inexpensive vehicle in its first generation, but it will be extremely affordable relative to a tesla. while we have not made final decisions on pricing, you should be thinking about $40k ish, with a $7500 available tax credit.” He also said it was “not likely” when one commentator asked is we’ll ever see and electric Camaro.

And while your thinking about what question you’d like to ask, watch the new GMreinvention television ad below.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Vcx3cRdi8]

Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz gave us a teleconference update on GMs plug-in strategy specifically as it applies to supporting President Obama’s goal of 1 million plugin cars by 2015, led of course by the Chevy Volt.

The idea of creating a “plug-in ecosystem” was proposed. Tony envisioned this as analogous to the success of the iPod. The iPod alone isn’t what’s successful but how it is integrated with its infrastructure. GM feels such a cultural shift will need to take place to enable the plug-in car revolution too. Collaboration between carmakers, utility companies, municipalities, governments, individuals and corporations will have to occur.

GM is fostering relationships with key stakeholders, and in particular feels a capable green grid and excellent plug-in cars are essential.

GM is already working with many national utility companies through EPRI, and working with local progressive governments such as San Francisco.

Mark Duvall of EPRI and Bob Hayden, clean transportation adviser for the City of San Francisco, also attended the conference and support these measures. Duvall reported that the US utility grid in its present state could support 10 million Chevy Volts which would collectively only use 0.8% of the total electric capacity.  He pointed out that charging the Volt is a similar draw to two plasma screen TVs. Furthermore he noted that most new grid capacity these days comes from wind and natural gas which are considered clean sources. He also reports there will be a 500 million ton per year reduction in CO2 emissions in the US when the automotive fleet is fully electrified.

A particular difficulty at present is determining how to handle daytime charging at workplaces and for apartment dwellers. This may cause potential grid strain in dense urban areas, and could be expensive. It was agreed a solution must be found through the effort of third party vendors like Coulomb technologies, utilities, or municipalities. The importance of local “plug-in champions” such as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome was mentioned.

I know that many reader have a lot of thoughts and opinions on these important matters, and you will all have a chance to bring them up directly to GM’s expert in the field.

We will be trying something new and fun.  Come here later today at 4PM EDT.  Below in the CoveritLive interface we will have a multiblog real-time chat with Britta Gross who is GM’s director of electric vehicle infrastructure commercialization.  She will be fielding our questions as well as those from readers at FastLane, GreenCarCongress.com and EVWorld.com.

See you then.

On this intriguing day, GM spokesperson Rob Peterson decided to write his own response to my last post about the first Volt Integration vehicle being built June. He both wanted to clarify it a little and respond to some of your comments. He also wanted to share with us the actual countdown clock on the wall of Volt lead engineer Andrew Farah, showing the number of days until the first genuine Chevy Volt build begins (shown above).

Feel free to tell him what you think.

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The following is from Rob Peterson, Manager of Electric Vehicle Communications at GM:

Hello,

It’s great to see all the enthusiasm for the Volt program. I can attest the Volt development team draws tremendous motivation from the comments and feedback you provide.

I just wanted to make a quick correction to Lyle’s story – builds of the first Volt integration vehicles will BEGIN on June 1 and be completed soon afterward. Importantly, the change shouldn’t impact Andrew Farah’s goal to be driving vehicles on July 4th. Speaking of Andrew, I’ve included a photo of his countdown clock hanging in his office below (Note: Start of Build-GA, indicates the time Andrew expects the General Assembly area of our pre-production operations to begin building the vehicles). No question, it’s an exciting time for the team as the journey that began on January 8, 2007 is starting to come together. There is still lots of work to do, but we’ve made tremendous progress to date.

I don’t often get a chance to engage in the dialogue, so I’ll also answer a few questions from posters as well:

#11 Solo:

You’re absolutely correct; some of these cars will be crashed much like we’ve done with the engineering development mules already. This is standard for any vehicle program and a significant differentiator between a production program and a fleet or demo program.

#23 RamZ

Doubling up on DonC’s response, building a car for the masses is a complex process that involves meeting government regulations and consumer expectations as well as tremendous talent and even a little good fortune to pull it all off. Building a car at the same time the technology is being developed, like the Volt, only adds to the complexity. We’ve tried to be transparent about the development of the vehicle so the public understands the challenges, but also to highlight the effort and skills of all the people who are working on the development of the Volt.

#24 Statik

Glad to read you’re pleased with this progress, but I hope you’re not going soft on us. Your comments keep the dialogue “real.” There is one common thread amongst all heros…they all need a villain. This isn’t to say you’re a villain, but candid feedback keeps the dialogue relevant. (I suspect I’ll catch some flak for even hinting that the Volt could be a “hero,” but that doesn’t change my feeling that this is an important vehicle for GM and the industry.)

In case anyone ever wonders, I read each and every comment people write here and learn from and appreciate them greatly. As well, it is a fact that many of GM’s top executives also read this site and the comments daily.

I picked out this particular part of a comment as being interesting. Here we are over two years since the Volt concept has been announced, over 830 articles have been written about it on this site, and thousands more online, in print, and television. But how far has the message penetrated? How many people now about the Volt?

Here is the comment made by solo2500nt :

As far as people knowing about any new electric cars coming out, I doubt it. Only serious car people know about the Volt, plug in Prius/Vue, etc. Everybody I mention the VOLT to look at me like a space alien. I told 2 computer geeks at work (I used to be a computer geek too, by the way) and they were shocked. They thought it must be some golf cart or something. When they read this website they were astonished. I bet today less than 5% of the population know what the Volt is.

I forwarded this to Rob Peterson who is GM’s Voltec communications manager. Rob replied as follows:

While we don’t have data to support your posters claim, we suspect he’s directionally correct. This notion is at the core of our activities to reach out to stakeholders and actively communicate the benefits and attributes of the Volt to the public. Electric vehicles will be a new experience for most – and it will be met with some intrepidation as most new technologies are. The more people we reach in advance of the Volt’s launch, the greater its chances for market success.

Like your reader, we recognize that there are many others who we need to “educate” about the potential of electric vehicles like the Volt. But to be clear, we don’t see this as a challenge, but rather a tremendous opportunity to generate even greater enthusiasm for the Volt and to further demonstrate the important role that GM is playing to bring this vehicle technology to the masses.

It has been my mission all along to have this site serve both a beacon to GM relaying back public opinion on this critically important car, but as well to serve to educate and invite the public into the discussion of and to share the passion about electric cars.

In the comments of this post please share what experiences have you had with people in the real world setting that you tell about the Volt.  What percent of the public do you think know about it?

Last week we held a poll here indicating support of readers to using the term E-REV for extended-range electric vehicle to describe the Chevy Volt, versus REEV as some automakers are using.

The poll (summarized above) showed that of 986 respondants, 70% preferred E-REV versus 10% preferring REEV.  15% felt the term didn’t matter, and 5% had some other idea.

I pointed these findings out to Tony Posawatz who is GM’s Volt vehicle line director who explains to us in some detail how GM came to use this term.  Tony is also co-chairman of the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA) that represents many OEMs engaging in public policy and engineering standards that will help guide and build our electric car future.

Here’s how Tony explained it:

Some background on our use of Extended-Range EV vs. other options (specifically, REEV).

When we initially looked at REEV, we uncovered that there would be confusion around what exactly does it stand for.

Is it “range extender EV,” or “range extending EV,” or “range extended EV?” This made RE-EV difficult to make common.

We focused on the E-REV for the following reasons:
1. extended-range EV was the same convention as battery EV, fuel cell EV, etc.
2. a few gov’t agencies are more comfortable with this term and are using it to uniquely define the VOLT propulsion system. As such, we will help define the standards for this propulsion system.
3. continued to keep this propulsion system distinct and different from hybrid technology.
4. it sounded cooler.

The more we communicate the benefits inherent in an extended-range EV, the more customers view the term and the technology as very positive.

As your Volt representative I am heading out today to Detroit where I will be attending the Auto Show.

I also will have the chance to interview many key top executives from the Volt team and GM as a whole, I will even get to meet CEO Rick Wagoner in a group setting, and vice chairman Bob Lutz.

It is always best for me to bring back any questions readers here might have that they would like answered.

So please feel free to put those questions down in the comments section of this post, and I’ll do my best to get them answered.

And stay tuned for lots of new information.