GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Frank Weber is the Chevy Volt vehicle line executive. I had a chance to sit down with him for some discussion while he was in New York at a recent event.

How is the mule development going?
The big step was when we finalized the mules vehicles at the end of August and delivered those on time at the end of August. These are the Cruze-mules using production-intent components. We wondered how they will behave, is there anything that we have not predicted? But so far as surprising as it is for us internally, we have not found anything that is fundamentally flawed.

You stumble over a hundred small development items, software talking to each other, and functions having to be clearly defined, and triggering points, etc, but there is no fundamental flaw that cannot be developed out of the system in the next two years.

So I say there is a lot of work still, but nothing that will prevent the promise of 2010. We still have development to do, and I don’t know what I don’t know, but at this point, I am confident.

So those production intent parts hadn’t existed before in a vehicle?
We had component tests, individually 6 months before those components went into vehicles. But there is always a difference from when you have a component in isolation to when you put them all together in a vehicle.

So is every component that will go into the final Volt, known, understood and finally engineered?
Finely engineered has different meanings for different people. The design since we are going into the development and validation phase it means that we’ll do adjustments, but we have currently for 80-90% of the vehicle, the component designs are available. These are then the in going components into our mule vehicles.

The next stage of our prototypes called integration vehicles, they are real prototypes, exterior, interior, everything. This is coming next summer. So we are currently working on the designs for those integration vehicle next summer, and when you look at that and you count backwards it means you have to have components in May, and to tool them a couple of months, so it means by January we have to have all the components designs and everything available and finalized.

So you don’t have enough time to observe the Cruze-mules much prior to that next stage?
We have some feedback. You have some learning from these Cruze mule vehicles to finally then finalize these designs and say here we have to do a software tweak or here we have to do some adjustments. There is some learning, but not extensive learning. In a traditional program you would probably test those mule cars for a year or two, but we said we have enough experience to develop this car in such a sort time scale. That is the risk element. We have always said this will be a high speed project and we’ve always openly said we are sharing the risk involved.

Do you oversee the assembly of the mules?
Yes. The mules are built at the tech center. It is a mini assembly plant we call our "prototype build operations." There you see them as the engine and powertrain are loaded into them. We have already tested the equipment, how you do the battery loading in the plant. When you look at the process, you have two marriages. In the assembly plant when the power cube is loaded into the car its called a marriage. In the Volt we have two marriages, the power cube and the battery.

Because we have never loaded batteries from underneath so we wanted to see that process . We had guys from manufacturing engineering came in that had equipment to test to lift 400 pounds with precision and the tolerance is very small. Its on a moving plate, it guides itself into position. and then is bolted into the underbody structure. I would say we now have a very robust process on how the battery assembly will work. What the tech time is, etc.

Are the battery packs also finalized?
We have frozen the design for the integration vehicles for next summer. Not only the external design of the packs but all of the internal components. The cooling system, electronics, the frames, the modules.

The software and the software functionality is defined. But what we call the calibration is still development work. What is the temperature band? When do you cool, when do you heat? All of those things need to be calibrated. This is why we need two winters and two summers on the development work. Basically the software is on the platform. The real development work is on the trigger points. The temperature outside needs to be known, the battery temperature needs to be known. Many many things need to be known.

After the Volt unveiling the Toronto Star had a fruitful Q& A with GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz.

Lutz told reporters that because things have gone so well, the Volt is actually ahead of schedule. He indicated that he was now 99.9% sure the Volt will be a success, and that as a result it will have a transformational effect on the public’s perception of GM’s technological and environmental prowess.

He also discussed issues being worked out for apartment dwellers, and noted one idea would be to persuade garage owners to set aside an area for car charging and discussed the way public chargers would have to be designed so thieves couldn’t steal power. The charger would have a sliding door that locks the cord in place, opening only when a credit card was swiped.

He also publicly confirmed that GM will unveil the Volt’s photovoltaic roof option at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The roof, he said, will be able to charge the battery from 1/4 to 1/3 over 3 hot blazing days of sun, such as in an airport parking lot, and could function keep the A/C on when parked on hot summer days, avoiding battery draw to cool up the car when the driver gets in.

Lutz also denied present plans to put E-Flex into other vehicles yet, although he remains excited at the prospects for doing so.

Lutz also describes the Volt’s cold-weather algorithm. If the driver turns on the car when its too cold for the battery to properly function, the ICE will go on automatically to condition the battery before shutting off and going to electric drive.

Source (Toronto Star )

I had a wide-ranging discussion with Robert Kruse, to whom I posed many of the questions readers here asked. Bob is GMs executive director of EVs and Hybrids. In this segment we discussed Volt production.

How many Volts are you aiming towards producing in the first year?
We have not announced a specific number for the first or subsequent years, but I can tell you were not going through all this effort and to this extreme to be a little niche player.

You will see significant and substantial volumes in the first and subsequent years. We see plenty of demand out there.

Is it true that the Detroit-Hamtramck (DHAM) plant where the Volt is expected to be built is only capable of producing 60,000 vehicles per year?

The DHAM plant is probably capable of producing at full capacity close to a couple of hundred thousand vehicles per year. The Volt is intended to be built at DHAM assuming the state and local packages are successfully negotiated.*

Has any retooling began at that facility yet to prepare for the Volt?
No, I would say that we haven’t actually started cutting metal at the plant or moving metal. I would say that the manufacturing and engineering organization have begun their plant designs and layouts. I have the Volt done completely virtually and analytically now. They’re working on the design. I don’t believe they have actually started installing any tooling yet. They have initiated orders for some of the longer lead items as it relates to equipment and manufacturing plants as it relates to the specific model of production.

How long would it take to tool up the plant for the Volt?
Obviously we have announced that the Volt will be in production by November 2010 recognizing our development program. We will be building non-saleable Volt units at the DHAM plant long before November 2010. So everything backs up from there.

So when will the first non-saleable units be produced there?
Right now I’ve got mule vehicles, integration vehicles later on, and manufacturing non-saleable vehicles will happen earlier in 2010.

Is that the captured test fleet?
First we have our non-saleables then we have our captured test fleet which are usually our first saleable vehicles.

Do the non-saleable vehicles go out on the public roads?
After they’ve met certain requirements, yes we can test them out on public roads.

Would those vehicles stay in the possession of GM employees or might others get a chance to have them?
No, maybe on a select basis but not on on an unassisted basis, that’s true for any program.

When will dealers be able to order Volts?, will it be before November 2010?
When we start into marketing and dealer allocation its really outside my swimlane. Typically there will be a dealer certification process, not every Chevy dealer will be able to sell a Volt. They’ll have to go through certification and make sure they’ve invested in their repair and service areas, trained their organization and so on.

*NOTE: The Detroit city council on Monday approved $136 million in tax abatements that GM had requested in order for them to commit to building the Volt at DHAM.

We are two just days from the presumed global unveiling of the Chevy Volt production car.  I will shortly be heading out to GM headquarters in Detroit to experience and bring you all the details live at the source of the GM Centennial Celebration.

This is also an opportunity for anyone here that has questions to ask the GM Volt team.   Place them in the comments of this post in short, simple, clear terms.  I will do my best to get responses to unanswered questions from appropriate members of the Volt team.

We will be streaming the GM global webcast right here on GM-Volt.com at 8:30 AM EST on Tuesday 9/16.

Also on Tuesday, you will also have an opportunity for live webchat with key members of the Volt team including vice chairman Lutz on Tuesday from 10:30 – 1:30 EDT and can join a Future of Transportation Round table webcast at 1:30.

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In this segment, the GM execs answer questions about performance, saying it will be stable whether the generator is on or off.  Also discussed is how fun an experience electric driving can be. Weber says “it’s fun to eco-drive”.

The team was asked about roll-out plans, Volt chief engineer Posawatz says first the integrity of the vehicle will have to be “spot-on”, and that the achievement of that goal will drive the roll-out pace .

Posawatz and Chevrolet president Ed Peper acknowledged interest in the GM-Volt.com community’s feedback to them and advises that we may be first to hear about taking early deposits for early production cars.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghj8DBLZM-o]

Below are more questions and answers with Darryn Nowicki Electric Vehicle Director, Continental Automotive, one of the Chevy Volt pack-making team members.
What is the process of building up to be able to make packs on a mass scale?

As far as being able to mass produce the batteries, we are gearing up to be able to do lithium-ion battery pack production later this years (for Mercedes) and basically the concept for the Volt is taking the similar technology that we’ve developed for Mercedes and we intend on fine-tuning that, because it is a different cell. We would anticipate being able to have that sort of mass production setup from the end of this year for the Mercedes application and that same technology and process would be very transferable to what we are doing on the Volt.

So basically we don’t have to go off and re-invent a complete new manufacturing process just for the Volt battery.

So some of the same elements you will be using for the Mercedes pack will be interchangeable for the Volt?

The basic manufacturing and production concept would be very similar. We try to do everything for our products a very modular and scalable fashion so that with the market being very immature and very erratic we want to be able to reuse as much of the different pieces from application to application so that we can try to give our customers the best benefit of economies of scale.

Would you say you are very confident in being able to make the Volts battery packs workable, safe, and in large quantities by 2010?

Large quantities in terms of the quantities GM is asking for. Yes. We are all very much behind that goal. We don’t see anything that is a show-stopper, absolutely.

Do you feel very confident in the safety of these packs?

Yes. The A123 cells, their chemistry, their claims in what they are able to achieve and their claims about how much safer they are inherently just due to the chemistry. So there is three tiers of safety for the batteries. The first one is just how inherently safe the cell itself is, and the A123 chemistry looks to be very very stable. So they’ve got something very special there. What can you do at the cell level to make the cell safe, and then the pack itself. So when you look at all these things together and the level of safety that we’re able to put in place there’s a lot of flexibility that allows us to feel very confident about these battery packs.

In your early production work and testing do you find that the heating of the packs is not a big deal?

This is why we have the controls in there as one element of insuring the safety the is the cells cant be allowed to go at too hot a temperature so it is something to be concerned about but again the inherent safety of the A123 chemistry helps that it doesn’t go into some of these more catastrophic events that you might see with some of these older lithium ion technologies. And then by having the experience that we have by being able to control the overall system and maintain a solid temperature and maintain a solid state of charge so the control algorithms that we have in place as well all contribute to creating a safer system.

We’ve been working on lithium in technology since 2003, so we’ve had quite a few years of experience with these.

GM has specifications, and the initial LG/CPI packs are basically T-shaped and modular roughly contain 300 cell in 8 modules, are you guys designing your packs along similar proportions?

Similar physical proportions I would say yes thats a correct statement, basically the car is being designed around the body. We do have a modular approach with these batteries and there are a certain number of cells per module and a number of modules, I think our numbers are actually different on the “guts” if you will than Compact Power has and I think thats mostly related to the overall energy content of that A123 has in each cell.

We might add that Continental is working with several different battery cell providers. The one were doing later this year with Mercedes is what we consider our first generation lithium-ion pack that uses certain cell chemistry and manufacturer. We also have a another one that will be ready potentially a year later, and the third one is A123. So we have three right now that we’ve been dealing with and I think thats one of the things that makes us a strong player in this market is that we are not tied to any specific cell chemistry or manufacturer, it gives us a lot more flexibility and gives our customers a lot more flexibility to be able to come to Continental, who has that vast knowledge of various different chemistries of lithium ion and being able to put together a complete battery system for them. So I think the OEMs truly value that.

So Continental is positioning themselves to become a leading provider of lithium-ion battery packs in the future?

Correct. And also I would add, that while we are best known as a tire-maker, tires are approximately 25-20% of our business. the other two-thirds are electronics.

Is there any interaction between your team and LG Chem/CPI, or are you all in the dark about each others efforts?

I cant say that I know much about what they’re doing so I wont say whether were kept in the dark and I can’t speak for my colleagues in Germany in as far as how much they’re hearing or being involved, but in general I think the two teams are fairly separated.