GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

As exciting and important as the Chevy Volt is, many consumers would like to see the same technology in a larger form factor or multi purpose vehicle (MPV).

GM has displayed a Volt MPV in the past as a concept car, and once then vice chairman Bob Lutz said the company was studying an EREV crossover like the gas-powered Chevy Orlando currently on sale overseas.

On the sidelines of the Detroit Auto Show, GM’s CEO Dan Akerson told reporters GM indeed has solid plans to launch such a car in the US.

He did say GM’s current foremost objective is to “focus on cost reduction” of the current Chevy Volt. Though the Volt wont making any profit in its present iteration, Akerson expects it to become profitable within three years lending to volume increases and cost reductions.

Akerson confirmed there are “likely” plans in place to launch a plugin hybrid version of the Cadillac SRX as well the first definite word of a minivan version of the Chevrolet Volt by the 2012-2013 timeframe. He also mentioned the possibility of even another small hatchback extended-range electric car.

In fact Akerson said he intended for all of GM’s four brands to eventually have its own plugin electric model.  He hopes electric cars make up 10% of the company’s sales in 10 to 15 years.

He said that GM’s new car plans were delayed because of the bankruptcy process taking place in 2009.    “The facts are, with the bankruptcy, we lost a year in terms of development,” Akerson told reporters. “That’s why ’12 and ’13 are critical to us here in the United States.”

Overall Akerson is both surprised and happy about consumer demand for the award sweeping Volt.   “We have been pleased and a bit surprised with the initial demands, initial orders for Volts,” Akerson said. “We don’t want to miss the opportunity.”

As such he told reporters GM will further be pushing Volt production beyond the 10,000 to 15,00o units initially announed for this calendar year.  Instead Akerson said he expects 2011 production to top 25,000.

Source (Automotive News) and (Detroit Free Press)

We have heard before that GM’s newest CEO Dan Akerson is particularly bullish about electric cars. It is clear he feels the Volt is a very significant vehicle for the company and projects that the currently high demand will continue to grow.

Thus far GM has committed to producing 15,000 Volts in 2011 and at least 45,000 in 2012.

There is also evidence the company is developing a crossover Voltec vehicle, a 2-mode plugin Cadillac SUV, and possibly a third Voltec car. The crossover may be called the Chevy Amp and could be unveiled next month at the Detroit Auto Show.

Akerson told reporters previously that GM was studying ways to double or triple electric car capacity. Bloomberg now reports that GM sources say Akerson has asked a team to look for ways to triple or even quadruple 2012 electric car production rates by as early as 2015. These volumes  potentially of 250,000 vehicles would be spread across several different vehilce types and brands.

Spreading the technology across brands and vehicles will help to lower costs. Lower costs are needed to increase sales volume. Only 7% of the US car buying public has been determined able to afford the Chevy Volt at its current price.

Akerson’s production plan aims to make GM the recognized global leader in electric vehicles, and is devised to prepare for higher gas prices in the future.

The new electric vehicles under development for the US will all be larger than the Volt and may include an SUV.

Aside from consumer demand and cost the only other theoretical limitation for increasing production is the availability of the lithium ion batteries.

Volt battery supplier LG Chem, however, has massive production capacity, has already started building one Michigan factory and has a second under development.  In fact, LG Chem Power CEO Prabhakar Patil tells GM-Volt that battery supply isn’t a limiting factor.

“GM will have to speak to their plans for future volumes,” said Patil. “But LG Chem stands ready to support them and does not expect battery capacity to be a constraint.”

Source (Bloomberg)

There is mounting evidence GM plans to build on the success of the Chevrolet Volt and turn out various electric vehicles in the coming years.  GMs CEO Dan Akerson is a big proponent of vehicular electrification and recently noted GM was already studying ways to double or triple production.

Other reports suggest GM may be planning to unveil an extended range electric crossover Chevy Amp at the Detroit Auto Show in January.

The latest report from Reuters cites anonymous GM sources who say the company is also planning to build a plug-in electric Cadillac crossover based on the SRX.  This vehicle would make use of the two-mode plugin drivetrain that GM had previously been working on for the Saturn VUE which was scrapped with the brand’s demise.

GM-Volt has learned non-plugin 2-mode hybrid version of the SRX is also known to be undergoing testing.

When asked if GM would be spreading Voltec technology to brands other than Chevrolet, CEO Akerson told reporters last week, “you know, I am having a meeting on that tomorrow.”

GM vice chairman Steve Girsky also confirms his company and CEO are determined to push hard on electrification, building on the already established lead of the Voltec foundation.  ”We want to push our lead,” said Girsky. “Akerson is intent on pushing the metal on this thing.”

“GM hasn’t had a leadership vehicle like this in a long time,” he said. “Akerson is insistent that we have that.”

The Volt has begn rolling out to owwners across the nation.  GM plans to build 15,000 total copies of 2011 and 2012 model year versions of the car in the 2011 calendar year, and at least 45,000 in the follwing year.  Just how many they eventualy build annually depends on demand, but GM is looking at many options.

“There is a lot of hand-wringing about whether it should be 60,000 or 120,000, and what if we do this, and what if we do that,” said Girsky. “You can talk yourself out of anything that way, but all that doesn’t take into account the need to have a vision and lead.”

One thing seems certain as thee reports confirm, GM doesn’t plan to rest on its laurels, and will continue to push on with vehicular electrification.

Source (Reuters) and (Autoblog)

Here we are at the beginning of the release of the Chevy Volt to consumers across the country and GM is apparently already looking ahead.

Many of us fans of the Volt have long expressed a desire to have an extended range electric crossover, and a car that could at least seat five.

GM has always listened carefully to this site’s community and many of the decision makers review our comments closely and regularly.

In April, at the Beijing Auto Show, GM unveiled the Volt MPV5 Crossover concept which looked a lot like a taller Chevy Volt. More recently GM’s head of Europe, Nick Reilly, said in an interview that the company had plans to bring such a car to production by 2015, at least in Europe.

Today a new report surfaced in Car and Driver indicating GM may soon be unveiling the US version of the 5-seat Voltec crossover vehilce.

The report notes that GM recently bought the domain names Chevyamp.com and Chevroletamp.com and that the car will thus be called the Chevy Amp.

The report also goes on to suggest GM will reveal the vehicle perhaps in production form at the Detroit Auto Show this coming January.

We have seen other great EREVs show before that never came to be, such as the Cadillac Converj.

But a solidly performing high-tech larger utility sized Voltec vehicle that significantly reduces gas use could certainly sell in volumes though.

I’d add a third row.

Guess we’ll have lots to talk about the next four years.

Source (Car and Driver)

Nick Reilly is the head of GM Europe.  He has historically been known to let the “cats out of the bags” far earlier than his US-based counterparts who tend to stick closer to the “stay tuned” corporate mantra.

In a new interview published in Autocar, Reilly shed a rather detailed light on what appears to be GM’s next plans for extended range electric cars after the Volt.

First he clarified 2015 as the expected year in which the second generation Volt/Ampera would appear.  He admitted GM was already working on developing the vehicle.  Up to that point he expected the cars to be exported from the manufacturing base in Detroit, but that by 2015 believes sales volumes will be so great that they would need to be produced locally in Europe as well.  “At that point it will make business sense to ramp up volumes of the Volt and Ampera, and to have several production sites for the ‘EREV’ model family,” Reilly said. “We will need one of those factories to be in Europe, and I’m very keen for it to be Ellesmere Port.”

In addition to laying out the timeframe for the generation two Volt/Ampera, and it planned volume expansion, Reilly also disclosed that GM expects to release an actual family of extended ranges electric vehicles in that same year, also currently in development.

Besides the Volt/Ampera second generation, there will be two more Voltec vehicles.  These will include a smaller Astra-sized hatchback and a five-seat crossover similar to the Volt MPV5 concept which was previously unveiled.  He also noted that the second generation Volt/Ampera would be slightly larger.

This would create a class which may appear as a sub-brand of three vehicles of increasing size, with the Volt/Ampera situated in the middle.

Reilly anticipates by this second generation, the vehicles will cost less than presently and have even longer all-electric ranges, because of successful efforts to reduce cost and increase efficiency GM is presently working on.

“We’re anticipating a 50 per cent improvement in the cost of the electrical components in the EREV powertrain in time for the second-generation cars,” said Reilly.

Reilly specifically said the 2015 Voltec vehicle’s prices would be roughly $7800 to $12,500 more than an otherwise equivalent gas car.  At that price point he expects government incentives will no longer be needed to propel sales which are projected to hit high global volumes by then, thus creating the need for several global production locations.

Reilly’s comments could be interpreted as to only apply to Europe’s Opel, but considering the global nature and fundamentals of GMs development and operations it seems likely these plans would apply to the US as well.

Source (Autocar)

It’s auto show time again, and time for GM and the other automakers to strut out some of their R&D and design handiwork.  Don’t forget that’s how the Volt itself was born so sometimes these concepts are worth a close look.  Automakers also gauge consumers response to determine whether to actual build these vehicles, something else that happened with the Volt.

At the LA Auto Show, GM has unveiled what it is calling the Cadillac Urban Concept car.

The vehicle is an example of  a diminutive city car that could be used in tight highly populated urban environment where parking spaces are small and hard to find.  That idea is married with the luxury features and accouterments expected in a Cadillac.  Furthermore the drivetrain is a highly efficient hybrid one.

The vehicle seats four and has scissor doors for easy egress and ingress.  The doors extend outwards and rotate forward when opened with a push of a button.  The interior is spacious and lathered in high tech surfaces including touchpad screens instead of traditional analog gauges.  Premium leather seating with copious head and leg room is provided along with a large windshield and twin skylights to maximize airiness.

It has a razor sharp high tech design profile and is only 151 inches long with a 97 inch wheelbase and sports 19 inch wheels.

The propulsion system is a concept version of the eAssist next-generation mild hybrid design GM recently disclose it was building into the next year Buick LaCrosse.  In this case that hybrid system is mated to a 3-cylinder 1.0 L turbocharged engine, very similar to the one initially conceived for the Volt.

With this configuration and considering the vehicle’s size shape and weight, GM is confident it could achieve 56 mpg in the city and 65 mpg on the highway.  GM even confirmed its confidence in these numbers based on “extensive prototype and production experience.”

“The Cadillac Urban Luxury Concept celebrates its scale with intelligent, innovative content that makes it unique regardless of its size,” said Clay Dean, Director of GM North American Advanced Design and Cadillac Brand Champion. “It has a small exterior footprint, but is roomy inside.”

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