GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

January sales figures for GM were announced yesterday, and the automaker continued to see positive gains with overall sales coming in 22% greater than a year ago.

Included in the total of 178,897 cars and truck sold, GM announced that it had sold 321 Chevy Volts. This is in addition to the 326 Volts sold in December, indicating 647 have so far reached customers. Nissan for its part only sold 87 Leafs , and only 19 in December for a total of 106 units sold, less than one sixth as many as Volts.

Demand for the Volt has been red hot, and sales figures would be much higher if GM wasn’t deliberately pacing themselves. “Right now we’re selling every one we can make,” GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said, “so as shipments rise we expect sales to rise as well.”

Nissan has 20,000 people who placed $99 deposits for a Leaf, so they could have sold more as well but for the fact they are being exceptionally cautious.

GM has plans to continue building on the Volt’s  momentum. In addition to new plans to build 25,000 Volts this year and up to 120,000 next year, the Volt team is highly focused on reducing costs.  After all with demand at $41,000 it is certain more would be sold a a lower price point.  GM CEO Dan Akerson has charged his team with taking at least $7500 in cost out of the car by its next generation. With the federal tax credit still in place that would put the car well below $30,000 and in the reach of a far greater amount of people.

Auto journalist Peter Valdes-Dapena of CNN analyzed discussed several areas GM is working to cut cost from the Volt.

The battery is believed to cost $10,000 and could be made cheaper by reducing its size. Currently GM only uses 65% of the 16 kwh pack for driving duty. As they become more comfortable with the battery’s durability it is possible to move that band closer to 90%, possibly reducing lithium cost by a third. Also new advanced lithium cathode technology the company has invested in could amplify those reductions by increasing energy density. “You do extensive amounts of research and development and you get the same functionality or better with fewer cells,” said GM Ventures President Jon Lauckner, “and you take a whole lot of cost out of the vehicle.”

By increasing production volume costs will become lower due to economy of scale.  Units become less expensive the more that are built and sold.  Putting the Voltec drivetrain in other models will also help in that regard.

Electric motors are expensive because they rely on valuable rare earth elements like neodymium which are only available in limited quantities from places like China.  Engineers are designing new electric motors that do not require rare earths and will thus be less expensive.

The Volt contains specialized first generation accessories like air  conditioning, heating, power steering, and braking that are powered by electricity rather than by the gas engine as their traditional counterparts are.  For the first version of the Volt these parts are particularly expensive.  GM engineers are now simplifying and refining those components so that they will be less expensive by the next version

Finally there is the possibility some of the neat high tech features found in the current Volt, like the LCD screens and capacitive center stack, could be made optional to produce a more economical future version.

Source (CNN)

The Chevy Volt is here, and hundreds of Americans are beginning to buy and drive them. We’ve watched the car develop from a concept over the past fours years. Now that the car is actually out among us it is important to understand what it means to GM and the company’s future

Mark Reuss is GM’s President of North American, a high ranking executive position that oversees all four brands from sales, marketing and development standpoints.  Gary Witzenburg is a reporter who had the chance to interview him about the Volt and its importance.

Reuss admitted the Volt is “very important in the market and to our customers,” but cautions “it’s not the only thing that’s important.” Reuss says customers ask not what happened yesterday but instead “What have you done for me today?”  He explains the automotive industry is a “long-lead business” and that things can quickly “flip and turn bad.”  GM must carefully try to predict where things are going to be years from now and not make the mistakes of the past.

He says the Volt represents ”the soul of the company” meaning vehicles that have “high desirability, technical leadership, (and) breakthrough technology.”

Reuss feels the awards the Volt has achieved are warranted. “People can see and taste success with something like the Volt, which no one else has, that addresses a whole different set of customer needs,” he said.

Reuss explained how GM is looking at the downstream future of the Volt both from a vehicle as well as technology perspective.   He said of Voltec propulsion, GM plans to “take that technology and get the maximum out of it.”    To achieve that “we can begin to take a lot more mass and money out of it and create the next hyper-efficient Voltec drivetrain,” he said. As mass is removed from the car, “the mass of the battery pack and what you’re asking it to do become less.”

Through incremental improvements of the current configuration, “you get efficiencies out of both the car and the battery without asking for a complete breakthrough in battery technology,” he said.

He appears to suggest the company hasn’t firmly decided exactly what the next Voltec vehicle will be after the volt. “We want to take this technology and do other things with it,” he said. “So we’re looking at how and where to do that.”

Reuss was asked why GM is being so slow in ramping up Volt production, considering how much demand there is. “We’re building it at a very low rate to begin with…on purpose,” he said. “When you do something like this that’s breakthrough, quality is extremely important,” he added. “We do not want to risk screwing it up.”

“Lithium-ion is not something to be taken lightly when you bring it to production,” said Reuss. “We want the production process and the stability of that to be perfect, and we are going to be perfect with it.”

“Chasing volume would be irresponsible,” he added.

Source (Autoblog)

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)

General Motors reached a worldwide licensing agreement with Argonne National Labs to use their advanced patented cathode material for lithium-ion batteries.

The new cathode material has been demonstrated to increase energy storage capacity, lifetime, and safety of lithium cells. It is composed of a mixture of lithium-rich, and manganese and cobalt-rich oxide materials.

What particularly makes this cathode material unique is that cells using it can be charged at higher voltages allowing them to have a higher specific energy and thus lower cost per unit weight.

The Argonne-developed technology offers the longest-lasting energy available in the smallest, lightest package: a 50–100 percent increase in energy storage capacity over conventional cathode material. Further, its unique lithium- and manganese-rich mixed-metal oxide combination extends the operating time between charges, increases the calendar life and improves the inherent safety of lithium-ion cells.
-Argonne National Labs

The licensing agreement is extended not only to GM but to battery  partner LG Chem as well for use in the next generation Chevrolet Volt.  This cathode can then be combined with LG Chem’s anode materials and electrolyte to produce a better cell.

Use of  these cells will allow the next generation Volt to be less expensive, require less battery management, and to potentially achieve greater range.

“The agreement with Argonne builds on GM’s commitment to lead the development of vehicle electrification technologies designed to meet the diverse needs of customers around the world,” said Micky Bly, GM executive director – Electric Systems, Hybrids, Electric Vehicles and Batteries. “Engineers and researchers at General Motors are working on next-generation battery systems that will reduce cost while providing improved performance, expanding the practicality and affordability of electric vehicles in the future.”

This patented material is part of a larger suite of materials developed at the Argonne National Lab, and this agreement demonstrates an important success for the DOE in fundgin US-based battery research in the lab.

“The creation of this battery technology represents an important return on the American investment in innovative vehicle and battery research,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “This agreement gives General Motors the ability to use cutting-edge battery technology throughout its supply chain. The licensing of this technology will also spur the renewal of the American battery industry, creating hundreds of new jobs where they are needed most.”

The Argonne license will allow GM to continue to work on next-generation battery systems to reduce cost and improve performance. We still have work to do, and development and validation that remains to be done.

The roadmap to more capable batteries requires improvements in [cathodes, anodes and electrolytes]. We need developments in all three. This is the most capable cathode that we have seen out there from a lot of different corners. That is why we think it is critical that we get working with it now to get it on the road. It will take us some years. We want to get it on the road for the next generation of battery packs.

—Jon Lauckner, President, GM Ventures

Source (GM) and (GreenCarCongress)

The Chevrolet Volt is a heroic and landmark vehicle, and a grand achievement by General Motors. We here have been following the car’s development since its inception as a concept, and along the way have often wished GM would plan to sell many hundreds of thousands of them. The more Volts on the road, the less oil used.

Of course GM shouldn’t build more cars than can be sold, and more importantly for the newly profitable company, they shouldn’t build cars they cannot make money on.

According to multiple GM executives there is little or no profit being made on each Volt built at a present cost of around $40,000. Furthermore, the $700 million of development that went into the car has to be recouped.

GM does have a plan to make the Volt business case profitable, according to vehicle line executive Doug Parks. “In reality, it won’t be profitable at the beginning,” said Parks about the Volt.

The plan to profitability is to reduce cost on a yearly basis as opposed to waiting the full development cycle to a second generation, typically 5 or 6 years for most cars.  “It is our hope, every year as we have opportunity to improve the performance and even take cost out, that at the end of the first lifecycle we make money,” he said.

Parks also disclosed GM is trying to improve efficiency with each yearly iteration too, but that itself wont help bring down costs, except if less lithium ion cells are needed to achieve the same range.  “We’re developing technology that can lead to minor increases in performance but a big cost reduction,” he said.

“No big changes to range and/or performance, just ongoing tweaks and refinements in many different areas, including battery,” Parks told GM-Volt.  ”We will have a strong focus to improve costs,  but will make sure we at least maintain performance – or even improve it slightly if possible.”

Parks also reported that the entire 2011 build inventory has already been sold out. Those units, he said, “are gone.”

Despite this high demand and low volume, GM has no immediate production modifications.  “There’s really no plan to change that slow ramp-up through next year,” he says. “Then, when we really open it up in ’12, we’ll build our planned volume and see what the market says. If we want to do a lot more, we’ll look at it.”

Source (Wards Auto)

Hat tip to JeremyK.

When GM first introduced the Volt concept in January 2007, it was met with tremendous public enthusiasm.  Indeed this very site was born of that sentiment.  Faced with this strong public interest, GM’s communications department decided early on they would be very open and transparent with the Volt development process.  This transparency and outreach to unconventional media led me to be invited to GM headquarters within four months of starting this site.  It was also a method of improving their image with an often skeptical public.

Since then GM has marched through a very carefully planned and choreographed campaign, gradually teasing out the details of the car’s development, design and finally most recently merging into the marketing and rollout phase.

We are also well aware GM is also planning second and even third generations of the car which will improve on the design and cost less to manufacture and sell.  However, there is little detail on these future versions of the car.  I asked whether GM will continue its transparency approach to these future vehicles.

“We will not be as transparent on the Gen 2 VOLT and VOLTec offerings in the future product plan,” said Volt director Tony Posawatz.  ”We will continue to share our learnings as VOLT is launched and rolled out and people need to educated on the virtues of electrified transportation.”

Rob Peterson of Volt communications was a little less sure.

“We’re still trying to get Gen1 to the dealers,” said Peterson.  ”We don’t want to confuse the message,” he said by discussing too much the next version of the car.

In due time, though, GM will feed us news.

“We’ll talk about Gen 2 as it becomes appropriate,” he said.