Volt in Tennessee

Do you feel the charge-sustaining (CS mode) experience is now pretty solid and are you pleased with it?
We are definitely pleased with the level of progression we’re at. We are right on track to where we need to be in terms of the next stages of development we need to do to meet our target. Is it commercial right now, no, but that’s why were taking the time to get it to be commercial. Does it have the capability of being commercial, absolutely. We’ve proven that to ourselves.

We just took our leadership through a test drive in Warren (Michigan) and comments are that they cant tell when the engine is coming on or off. Those are the kind of things we like to hear.

You drove the IVs around the mountains of Tennessee. What about those big hills and the generator. It sounded like it drove very briskly powerfully and effortless is that true?
Yes, absolutely. Some of our control capability to utilize the battery, the engine, and the motors and to be able to optimize for high load and low load situations we’ve been working on developing that stuff for the last year and half an I couldn’t tell you how happy I was when I was in Knoxville because that’s when I had the opportunity to see it all come together. A lot of those bits of software all came together on one trip and it was a joy to drive.

So you took it up some steep hills and mountains?
Absolutely. We were in the Cherokee area taking it up through those hills and a lot of situations following it. It was a very touristy area. Following the speed of traffic, absolutely no problem, and where I had opportunities I certainly like to push the limits of the vehicle, and we did on those mountains, and I could not get it to degrade in performance.

That’s in charge sustaining mode?
Certainly in charge depleting, we have no issues because we have battery power, I’ve got it all at my fingertips. Now in charge sustaining we know that the engine power is slightly less than the peak vehicle power but we have controls ways to manage that and to utilize the engine in conjunction with the battery to get a little bit of extra power when we need it, and replenish it back when we don’t.

I know the battery runs down to roughly the 30% level before for the engine comes on. Is that 30% itself the whole potential buffer band?
We certainly don’t utilize the full 30% but there’s a portion of that that we utilize as a buffer.

You wouldn’t go to zero ever?
No. When the engine cannot meet peak load requirements we’ll suck a little bit out of that buffer and as soon as we have a situation when we can, we’ll put it right back in. All the controls that we work do that to optimize not only the driveability but the efficiency as we’re doing it, NVH (noise vibration harshness) as we’re doing it, the total driving experience as well as to protect the battery from a life experience. This is what allows us to give really good warranty life on our batteries as we’re doing I all in a controlled fashion.

NEW: Discuss this story in the GM-Volt Forum

Around 3 years ago, a neurologist named Lyle Dennis decided he just had too much free time on his hands and decided to start a site chronicling the progress and development of a vehicle named the Chevrolet Volt.

Since then, Lyle has researched, interviewed and penned well over a thousand articles on the subject. To date, not a day has gone by without a fresh article for the readership to comment on, no small feat…especially considering his day job.

A few months ago, Lyle ruined his consecutive streak of articles by graciously allowing me to fill in and do some guest pieces, and ever since then I have been nagging him to let me do a story just on him.

Until today, Lyle had rebutted my requests saying that the readership would prefer more Volt-related news, and that the site was not to focus on him, blah, blah, blah. I’m chalking his refusal up to him just being a all around humble/good guy who really doesn’t crave the spotlight…because what he has accomplished here, the hours he puts in, and the access he has been granted inside GM for our benefit is nothing short of remarkable.

So what changed? How did this article come to exist? Well, charity finally got him to buckle…as in, I promised to give Lyle’s charity a pop in exchange for 7 questions. Lyle agreed.

On Sunday Lyle will be running in the NYC Marathon for the American Heart Association. The event looks to have over 40,000 participants and covers 26 miles of New York asphalt. Perhaps you have seen the little ads poking their heads up around the site to donate? I encourage anyone who can, to support Lyle on his run.

…and now the questions.

1.) I’ll start you off easy, can you fill us in on the NYC Marathon, your charity…and how does one run marathons, be a doctor and still find time to run this site?
I love running the NYC marathon, this will be my fifth in a row. It seemed like a good idea to do it for charity this year. As a stroke neurologist, I chose to run for the American Heart Association which is the parent organization of the American Stroke Association.

The only way to find time for all these things is to get up very early in the morning, and go full steam until its time for bed again. Every day is kind of a marathon itself.  As you can see I’m not one to sit idle.

2.) Follow-up question: What does your family think of the site? Does your spouse still speak to you?
I am very fortunate to have a supportive wife and 3 beautiful children ranging in age from 3 to 10. There are times my wife has heard enough about electric cars, and my kids know a little too much about them too.

3.) If you had the option to buy either the Concept or Production Volt in November of 2010? Which would it be?
Believe it or not, I actually prefer the production design. Yes the concept was cool but it doesn’t seem realistic. Also I think making a car palatable for the widest swath of the population will help lead to highest sales volume and thus lead to less oil used. The Camaro, for example, is very striking in design, but not everyone is willing to drive one.

4.) It is a well known fact that all .com owners are multi-millionaires, does it cause conflicts with GM executives when you are able to fly your jet to all corporate events and they now have to fly commercial?
Sorry that .com rule doesn’t apply to bloggers =)

5.) From your own ‘want’ list survey. What is the most you are willing to pay for a Chevrolet Volt (in USD)?
I think $40,000 is the number. I realize its high for the mass market but to me its worth it to be an early adopter.  With time it will come down considerably.

6.) We know you are currently driving a electric Mini, and have tested several electric cars from different manufacturers, if GM gave you a free pass and let you change one thing about the Volt, what would it be?
I’ll pick two; a third seat in the rear and 50 amp 220V charging capability.

7.) What happens to GM-Volt.com past the launch of the actual car? How do you see the site evolving once the car is mainstream?
The site has been a fascinating experiment for me. I started it with no idea if it would ever be noticed, so all of its attention has been a great surprise.

In my very first post in January 2007 I promised to continue the site to the launch and beyond, so that hasn’t changed.

I hope post-launch it will be the go-to place for all things Volt and for Volt owners to hang out and interact, free of corporate oversight and spin.

I also hope to implement, besides the forum, the ability for anyone to create their own microblogs within the site and to be able to post frontpage content in real time, along with what I contribute.

8.) Yeah I said only 7 questions, but this is one is important…and Lyle will probably not answer anymore questions from me. Ever. Who are you pulling for? Yankees or Phillies in the World Series?
I was born in the Bronx and live in NY Statik…do you really need to ask?

Sidenote: My thanks to Lyle for doing this quiz even though he didn’t really want to…and for giving us a little piece of the internet to call ‘home’ everyday.  Please donate to the American Heart Association in support of Lyle’s November 1 2009 marathon run by clicking here.

Where are things with respect to pack development and considering GM’s announcement about in house pack and your relationship with them?
The relationship is good and unchanged because the decision for GM to manufacture the pack in-house after they got into volume production had been made some time ago. We agreed to it in the spirit of partnership because for strategic reasons it was important for GM to do this in house, even though we were prepared to support them in high volume production.

Right now nothing has really changed. As you know we shipped around 50 packs last year, this year we are shipping around 400 packs and that continues to happen. We are validating the pack design, the manufacturing process etc, and these are the prototype packs that are going into GM vehicles. That part is exactly the same as it would have been were we to make the high volume production packs.

So the prototype packs are currently being produced at your facility?
Yes, and they will continue to be made here until GM’s facility is up and running.

Are you helping GM to prepare their facility?
We work together. It’s a joint team that is actually at work.

As a subdivision of LG Chem, will you continue to work in GM’s facility?
No, once the production moves to their facility our role will be more supportive.

LG Chem got a $150 million DOE grant for setting up a cell manufacturing facility that will be locating in Michigan?
As you know, up to now the cells are made in Korea and we assemble, engineer, design and manufacture the pack here. The DOE grant is targeted at making the cells here. That has always been our plans and our footprint but this helps expedite the process.

So you are going to build a US battery factory from the ground up with that money?
Yes.

When will you start construction?
We probably will complete the site selection process by the end of this year and then we’ll be breaking ground sometime next year. We have to go through all the permits and site preparation and all that stuff. More importantly in terms of production, the first of the cell lines in that new facility we expect to come on in production rates by second quarter of 2012. It will be fully done with all of the cell lines and electrode lines and all that stuff a year later. At that point, it will be capable of producing enough cells to support anywhere from 50,000 to 250,000 vehicle packs depending on how many cells the packs contain.

Is that factory going to solely be used for the Volt pack or might it be used for other automakers?
It is not tied to a single application or customer, that’s part of the flexibility that we will have that it can support different applications. Because as you know the cells for the Volt will initially come from Korea. In fact, that cell line is already up. It has to be in order for us to have certified cells that have to be ready well ahead of the vehicle launch so GM can go ahead with the pack validation and so forth.

That cell line is already up. That will be used to supply cells for the Volt until the cell line here comes on line, so we have a lot of flexibility.
As far as GM or any other customer is concerned they won’t be able to tell the difference as to whether the cell is made here or in Korea.

The cells for the Volt, are they pretty much going to be a standard LG automotive cell for all applications or are you developing differently nuanced cells for different applications?
There have to be different nuances. For example, if you go from a non plugin hybrid to a BEV there are three discrete types of cells that you need. On plugin HEV like hybrids, the power to energy ratio is high, because those hybrid configurations don’t need large pure electric range.

On the other end of the spectrum the battery electric vehicle where the energy density requirements are very significant when you get to 50 or 100 miles of range. The P to E ratio in that case is relatively low then. Plug in HEV cells like the Volt are in between in order for the cells to be optimized we have to tweak the chemistry or the recipe.

What is your role in the Volt program?
I head up the team that does all of the propulsion systems for the Volt. That includes motors, power electronics, we don’t do the battery but we work extensively with the battery team to do the integration of the battery, and the EV propulsion system

Are you only working on the Volt?
I am dedicated to the Volt and I heave a team of people that are dedicated to the Volt and I’m extremely enthusiastic about the Volt. We have segregated a team of people that are working on the Volt and the Volt only.

What are you doing now?
The specific stage of the program that we are in, for powertrain, is building on our third level of hardware which is integrated in the the vehicles. We’re doing all of our validation testing on that level of hardware; we’ve got past development where the architecture needs to be, through two generations of hardware we’ve confirmed all of our performance requirements with that architecture.

There are three major areas I’m focused on right now. Making sure that all of our hardware that has been built to date, that third level of hardware is in testing. We are validating all of our parameters for it; durability, that’s the hugest piece, the reliability, making minor fixed to areas that we’d like to improve.

The other major area that we’re focused on is the calibration of the system which is huge, because it’s a very complex system from the perspective of the torque generators we have, the engine, the motors, the power electronics. So we’re tuning all of those systems to make the vehicle fun to drive, to meet all of our efficiency requirements, our drivability requirements, noise vibration and harshness requirements, and we are now entering the phase of program where we will do all of the development for certification. So that’s fuel economy label certification, and that will continue for some months now. We’re going to test per the procedures that are being developed for this program and verify that all of our calibration is tuned in for optimization of the driving experience along with the efficiency of the vehicles. And that’s really the stage that were tuning into now.

In addition the third element that we’re working on is tuning in the manufacturing systems. So we’ve been building our production in our manufacturing plant and we’re right now preparing for what we call pre-production level hardware. That before we build saleable parts we’re going to build pre-production parts in the assembly plant so that its ready for volume. Make sure that our suppliers are prepared for that, make sure that our supplier’s tools are prepared for that and tweaked for quality, our manufacturing plant is tweaked for quality. I was just there last week and walked through all of their systems and systems development to make sure there ready for the production phase.

So those are kind of my three major areas of focus right now.

When you mention the production plant are you talking about Detroit-Hamtramck (DHAM)?
No that’s vehicle assembly plant but ahead of that we’re going to our suppliers and their manufacturing plants for individual parts and systems. And in addition, our drive unit and engine have their own manufacturing facilities that we are walking through and making sure they are ready.

Is GM building its own electric motor for the Volt?
The motor is actually supplied to us but we will be integrating that motor in our drive unit so its encased in our drive unit, we provide tooling, rotating components and all of that which is built in a manufacturing plant owned by GM. We are getting ready to do all of that manufacturing , so the housings, for example we take the castings from a supplier we do all the machining of the housings, the bearing the gearing, all of that kind of stuff.

So you get some of the parts from outside but you put them all together?
Exactly, so it’s a manufacturing step that happens and we send that drive unit and that engine to the assembly plant in DHAM for installation into the vehicle.

Have they done anything at DHAM yet to get ready?
There’s a ton of work going on at DHAM to get ready, and we’ve built our what we call our integration vehicle, and we’re towards the end of that phase. That is being built in pre production operations, however the DHAM team has been very integral in those builds. They have been overseeing the builds they’ve been doing slow builds, they’ve been identifying all issues for their production processes. They’re currently working on tooling for the body. There’s a number of things that DHAM’s doing to get engaged and ready. Because the next phase of vehicle, which is not a saleable vehicle yet, but its our next phase of product, will be built in DHAM so they are getting all of their systems tuned, the personnel trained and ready to go.

When will the first vehicle be built at DHAM?
We’re tuned towards first quarter of next year for that date.

I had the chance to speak with eTec’s CEO Don Karner about the coming electric car charging infrastructure revolution.

Tell us about your recent DOE grant and what it means?
The grant is to evaluate charge infrastructure and to try and develop a model for the effects of deployment of charge infrastructure in support of grid-connected vehicles.

It’s not a vehicle demonstration, and its not an infrastructure demonstration per se. The idea is to develop a mature charge infrastructure in five different geographic areas, diverse areas that have different demographics, different geography, different customs and value systems, different employers and to look at deploying infrastructure both at people’s residences after they buy a vehicle and in commercial locations which could be employers, parking structures or retail locations. Also deploying them in true street side public applications, city-owned parking that’s open to the public.

Then to look at utilization of that charging infrastructure such as which chargers are being used, and which ones are not. Why is one charger used more than another or one location more effective than another? How are people willing to extend the mission capability of the vehicle by using charging away from home?

Obviously if all you have is home charging then basically you have a limited radius within which you can operate the vehicle. The infrastructure outside the home both commercial and public is to allow you to extend the range of the vehicle and its usefulness. And with the idea of range extension we’ll also be deploying some level 3 fast charge infrastructure in commercial locations.

Doing that on a grid is the concept initially going in so you’re never more than a certain distance from a fast charger. Now that will be modified somewhat by use. There may be some areas that have a heavier use so you’ll have denser locations or multiple chargers at that single location.
The infrastructure will be initially deployed using a roadmap developed by involving stakeholders in the areas; employers and city government to help us determine locations.

We have partners on board that have the ability to come up with specific locations. For example, a company called CB Richard Ellis which is a major commercial real estate manager so they have millions and millions of square feet being managed for clients and millions of square feet that they own and lease out. So in every one of these cities they have a number of buildings with parking garages and they have retail outlets with parking lots that if the stakeholders say we ought to have to chargers in this area, they might be a source for us to locate the chargers.

We have BP that operates the AM-PM chain of gas stations, one of the things we wanted to try was does it make sense to put some fast charging in traditional fueling stations?

We’ll deploy the infrastructure then we’ll look at how it’s being utilized and also look at how we can provide better information to the vehicle operators are about where chargers are, what their availability is, and in order to develop a balance between information and actual hardware. Obviously if you’re completely ignorant about where chargers are you want to have a lot of them out there so that if you’re driving down the road you see them. But if you have electronic information that told you where chargers were and what their availability is and aids to help you do trip planning, are those going to make it easier for you to extend the range of the vehicle and therefore get you to use the vehicle more or is it just that you still need lots of chargers out there.

So these are all different aspects of the study and evaluation that we’d like to do over a 24 month period while all the data is being collected.

So we deploy charge infrastructure, deploy vehicles, get the system operating and we need a significant enough density of vehicles and infrastructure that’s really representative of what a fully developed electric vehicle economy might look like. So even though it’s a thousand vehicles in each city we still have to mindful of keeping it fairly tight because there are big cities. Then we collect data, store it in a database at the Idaho national lab and then we have various partners like Ohio State University and University of California Davis, the Idaho lab personnel plus all the other scientists in the nation’s science laboratory system to help us look at that data evaluate it look at successes and failures because many times you learn more from something that didn’t work than something that did. At the end, come out with guidance for the next 50 or the next 500 cities as to how they should most effectively deploy infrastructure.

Are you only using the Nissan LEAF vehicles in this study?
The vehicle side will be LEAF vehicles. The chargers that are being deployed are compliant with the SAE J1772 standards so they’re available to any vehicle.

But you will only be studying the behavior of those people driving LEAFs?
That’s initially where we are at right now. That may change over time and its certainly one of the things that the DOE made some stimulus awards to other car companies. None of them were in the cities that we’re operating in, but there may be some interest on DOE’s part to gather data in the cities where those vehicles are being deployed or to make vehicle available for purchase in the cities where the infrastructure is. You’ve got a built in infrastructure it makes sense to use that as a market for all electric vehicle whether it’s a Volt or a Ford transit.

Is your company a hardware producing company or are you coordinating the hardware of others? I’m wondering how your company fits into this.
We build both the level 2 and level 3 hardware. And we were very involved in the late 90s and early 2000s in deployment of EVs in response to the zero emission mandate in California. So we installed all of Chrysler’s infrastructure nationwide for the Epic minivan. We installed a lot of infrastructure for Ford, but not so much for GM. They typically worked through utilities to make that happen. We were buying others EVSEs in those days. We did make the 90 kw fast charger for the Chrysler minivan. Then when the auto EVs went away we had already been working with airport ground support equipment and material handling lift trucks on fast charging and we continued to do that over those 8 or 9 years. So we are in a number of airports through North America supporting both the airports and the airlines with material handling chargers across the country. We’ve got like 5000 chargers deployed throughout North America in industrial applications. We also have a line of chargers for neighborhood vehicles and things like that.

Now with the auto EVS coming back into play were rolling back into fast chargers to support the auto road applications and the level 2 EVSE to support both home and commercial and public charging.

So level 2 is the 240V?
240 V, 40 amp breaker supplying nominal 32 amps to the vehicle. That’s just the AC pass-though stuff. AC charging is typically level 2 and we believe that’s what’s necessary even with PHEVs a lot of folks are advocating just plugging them into convenience outlets, but we think there’s a lot of advantage to having level two charging for those as well. That’s the infrastructure that’s going to roll out. It’s going to be out there so you might as well make the vehicles compatible with it.

Aren’t there several companies out there making level 2 chargers?
Clipper Creek has been in it for some time. They were there in the late 90s as well, in fact we sold a lot of Clipper Creek equipment back then, it was called EVI. The same principles that were part of EVI have now formed Clipper Creek and the box is very similar to what is was in the 90s. Its basically just a smart contactor that checks to make sure everything is safe and then turns on AC to the vehicles.

Now there’s Coulomb and they have a public charging solution for street side parking. In fact they are part of our program for cities that want to do street side parking and collect revenue. Coulomb has a very neat revenue system.

How about level 3 chargers, there are claims about 10 or 30 minute fast charges, and EEStor says they can recharge 52 kwh in 5 minutes. Is all of this stuff realistically possible on today’s grid. Is your equipment able to do that and what are the special demands that such equipment would have?
Well, we’re capable of doing almost anything with respect to fast charging. But you put your finger on it, what’s practical? What’s practical is probably in the 40 to 50 kw range as a power level. And 200 amps as a current level, because you have to get the current onto the vehicle, and once you go above 200 amps, the cord and the connector get very large and some people talk about water cooling and it gets to be a very complicated device. So that translates to if you take the LEAF and you say it has a 30 kwh pack, if you’re charging at 40 kw if you came in at let’s say 40% state of charge and you want to go to 80% state of charge, you have to put in 12 kwh. I’ve got a 40 kw charger so its going to be about a third of an hour or twenty minutes. That’s a very reasonable power range. Can you charge harder? Absolutely, but then you start looking at whether you have the power available at a retail location where somebody wants to come and charge. Let’s say it’s a Starbucks and you want to come in and get a latte, do you really need to turn the vehicle around in 5 minutes? And if so, is Starbucks willing to double the electrical service that they have to supply that power? That hasn’t been our experience in the past. If that’s where everybody goes and it turns out absolute speed is of the utmost importance, then the market will adapt. What we’re looking at with the LEAF is in that 40 kw range and that fits very nicely in strip centers and other commercial locations. You can fit 40 kw into their existing electrical service and you don’t have to spend a lot of money expanding the electrical service.

Does the 40 kw charger run on 200 amps?
It would output a maximum of 200 amps. So if you had a battery pack that was let’s say 400V, to get to 40kw you only need 100 amps. So your cord and connector that connect to the vehicle would be limited to 200 amps. Let’s say you pull up to the vehicle that only has a 150 volt battery. I’m only going to be able to charge that at 200 amps so Im going to be limited to 30 kw. I may have more power capability in my charger but I’m limited by my cord and connector.

Most of the EVs, in fact all of them, all are in the range of 300 to 400 volts. To get the 40 kw you only need the battery to be above 200 Volts to stay below the 200 amps and virtually everyone is doing that.

I don’t think that 200 maps is very restrictive based on what coming to market.

Don’t most residential homes have 200 amp service?
It just depends on where you are in the country. We’re in Phoenix and yes 200 amps is pretty much the standard. A lot of homes out here actually go to 400 amps because there’s a lot of air conditioning load in Phoenix. So typically we don’t have any problem out here, plus all of the houses are relatively new.

If you go to a beach community in California, you may find only a 60 amp service on a little bungalow that doesn’t have air conditioning, for example. If you go to the northeast, an old brownstone there may only have a 50 or 60 amp service.

One of the challenges is to retrofit America with EVSE. In new construction many localities are going to the point where you have to put a 240V 40 amp service in the garage. Once you’ve done that actually installing the EVSE is a fifty dollar job. It’s no big deal. If you do it when the house is new, it’s easy. It’s the retrofit that’s expensive. We’ve got a lot of houses that will have to be retrofitted in America.

How about commercial places like parking garages, strip malls, and gas stations, do these places have a lot of current available?
Usually they’ve got plenty of electric service, the challenge there is typically you want the charger somewhere out in the parking lot and that power is not in the parking lot so you end up doing a lot of concrete and asphalt cutting and trenching with conduit but the electric service is there. If you do it as you build new facilities its very cheap because you’re trenching to put in light poles anyway.

When does your 2 year study actually start?
Nissan will be launching their vehicle in the fourth quarter of next year so well spend the next year basically working with stakeholders locating chargers and getting chargers installed in the commercial space. Then as the vehicles roll out we’ll be installing the chargers in residential places or if it is a fleet vehicle, the overnight location for that fleet vehicle.

Then we anticipate about 6 months of time to populate the vehicles and then we’ll operate in a data collection mode after that.

What are the 5 cities?
Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Phoenix and Tucson and also the interstate corridor between those two cities. In Tennessee there are three cities that form a triangle; Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville.

No plans for NY?
Not as part of this project. Nissan will be looking at rolling the LEAF into NY but we won’t be studying infrastructure there.

Your company is national?
Yes. We cover all of North America.

What is the relationship with Ecotality?
Ecotality is our parent company and we are a wholly-owned subsidiary. Ecotality is a publicly traded company.

Do they do other things besides EV infrastructure?
Yes they have some other companies that do some fuel cell work and batteries and electronics assembly.

Is eTec a big portion?
We’re the biggest division of them.

Do you anticipate that the infrastructure rollout will take 10 years or more?
We’d like to think that coming out of this we’ll have some models in the commercial space that will show people there’s an economic benefit to them to install chargers whether it be an employer that receives employee benefits or a retailer that generates customer loyalty by having chargers. Or chargers that are installed with a subscription and revenue system like Coulomb’s.

This gives us the opportunity to demonstrate a number of value chains that can associate with the chargers. The hope is that when we come out of the project we’ll have demonstrated various way that people can make these chargers economically viable. And we’ll get some viral expansion with OEMS coming into areas to sell vehicles and retailers will decide to put in chargers to make money, and this thing starts to grow by itself.

So do you expect a strong national infrastructure in under ten years?
Yes. I think if we’re going to have a successful rollout of battery electric vehicles we have to have infrastructure to support it. If we’re going to roll out PHEVs and were going to receive benefit from them, again having a strong infrastructure is going to be important. If you have a 20 mile PHEV and you drive 18 miles to work, you’re going to want to be able to plug in at work so you run home on electric.

This infrastructure allows the vehicles to be used in more expansive missions to allow more of what people need to do on a daily basis, and so it’s going to expand the market for those too.

How much does a Level 3 charger cost?
The biggest part of the cost tends to be the installation, but generally in power electronics like that you can look anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a watt. So you’re looking at 20 to $40,000. It’s on the order of what it costs to install a gasoline pump.

It seems like level 3 chargers are going to be a relatively small contribution to the overall charging infrastructure?
One would think so, that’s what you’d like to have happen. You’d like people to mostly charge at home and at night, that’s the prime objective. The usable available infrastructure is there to help them extend the usability of their vehicles.

The level 3 chargers provide an insurance policy, so if you decide you need to go farther you can stop for 10 minutes, get a hit, get another 20 or 30 miles and then you can do what you need to do and get home.

You could imagine its not like a gas pump, if you have one level 3 charger and everyone is pulling up with EV’s the lines would be miles long if it takes a half an hour to recharge.
Right, and that goes back to information, people need to know availability, because you’ll have several chargers within a relative short radius. If we’re seeing chargers continually busy during peak tines it’s a signal of success, but tells us we probably need to put in more chargers

Finding this comment hard to believe, and as an ardent Volt enthusiast, I sought the truth direct from the source, and had a half hour informal conversation with Mr. de Nysschen as an interchange of ideas.

Business Case Idiotic, Not People
De Nysschen underscored the debacle of his quote by noting the tragic irony that a senior executive two weeks before the launch of his own company’s electric car would be calling people who would by them idiots.

“I don’t think the Volt is a car for idiots,” he said. He claimed the headline was a journalist’s misinterpretation, and that his point was that the Volt was “an idiotic business case,” and not how he would refer to people.

“We might as well have been taking about the Tesla,” he said. “I am not an enemy of the (Volt) concept.” But he argues that we should not think of it as a magic bullet.

He thinks the business case for an electric car is idiotic because buyers “cannot amortize their incremental fixed investment in the cost of the car to the savings in fuel consumptions.”

And for those who are willing to supplement the cost through affluence for the sake of the environment, his opinion is that benefit is not clear either.

Questions CO2 Emissions Benefit of Electric Cars
de Nysschen said that he “cares very, very deeply about the planet, what we are doing to it and how our activities of today are shaping tomorrow.”
A prominent fallacy he says is that electric cars cause zero emissions, and said he was “astonished” such “misconceptions” are even held by people in positions of power who make legislative decisions and are close-minded to other options.

He is troubled that coal-fired power plants and related efficiency losses eventually release more CO2 than burning diesel, and referred to a CARB report that says electric power cars are second only to hydrogen powered cars in terms of the well to wheel emissions because of the way US gets its power. Though he did admit that it would be a different equation if electricity were created by renewable sources.

I asked him if he was aware of the EPRI-NRDC study from 2007 that showed CO2 emissions from EVs supplied by current powerplants would be less than if those cars were gas powered. He admitted he was “not familiar with that study.”

Agrees Energy Independence Important
As he had never mentioned it, I told him what I’ve noticed about Volt fans, and told him I have a list of 50,000 people, is a common theme of a desire for energy independence; that people don’t want energy from foreign sources.

He agreed that “that is a very worthwhile argument.”

But, “getting people to understand the benefits of clean diesel is important,” he said. He argued that if 30% of new cars sold in the US were to be clean diesel (the number right now is 50% in Europe), we would save as much oil annually as we import from Saudi Arabia, which is 1.5 billion barrels of oil per year.

Thinks Other Alternatives Should Come Before EVs
He says waiting to get to the “promise land” of EVs will lead to a lot of “dirt in the atmosphere” and instead feels we should move to complementary technologies sooner, including clean diesel, new generation gas engines, and biofuels.

He admitted diesel still comes from foreign sources and won’t make us independent, but less dependent. He argues it would do so because we would “need less of it (than gas) because diesel engines are more efficient.”

To get that diesel, he explains, when a barrel of oil is cracked it can be varied to produce more diesel than gasoline by tuning the distillation process. He also says diesel engines, being more efficient, produce 25% less CO2, have “beautiful power characteristics,” and are more economical.

He points out that the US has the world’s largest resources of natural gas, and argues that we could use it to power some of the power plants, though notes it’s more expensive than coal. He suggested the government should subsidize the use of natural gas in powerplants.

He also argues the natural gas could be used to produce clean diesel in a gas to liquid process, though admits it’s still a fossil fuel and not renewable.

He suggests another good option is using ethanol, not from corn which he called “an outrage”, but from new technologies creating it from waste material. He admits this wouldn’t result in vehicles which themselves do not produce emissions.

Electric Cars
He does believe electric cars “are the solution in the long-term,” but thinks we won’t get to that point for 20 years.

If we want EVs, he says, we face potentially “staggering” investments including cleaning up coal-powered plants and generating new capacity. Simply switching to EVs right now, he says, without cleaning up power generation is just “adding more pollution to the environment.”

Though he thinks the Volt’s business case is “troublesome” it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t go down that road, he said. In fact, he actually supported it saying “how else would we learn and get experience and expertise (in EVs),” such that “the next generation is better.”

For that reason, in fact, he admitted “Audi too is working on electric cars and on the verge of making announcement about electric cars of their own.”

He believes in particular dense urban conditions such as the US West Coast, it makes sense to have cars that produce zero emissions where they are used. Here he says he sees “a massive role” for electric cars and “cars such as the Volt.”

The Chevy Volt

Doesn’t Work For Him
Asked why he thinks it will take 20 years for EVs to take hold he said one issue is the cost of the batteries, and the other is the limited amount of energy that can be stored in them.

I pointed out that the whole point of the Volt is it has the smallest battery possible that would allow most people to drive all of their daily needs without gas, thus minimizing battery cost and maximizing electrical driving.

He claimed the information Audi has is that the range available with these batteries is that if you are in heavy stop and go traffic with max 10 mph speed you could get “a tolerable amount of range.” But he said if you are doing highway driving 30 miles each way, as he does personally, it is his opinion that “he would have to switch to the gas motor long before he gets to work,” and that “even after he gets to work the infrastructure isn’t there to charge the battery.”

He would then have to drive the car home on gas too, in which case, he says ”the whole issue becomes a little bit moot, because if he’s driving mostly on the gas, it doesn’t work for him.” He admitted “it might well work” for other people with shorter commutes and different driving conditions.

He actually said “we should not summarily dismiss the (Volt) technology.” He admits “there is a role for it.” The people that buy the car will have to be “a particular subset of the total commuting public.”

Questions Value Proposition
I asked about why he thinks the Volt doesn’t offer what it should at $40,000.

To be fair he said, “I have never obviously driven a Volt” but admits “he has always looked at the car with great interest.” He even sat in it at an auto show, and said “it’s not exactly a Cadillac.”

He considers it very similar to the Saturn Aura which he thought was a “fine GM car,” and actually said he was “sad to see Saturn’s demise.” He then said the Volt would not be a better car but cost twice as much.

What you are getting, he says, is in his circumstance is half time zero emissions, zero fuel emissions. This is why he thinks if most people did the math they would have to find another reason why they would buy the Volt, it won’t be to save money.

I argued that the first generations of new technology always have to be subsidized by the well off who may have many different reasons for buying it.

“You are right,” he said, all new technology always cost more. He noted that was why luxury cars usually lead the way with groundbreaking technology.

I asked if he believed that that Chevy Volt design doesn’t match a high end car. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “I don’t find it an unattractive car.”

“Its not a premium car feel,” he said. “But it’s got a premium car price.”

I argued it may not be a value equation but that there is the $7500 tax credit to bring it to $32,500.

He says this issue is his main point, whether this government expense is “the best way to clean up the environment,” and that there might be a better way to apply those tax credits to incentivize the utility companies to clean up the power stations.

Audis’ Electric Car Plans
I asked if Audi was planning a production electric car or an EREV and he did not actually provide an answer. He said what Audi and all car companies need to do is to continue to make gas and diesel engines for “many, many years in the future,” but they have to also produce hybrid cars and plug in electrics.

I asked if he thinks the idea of driving electrically with its smooth instant torque and driving pleasure was of value. He said he thinks it is a “very interesting driving experience” and admitted he has driven Audi’s own electric car prototypes and that “it’s very different.” He thinks it will be part of the engineering challenge to still “maintain an exhilarating driving experience and not seem like driving a golf cart.”

Asked specifically if he thought the Volt was a reasonable piece of the puzzle, he said “Oh absolutely, and even a required piece of the puzzle.”

For what its worth I told him I was the de facto number one Volt fan. He said “I certainly would never want to call you an idiot.”

Finally I asked him for information about Audi’s upcoming EV. He said he would “love to” tell me, but it would remove the fanfare from Audi’s announcement in Frankfurt, “so we’ll have to wait on that one.”

Why was this? Of course because GM announced that the Volt would get an EPA rating of more than 230 MPG. As exciting and compelling as that number is, it has raised as many questions as answers.

GM has not enunciated in exact detail how that number was arrived at.

But, while at the GM event I had the chance to get the answer from Larry Nitz, GM’s executive director of hybrid powertrain engineering

Can you explain how GM and the EPA arrived at the 230 MPG city estimate for the Volt?

In a conventional car there is two things that cause your efficiency to vary. The speed and intensity of your driving, and the environment; do you need HVAC, lights, etc.

With the Volt, you add two more things that makes your mileage vary, how far you drive, and how many times you plug in during the day.

So on any given day if you have plugged in your EV, range at low intensity driving, like the EPA city cycle is, is 40 miles. If you drive more aggressively your EV distance will be reduced.

Now, after you’ve depleted the battery, in the case of the Volt, the engine will start and the engine will keep the vehicle running for as long as you have fuel in the tank, and the fuel economy you have there matters too.

So in the calculation of the label, for that 230 you take into account the EV distance, the fuel economy after you depleted the charge, and the EPA used a traffic survey that was done in 2001 to create a composite.

They looked an an aggregate sample of the population and how far they drove in a day.

With the data we have and the data we shared with the EPA, from that value, they’ve created what’s called a utility factor.

It was a snapshot in time and based on this dataset we will weight the value on an aggregated probabilistic way what the value of the EV distance is, and we’ll also weight one minus that for the charge sustaining distance.

You go through this calculation that accounts for the fuel use and you come out with a number and the number is 230.

That’s a big number and you ask, will I ever get that number?, and its kind of interesting. In a normal car if you drive it high intensity you can never get the EPA , but in the Volt you always could, it just depends how far you have to drive. If you drive under the EV distance its infinite.

What was the percentage of time or miles in EV mode that was used?

The number was calculated by the EPA using this probabilistic curve and it had the statistics of the population in it.

How about the petroleum equivalence factor (PEF), is that included?
There will be on the label itself an accounting for the gasoline equivalent of KWH used. That’s a separate conversion that will get melded in another way and is not included in the MPG estimate.

So in summary, Nitz explains that the average Volt driver charging his car nightly can expect to burn one gallon of gas for every 230 miles traveled over time based on the behavior of a particular random population that was studied in 2001.

The highway calculation will be lower but the composite average is expected to be greater than 100 MPG.

The EPA has not confirmed this number yet because they haven’t tested the car, but they agreed to the testing method and GM is confident these are the numbers that will eventually become official.

We now have running Volts true-to-form with pictures, videos, and new information. We just had a live chat here with the Volt’s Chief Engineer, Andrew Farah, the only known person to drive one of the new cars. Many of us asked questions, including myself, which went unanswered. Farah chose the ones he wanted to answer from a list, and only had an hour. So what if anything new did we learn? Lets see:

Appearance

He allayed concerns people had about the appearance of the IVer, noting items such as the “head lamps, tail lamps, and paint on the spoiler” were not true to production form at this point because they didn’t need to be for testing. These features will look differnt in the production product.

Handling

He specifically said the Volts’ chassis is “much more sporty” than either the Prius or Insight. Great, but that really isn’t saying much.

Battery Leasing

It is my understanding GM has not yet decide whether to lease or sell the battery. Farah said his team is “working form the perspective that it will be sold with the car,”‘ and will have a 10-year life.

Software/GUI

Farah says the graphic user interface (GUI) on the 2 LCD dash is complete from a software architecture control standpoint, but its appearance will still be refined and calibrated over the next few months.

Gas Tank Size

Farah still says the car will deliver “more than 300 miles” on a full tank of gas and full charge, but claims “we’re still balancing the size of the tank with other factors.” On a side note, I have recently been told by GMs Director of Hybrids and EVs Bob Kruse that the gas tank size is now considered a known entity. …still a veil of mystery here.

Future of EVs from GM

Farah says, “electrified vehicles will certainly be a significant portion of our future sales.” Though recently CEO Fritz Henderson told me gas cars will still make up “the lion’s share” of GMs portfolio in 10 years.

Charging Port Connector

He says his team has adopted a “revised SAE J1772 charge port/connector specification” that is larger than what has been shown previously, but will work with public chargers that are greater than 120V. He said the port was moved down to its own door location because “the SAE connector is a bit larger than would fit under the fender trim,”…”we moved it down to accomodate [sic].”

Charge Sustaining Mode

My question, which was ignored, is what genraotr mode sounded and felt like. To another questioner, Farah said he was “extremely pleased” with driving in the current calibration of charge sustain (generator) mode.

Trim Levels

Farah confirms there will be more than one trim level, “as with most other Chevrolets.”

Engine Noise at Stop

Farah confirms “our plan is to stop the engine when the vehicle comes to rest.”

Engine RPM

Our own N Riley asked if GM “will reduce engine rpm as the speed of the car decreases to keep it sounding like it is trying to run away?” Farah said Riley’s suggestion “clearly makes sense” and although not specifically promises this will be the case, reassures us that his goal for the Volt is it “should not surprise (drivers) unnecessarily.”

Cold and Hot Operation

Farah confirms hot weather testing out West will soon be underway but that the IVers have been operating at 90 degree temperatures in Michigan. He confirmed what we’ve heard in the past that at extremely low temperatures, the car will “use the engine to supplement the battery.”

I have had the fortune of being able to interview Mr. Farah on several occasions in the past and have learned a lot from him. Now is your chance.

Right here in the chat-box below will appear Mr. Farah at 4PM EDT. Lets give him a GM-Volt.com welcome, and get your questions ready!

The company will invest between $500 million and $1 billion in the operation.

Nissan presently has a plant in Smyrna Tennessee.  It is that facility which would be converted to both produce EVs and lithium-ion batteries.  The battery production facility would be a joint venture with NEC.

Nissan expects to be able to produce 50,000 to 100,000 electric vehicles per year there by 2012, with the first one being a small passenger car.

Also you will notice we are trialing threaded comments.  To reply to someone else, simply click reply.  You can still start a new comment thread too in the usual way

Source (Automotive News)