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Articles from GM-Volt: Chevy Volt Concept Site

One-on-One with Jon Lauckner, VP of Global Program Management, Part 4 2008-01-28 05:00:56 What are some of the safety issue of this car, are they different than standard cars, are you going to have to do different kinds of crash test safety? We already have a standard program of very rigorous tests. Well run crashtests of all sorts, because frankly were looking to sell this vehicle globally. So we know that we’ll have to meet all the U.S. regulatory requirements for crash, we have to meet all the European regulatory requirements for crash, the one’s that exist in China and all the other countries around the world. So we are going to run a huge series of tests on tis thing which is pretty much what we do for any passenger car or truck that we build. Clearly the fact that we have a battery pack running down the middle of the car we will definitely pay attention to whats going on in that particular area. But thats not such a bad place. If you want to put a battery somewhere thats not such a bad place to put it, because its quite well protected with a lot of c ...

GM-Volt.com Chevy Volt Waiting List Hits 10,000 Members 2008-01-26 07:24:01 Today we have hit a major milestone. 10,000 people have signed up on our waiting list, expressing their desire to buy a Chevy Volt. This site was started on January 12, 2007 in response to GM unveiling the Chevy Volt five days earlier. It was my intent to create a place where like-minded people interested in driving this car could convene to observe and discuss the development and eventually create an ownership community. Even more importantly, it was my hope that this site could serve as a beacon to GM, continuously showing them how enthusiastic and how ready the public is for such a car. I didn’t want them to let the concept die, as the initial reports after the unveiling suggested it might. I didn’t realize how meaningful this site would become. In June, GM reached out to me and invited me to their headquarters for the first time, allowing me to interview engineers directly involved in the Volt project. From there, I’ve had the opportunity to interview many G ...

GM has Formed new Engineering Team for Hybrids, E-REVs, and Batteries 2008-01-24 23:01:13 Today GM has announced the creation of a new international engineering team whose task is bringing the electrification of vehicles into the mainstream development process more quickly. Robert Kruse, GM executive director for vehicle engineering of hybrids has been appointed to head the team which will stretch from China to Detroit. Jim Queen, GM VP of Global Engineering says: “The future of automotive transportation will be based on electrification of our vehicles,” and “By having a vehicle engineering team in place and focused on delivering the technical aspects of hybrids and E-REVs, we can accelerate these programs and get them into production quickly and efficiently.” So here is another move by GM to help speed among other cars, the Volt, into production. Source (GM) ...

One-on-One with Jon Lauckner, VP of Global Program Management, Part 3 2008-01-24 05:00:33 With respect to the Volt’s combustion engine, if it keeps at the same RPM will it be more efficient than an engine whose RPM varies? You see this efficiency argument play out in CVT transmissions. You jump in a car with a CVT and what you do is you push the gas pedal down and the engine automatically speeds up to fairly high levels and you have many thousands of RPMs, maybe 2000 or 3000 RPM and meanwhile the vehicle speed is very low. Then over time, it’s this motorboat feel you know “Wheeeee” and this slowly, slowly speeding up of the vehicle. What’s going on there? Well the theory of a CVT is you put the engine at its most efficient operating point and you let the gear multiplication of a CVT take care of the change in wheel speed and tractive effort. This is the whole idea. Well the same thing can be true in an internal combustion engine when you run it at a relatively constant speed and load, you can optimize the engine around those conditions. And so ...

One-on-One with Jon Lauckner, VP of Global Program Management, Part 2 2008-01-23 05:00:42 Since its a new technology and drivetrain will it make the production process different and require new facilities that you don’t already have in place? Oh yeah, we are putting different components in the vehicle but were using well understood principles. For example most of our cars what we have is what we call a ‘front cradle’. Its basically a U-shaped or hexagon shaped piece where we mount the drivetrain, where we attach control arms and things like that. We take that and we put that in from underneath the vehicle in the plant. Then we drive it with four or six very large bolts to attach it to the vehicle itself. We’ll do the same thing from a process standpoint on the Volt. Yes the bits and pieces, the drive motor will be different and so on and so forth, but the principles of how we’re putting it together will be very similar. So it doesn’t require any retooling of your assembly plants? Well we’ll have to retool the plant for the Volt, but ...

One-on-One with Jon Lauckner, VP of Global Program Management, Part 1 2008-01-22 05:00:30 Jon Lauckner is GM’s VP of Global Program Management, and is reported to by all of the vehicle line directors including Frank Weber, the VLE for Chevy Volt/E-Flex. I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Mr. Lauckner in his office and the chance to sit down with him for a 45 minute chat about all things Volt. I am very grateful for Mr. Lauckner’s openness with me on a wide range of topics. Surprisingly, he admitted to me that he frequently reads GM-Volt.com, a sentiment echoed to me by several GM executives. Because of the length of our discussion I will post it in several parts. What is your involvement with Lance Turner at the E-Flex battery lab? I talk to Lance off the record quite a bit. He knows what’s going on and has been in the business for a long time, knows what to look for. The first packs were just a simple crimping operation. The next ones will be more robustly attached over a longer surface area. What comments can you make in regards to the batt ...

GM-Volt Exclusive: Inside the Chevy Volt/E-Flex Design Studio 2008-01-20 23:01:10 The Chevy Volt we have become familiar with is the concept car, or show car. After gaining broad public appeal in January 07, when it was first revealed, GM began the process of rapidly bringing the car to fruition. The interior and exterior design of this final or production vehicle is taking place in a brand new space called the E-Flex design studio and it’s team is headed by Bob Boniface (see previous interview here). While in Detroit for the Auto Show, I was given a personal tour of the studio by Bob, and a fleeting glimpse of the production Volt. The space is large and beautiful and filled with the awesome, youthful energy of a few dozen brilliant designers who were either sitting before massive computer displays or hand sculpting the surface of the clay model Volt. It was truly an exciting and pleasant place to be, and obviously to work for those there. Splayed out across the bright wide floor were two models of the production Volt and some interior assemblies called &ldq ... Design

Tesla Founder Martin Eberhard’s Opinion on the Volt 2008-01-20 05:00:39 Tesla Motorcars as you may be aware, is on the verge of producing a fully electric car with over 200 miles of EV range, called the roadster. The company’s founder was Martin Eberhard who has subsequently left the company. Whether he’s disgruntled or not isn’t for me to say, nor frankly to care about much either, but his is an important voice in the world of EVs’. He has published his thoughts about the Chevy Volt on his new personal blog. In summary, he noted that Bob Lutz told him GM was producing the car in response to Tesla. He also agrees that the Volt program is real, and a good thing for this country. As well he feels that the extended-range electric vehicle (E-REV) concept is good because the generator is much cheaper than another 100 miles of range worth of batteries, and may allow GM to produce a car many may be able to afford. So now GM’s Volt has Eberhard’s blessing. You can read his blog here. ...

GM CEO Rick Wagoner on Chevy Volt Risk 2008-01-19 05:00:57 Several other bloggers and I had a press conference with Rick Wagoner, GM’s CEO. My second question and his answer were as follows (first question here): Obviously GM is taking a risk in developing, marketing, promoting, and advertising a car that doesn’t exist yet, how do you feel about that risk and what it represents for the company? “On the first point, there’s some risk. We didn’t go into the objective lightly. By the nature of the process you don’t know whether all this stuff…are we going to be able to scale up the battery and address all of the issues particularly in the timeframe. But I would say it has been kind of motivational for the people that execute, to have the data out there, and make sure they know that we want to make it as soon as we can, ideally by the timeframe indicated, and if they need help holler. If people need to put some extra resources in to keep it on the fastest pace possible, we’ll do that. So I thin ...

Die Cast Chevy Volt 2008-01-17 23:01:00 Here’s a Volt we can all afford. It’s $13.95 in fact,but only 7500 being made. You can order yours here. ...

The Price of the Volt 2008-01-17 10:33:21 Reader response has clearly been quite negative in reaction to Bob Lutz’ mentioning the Volt may cost more than 30,000 initially. There are several considerations however: Cost of fuel will be a lot less; 2 cents/mile for electricity versus 15 cents per mile for gasoline. High likelihood of significant tax rebates for Volt owners. Possible leasing of the battery. The very first models will be more expensive but if demand is great, price may come down with ramp-up in production. Nothing is ever guaranteed anyway, the car isn’t even built yet. In terms of the waitlist, I have only collected emails. There will come a time when members will be asked to confirm their interest, as we get closer to production and begin the process of connecting people to actual cars. Anyway, I for one am hanging in there and continuing my support of the car that could change the U.S. and the world. I hope you will do the same. ...

Lutz: First Volts Will Cost More than $30,000 2008-01-16 17:59:47 Many months ago Lutz told us it was GM’s intention to sell the Chevy Volt for under $30,000. Not surprisingly that was GM-Volt’s top voted post of 2007. In an interview with WIRED magazine, Maximum Bob dropped another bombshell. With respect to the car costing under $30,000 he said: “I’ve always said I’d like to be able to sell it at around $30,000. The way things look now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be possible. It looks like it’s going to be more.” and, as to how much more: “I don’t know. You’d like to have it at about $30,000 for the customer, but what I’m hearing from the team is we’re not going to get there. They say we might get there on the second generation, and they say if they had a lot more time they might be able to cost-optimize it. I don’t want to wait for cost optimization. I’d rather come out in 2010, and if it costs closer to 40 than 30, well, that’s too ba ...

Clarification: Chevy Volt Mule Production Timeline NOT Delayed, only Journalist Test Drive is 2008-01-16 06:47:02 Bob Lutz reiterated on Monday during the Cadillac press conference, that he was overly optimistic about having mules for test drives in Easter, and once again said it would be “more like June”. I was able to get some clarification on this from Tony Posawatz, the Volt’s chief engineer, just after Lutz’ comment. Tony said “Bob is an accountable guy, he always speaks the truth.”… “He wanted to have an event when journalists could drive early Volt properties, to get to see how the system worked, how close we were to 40 miles range, etc, etc.”..”we have counseled him that for safety reasons, and to give the engineers a little more time to drive them themselves, it might be better to do it in June”. Very importantly Tony said “There has been no change (in timing) to our development activities.”  Specifically they are still on the same timeline for the mules, it’s just that they want the mules to be more ad ...

GM’s Chief to Toyota’s President on plug-in hybrids: “That’s my speech” 2008-01-15 10:04:08 CEO Rick Wagoner took some questions from bloggers today. I asked Mr. Wagoner for his response to Toyota president Wantanabe’s comment that he looks forward to direct competition with GM in bringing a plug-in hybrid to market by 2010. His response: “The comments from Wantanabe-son are fine. Actually, I saw some summary of the stuff he talked about, and I read it and I said, well ‘that’s my speech’ (laughter). In a way thats OK. That tells us first of all this is a competitive industry with some pretty good players on the other teams, and one of those is a pretty successful competitor and is seeing a lot of the same opportunities we are, maybe executed in different ways. It doesn’t make me nervous, it makes me think we’re on the right track. Toyota s a very good company, very accomplished in a number of areas, but it is not a foregone conclusion that we and them are running the same race, that they win or we win, we have to play our best gam ... President

Toyota Makes a U-Turn on Plug-in Lithium-ion Hybrids 2008-01-14 23:01:35 Trying to get out of the plume of dust the Volt has kicked up, Toyota’s president has gone a full 180 on lithium-ion batteries.  Often in the past stating things like lithium-ion technology was not ready for cars, that people didn’t want to plug-in, and that the next generation Prius would have to rely on nickel metal hydride batteries, here in Detroit Toyota president Wantanabe has indicated his plan to put plug-in lithium ion hybrid cars on the road in 2010. He acknowledged plans and preparations to ramp up production of li-ion batteries by supply partner Panasonic, and also admitted he specifically intends to compete directly with GM and it’s Volt on this matter. Toyota hopes to have a plug-in electric vehicle fleet numbering in the hundreds by the end of 2010.  I wouldn’t expect an E-REV though, Toyota has a lot of stake in it’s parallel design. So whether you call it throwing eggs or having a showdown in the OK corral, the fight to bring the first ...