GM-Volt: Chevy Volt Concept Site Enthusiasts forum and informational site for the General Motors(GM) Chevrolet Volt Concept Electric Car Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 6 5395

Articles from GM-Volt: Chevy Volt Concept Site

New Chevy Volt Video 2007-10-17 18:44:48 Here is a video from Rocketboom, including Bob Boniface, E-Flex design director and Frank Weber, E-Flex vehicle line executive, coming out of Boston: The last interviewer will be taking over this blog beginning tomorrow. (Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.) Thanks to Lucas for the tip. ...

The Garage Doors Have Opened on Project Driveway 2007-10-17 11:58:22 We have been hearing for a while about GM’s project driveway (see post). This refers to their large-scale experiment in which 100 people will get to use Fuel Cell Equinoxes for several months of real world driving. Originally slated to begin in the fall, the official word is that it has begun. The first individuals and some celebrities have now been selected to take possession of the million dollar vehicles. Seven testers have been chosen for now, and will be receiving their vehicles in the first quarter 2008. Media events are underway on the west coast. D.C. and NYC are the next stops over the next few weeks. GM will use the drivers experiences as feedback to help them develop not only future fuel cell vehicles but the Chevy Volt E-Flex/ICE as well. GM wants to see how people deal with driving electric motor cars, as they are different in feel, sound, and handling. They also want to observe how people react to hydrogen fueling. The SUVs are using 4th generation fuel cell t ...

John Waters Responds Directly on GM-Volt.com About His Criticism of the Volt 2007-10-17 09:01:12 John Waters On September 30th, we posted about a new PHEV consortium founded by the Rocky Mountain Institute and led by former EV-1 engineer and EnerDel VP John Waters. We had reported some comments Mr. Waters had made regarding the inefficiency of design of the Volt. Our readers picked up on this and presented a heated counter-response. Through the power of social media, Mr. Waters and the RMI’s head of transportation practice, Michael Brylawski, have responded right here on GM-Volt.com. Read the original post here: (LINK) Note that their responses are comments #34 and #35. ...

Help Us Make a Chevy Volt FAQ 2007-10-16 18:32:51 It has recently became apparent that we need a FAQ here at GM-Volt.com to help newcomers answer basic questions about the car.  I could write one myself, and I certainly don’t mind doing it, but since we have so many bright, articulate, and enthusiastic community members here, I figured we should throw it out as a community project. Social media at it’s best. In the comments, write a simple question about the car that a person new to it might ask.  Then write your simple answer to the question.  You can take one question or many if you choose.  Be sure to look at the previous comments so as not to repeat questions. I will then then compile and edit all of your work into a final FAQ to be published at the header. This is a bit of an experiment, hopefully it will work out. Thanks. ...

Oil Hits $88 per Barrel! 2007-10-16 12:44:39 You thought $80 a barrel was a lot? Add 10% (LINK) Better get those batteries fired up or no-one will be driving soon! Thanks to Nick for pointing it out to us. ...

Plug-in Saturn VUE to Get 25 All-Electric Miles? 2007-10-16 10:10:50 A post appeared yesterday on TheCarConnection in which the author was primarily describing the new 2008 mild hybrid Saturn VUE (see our previous post). As most articles do when this car is mentioned, it goes on to describe GM’s plans to eventually make a 2-mode VUE and in 2009 a plug-in VUE with a lithium-ion pack from A123/Saft. This author, however, for the first time anywhere indicates that the electric range of this car will be 25 miles (LINK). From everything I’ve heard the planned range is 10 miles. Does this author know something we don’t? Or is it just an error? ...

EnerDel Gets Contract to Make Batteries For Th!nk 2007-10-15 16:28:57 Today EnerDel announced a deal with Norwegian automaker Th!nk to be the “supplier of choice” of lithium-ion battery packs for their City electric vehicles (EV) (LINK). EnerDel is to supply a working prototype of a higher-density cell (than the HEV ones) by March 2008 which would allow a range of 100 miles. Th!ink describes this as the largest automotive lithium-ion battery contract to date, possibly worth up to 200 million dollars. Now let’s see if Th!nk can make this car, and, if so, will it make it to the U.S. or be able to compete with the Volt? ...

GM-Volt EXCLUSIVE!: New Interview with Ric Fulop, Co-Founder of A123 Systems on Volt Batteries 2007-10-15 05:58:06 Ric Fulop, Co-founder A123 Systems I had the chance to speak with Ric Fulop, co-founder and marketing director of A123 Systems in Boston as the Volt was visiting there. You can hear the whole interview below the post, download it, or find it on iTunes podcasts. I tried to find out of GM had their Volt pack yet, but he declined to comment. We talked a bit about the DOE/USABC grant. He told me A123 got an initial 15 million dollar grant 5 years ago. The new 12.5 million dollar grant was for research on a newer yet battery technology for extended-range EVs called “HD chemistry”. This new architecture will optimize the battery by modifying power/energy ratio and other characteristics to make it better suited for future generation plug-in hybrids. I asked him about Denise Gray’s (GM battery director) comments that it takes battery makers 2 years to ramp up to mass production once a final design has been engineered. He agreed, indicating that there is an expensive validati ...

New Semiconductor Splits Hydrogen From Water Using Solar Energy 2007-10-14 09:43:58 from Angewandte Chemie (International ed.) [1433-7851] Ritterskamp yr:2007 vol:46 iss:41 pg:7770 -7774 This isn’t exactly brand new, but I think very important. A researcher at the Max Planck institute named Martin Demuth an colleagues have developed a semiconducting material called titanium disilicide (TiSi2). When this material is suspended in water and exposed to sunlight, it splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The material then goes on to absorb the hydrogen it produces. It only uses 4% of the visible light energy that hits it, but that is apparently double the amount previous substrates have been able to utilize. Once the hydrogen is absorbed, the material will selectively release it when gently heated. Most people are unhappy about hydrogen as a viable transportation fuel because among other things it takes energy to create it. A material such as this and future generations of it, though, could theoretically produce and unlimited and free (except for the cos ...

Is GM Building the Volt Purely for Political Reasons? 2007-10-13 10:22:59 The Wall Street Journal published a report (link) describing “a schizophrenia” running through GM’s corporate plans. The author noted that GM (as well as the other automakers) make their money building the trucks and SUVs that Americans love to drive. These,of course, get low gas mileage. As we’ve discussed before, GM (and the other automakers) fear new CAFE legislation perhaps requiring high average gas mileage across a company’s fleet, trucks and cars combined. The author proposes that GM is actually throwing shareholder capital at hybrid electric cars… “given utterances from GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz — that much of this spending is politically motivated, aimed at salvaging some influence in the halls of Congress, in a generally losing battle against onerous and costly new fuel-economy rules” The author mentions the Volt by name, and notes that no expert imagines, given the cost of li-ion batteries, that the car could be profi ...

2008 Saturn VUE Hybrid Gets Best Highway mpg Rating of Any SUV 2007-10-12 10:14:13 On it’s road to the Volt, GM has been laying out a series of progressively greener cars along the way. Today, they announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rated the 2008 Saturn VUE Green line as getting 32 mpg highway and 25 mpg city, a 27% improvement over the non-hybrid model. This is the highest current highway mpg rating for any SUV. GM also reports the rating system being used for 2008 is more accurate and real-world than prior testing models This vehicle uses the mild hybrid belt-alternator system. It is also priced at $24,170 which is less than the Ford Escape hybrid which gets 34/30 mpg, beating the VUE in city driving. Next up on the VUE production schedule will be a 2-mode hybrid system, for 2008, expected to get a 45% mpg improvement, and then in 2009, the world’s first mass-produced plug-in, the plug-in VUE. source (GM) ... Hybrid

250 Plug-in Electric Car Charging Stations to be Installed Across the UK 2007-10-12 07:13:21 In a sign of times to come, and an indication that the UK is ahead of the PHEV pack, energy giant EDF and recharging station producer Elektromotive are together installing a series of automobile charging stations across the country. The plan is to have 250 such stations in place by April 2008. In some commonwealths, local government will pay for the power, and consumers will be able to charge for free while at work. Other localities places may require pay-for-use. Conceivably, when PHEVs like the Volt arrive in the U.S., a similar network here may also arise. Source (Personal Computer World, UK) ...

EnerDel HEV Battery Pack Specs 2007-10-11 11:40:06 Tuesday’s announcement by EnerDel of a market-ready production lithium-ion battery pack for hybrid electric cars (HEV) was missing some important information, the specs. Mr. Charles Gassenheimer, Ener1’s Vice-Chairman was kind enough to provide us with those all-important details: 1 pack: 600 watt hours 120 volts $1500 per pack There you have it. ...

Congressman Bart Gordon’s Response to the U.S.-Japan Disparity in Lithium-ion Battery Funding 2007-10-11 00:00:27 Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) Bart Gordon (D-TN) is the Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology. This is the same committee that recently heard testimony from lithium-ion battery experts, including Denise Gray from GM (see post). Mr. Gordon is currently drafting a bill which he plans to introduce to the house at a yet unspecified time in the future. The bill is entitled the Energy Storage Technology Advancement Act of 2007. There are two focuses of the bill, static energy storage solutions, and energy storage solutions as they apply to plug-in electric vehicles like the Volt. Recently, the U.S. Dept. of Energy announced grant awards totaling 20 million dollars to five U.S. battery makers (see post). At the same time, the Japanese government announced a pledge of 215 million USD to it’s battery makers (see post). Some feel that U.S. corporations could take care of themselves without government money, but alternatively, it is possible that government support wou ...

EnerDel, U.S. Lithium-ion Battery Maker, Unveils Market Ready HEV Battery Pack 2007-10-10 09:12:24 EnerDel has recently been making the news, appearing on the shortlist of U.S. battery makers awarded U.S. government research grants. I had the opportunity to interview the companies Vice-Chairman to get us some more details (previous post). Now they have publicly unveiled a fully-functional working lithium-ion battery pack, to be used in hybrid (not plug-in) electric vehicles. The event occured yesterday in their home state of Indiana, and was attended by congressman Dan Burton. The pack is noted to cost $1200. You can view a video of the event here: (VIDEO LINK) There have also been some recent rumors suggesting that EnerDel has signed a deal with Th!nk to be the supplier of packs for their plug-in electric car (link). I asked whether that was true of Ener1 Vice-Chairman Charles Gassenheimer, and this was his response: “As you know, we can’t comment on speculation or rumors, so therefore, we can’t confirm or deny the rumors of a contract with Th!nk at this time. As soon a ...