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None is more important to the company than this (the Volt) because it represents the future and the course that they (GM) believe is essential. (http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/8/19/1/a-look-at-the-new-gm-volt-with-designer-bob-lutz)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Production_Volt_Front_Corner.jpgCharlie Rose - Aug 19, 2008

Sneak peek at the front end of the upcoming Chevrolet Volt.

My fingers are crossed for the Volt at $32 to $35,000 with a real tax benefit vs. the hype. -- Ed.

Tonight we continue our look at General Motors, a great American company facing its greatest challenge in 100 years. Last night I spoke with Rick Wagoner, the companies CEO. Tonight, designers and engineers.

As oil prices have shot to historic levels, sales of GM’s once popular line of SUV’s and Pickup trucks have sunk. The company is now trying to lure customers back by making smaller and more fuel efficient cars. GM is placing its bet on the Chevrolet Volt. An electric vehicle that it calls a “Game Changer.” The company hopes it will be the most environmentally friendly on the market and one of the cheapest to refuel. The Volt is scheduled to hit showrooms in 2010. But skeptics talk about the company’s battery and its new technology and meeting the production deadline. Also there is a price tag of about $35 or $40,000 and whether consumers are ready to pay that much money?

The man who pressed GM to create the Volt is Bob Lutz. He is a legendary designer who has worked in the auto industry for nearly half a century. He has helped build memorable cars such as the Dodge Viper and the PT Cruiser. Today he is GM’s Vice Chairman of Global Product Development. Some of his latest models are the Chevrolet Malibu, the Buick Enclave and the Cadillac CTS and they’ve all been popular. We’ll also take you inside GM’s labs and studios and talk with Bob Boniface, the design director of the Volt and Bob Kruse who overseas the companies hybrids, electric cars. They are both closely involved in GM’s round the clock effort to release the Volt in two years.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Production_Volt_Front_Corner1.jpgSneak peek of the rear ;)

Tonight, Bob Lutz and the people behind the Volt.

Charlie Rose: See, here is the question for you. You had already done it all. Chrysler, BMW, General Motors. You had your motorcycles…

Bob Lutz: Don’t forget Ford.

Charlie Rose: And I forgot Ford. Everywhere. And you had your motorcycles, you had your helicopters, you had your little company you were running. You know. Why did you come back to this business?

Bob Lutz: Well, I just love it. It’s … I find it’s just all consuming. Anyone who is at all interested in automobiles and business, this is the most exciting business there is. Because when you think about it, it is the only business in the world that combines huge amounts of capital. You think a new movie consumes a huge a lot of money, a big budget for a movie might consume $180 Million that would be a very modest face lift in the car business. So we operate in the $Billions… http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/8/19/1/a-look-at-the-new-gm-volt-with-designer-bob-lutz

Thanks again mom :)



http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-5331337021910564036:120000:3241000&hl=en

Let's hope it is in the upper $20's. It looks like a hot car.

Hi All,

Look at that HATCHBACK !! Then again, look at that Hatchback - probably why they can't get any better than .28 Cd.

ive been seeing gm's commercials about the volt, and i can bet by the time it comes out-

1. it will probably have a range of 30 miles gas free
2. the cost will be close to 55k
3. toyota will have a plug in prius that will have a longer range, doing it in 1/2 the price, 2x the reliability

ive been seeing gm's commercials about the volt, and i can bet by the time it comes out-

1. it will probably have a range of 30 miles gas free
2. the cost will be close to 55k
3. toyota will have a plug in prius that will have a longer range, doing it in 1/2 the price, 2x the reliability


1. Probably so. A hypermiler cold probably still get 40 miles EV.
2. If it does, they won't get too many sales. $30k-$35k is the price point that will sell in big volume.
3. Longer range: Doubtful. Half the price: no way. Twice the reliability: Probably.

I don't have a good feeling about this Volt. I don't see the final price being less than what GM is predicting, which I think is the ~35K number. That number will price a lot of people out of the Volt market, myself included.

However, perhaps it will lead to a scaled down car for the masses, a sort of Volksvolt, if you will. Now that would be a hit. And even if the Volt is a homerun for GM, it still won't single-handedly save the company. GM is between a hardsell and a rockbottom market, so they need a dozen homeruns. Good luck and Godspeed, GM.

My own opinion is that NO ONE, corporately or individually, would be served by GM going bellypan up. At one time America was known for its yankee ingenuity, the ability to get something accomplished despite seemingly overwhelming odds. I hope and pray that that day returns; perhaps GM, Ford and Chrysler will lead the way.

Faithful and True

Growing up, my family had an electric lawn mover that lasted about twenty years....divorced of the fuel source, I bet the engineers find the EV a lot easier to deal with than the standard gasser. Of course the challenge is getting the batteries to do 40 miles reliabily and affordably.

This is all about the batteries - if they work, GM will have a great car.

Does anyone know if that EV-1 battery pack was the original lead acid or the more advanced NiMH? If both packs are 16KW and the EV1 could drive (in some cases) over 120mi on a single charge, why is the Volt rated for so much less distance? I find it hard to believe that the Volt is 3x less efficient. (I seriously doubt the weight is enough -- the EV-1 was a pretty heavy car from what I can find.)

What I'm really hoping is that the car will be introduced with a "surprise" range of something closer to 60mi on battery. Perhaps it is the DoD that is limiting this, but 1/3 the distance is quite a bit...

As for price, let's see them get the car out there to the showroom before getting too excited about pricing. GM won't want to have wasted all this effort by pricing the vehicle out of the hands of the people who could most benefit from the technology. They don't have time for this to just be a low volume trend setter with more vehicles at lower prices appearing much later. They understand that not only does it have to work and be a technological tour de force, it has to get wide circulation to actually make the difference they need.

Sure, they could screw this up. They could go down in flames. When they have obviously set themselves such an aggressive schedule to market though, that concept is totally out of step with the execution to date. I remain cautiously optimistic with growing confidence.

I hope Lutz had the wrong CD numbers for the car -- that's just pretty much an average sedan. Perhaps he knows this and said that on purpose? I still think it would be very smart to under promise and over perform -- it is so uncharacteristic of GM it would really take the industry by surprise. :)

Price is still to high for me. I just can't justify more than $30K for a vehicle.

Does anyone know if that EV-1 battery pack was the original lead acid or the more advanced NiMH? If both packs are 16KW and the EV1 could drive (in some cases) over 120mi on a single charge, why is the Volt rated for so much less distance? I find it hard to believe that the Volt is 3x less efficient. (I seriously doubt the weight is enough -- the EV-1 was a pretty heavy car from what I can find.)

The EV-1 was advanced lead acids. It's doubtful that the DoD was heavily limited on them, as it likely is on the Volt. Check Jay's Hymotion kit review. He managed 160 W-hr per mile, not hypermiling. That works out to 160 miles from a 16 KW-hr pack with 100% DoD, right in line with the EV-1's capabilities.

Perhaps they are limiting to 40-80% SoC similar to what Toyota does to make it last the life of the vehicle?

Hm. I read a review a while back from a fellow who was getting about 70mi in his lead acid equipped EV-1, then got a newer NiMH equipped model and made a 160mi road trip on one charge in it. Maybe the DoD wasn't limited on that pack either?

If it wasn't, that would certainly explain the discrepancy (when factoring in what has to be a little bit of weight gain in the Volt).

If this is the case, do you suppose there will be an aftermarket hack to change the DoD threshold ? :D

The EV-1 was advanced lead acids. It's doubtful that the DoD was heavily limited on them, as it likely is on the Volt. Check Jay's Hymotion kit review. He managed 160 W-hr per mile, not hypermiling. That works out to 160 miles from a 16 KW-hr pack with 100% DoD, right in line with the EV-1's capabilities.

Perhaps they are limiting to 40-80% SoC similar to what Toyota does to make it last the life of the vehicle?

Not to nitpick, but...

16 kWh * 1000 Wh / kWh * 1 mile / 160 Wh = 100 miles

Not to nitpick, but...

16 kWh * 1000 Wh / kWh * 1 mile / 160 Wh = 100 miles

You know, I originally posted 100 mi range. Glanced at it again and changed it to 160 mi. :)

Owned by math this morning.

Sean, the reason for extended range when switching from PbA has to do with discharge curves and internal resistance. When you pull a lot of current from lead acids, you lose a lot more than if you drain it slowly.

NiMH and Li-ion have much better discharge characteristics.

By the time it comes out (if it comes out as they say it will) I will have probably bought a Toyota PHEV for half the price and twice the reliability from a company that has much more experience dealing with and engineering gas/electric vehicles, for a lot longer than GM. GM will never be able to get around their being a day late and a dollar short and they can thank their management for putting them there.

Sean, the reason for extended range when switching from PbA has to do with discharge curves and internal resistance. When you pull a lot of current from lead acids, you lose a lot more than if you drain it slowly.

NiMH and Li-ion have much better discharge characteristics.

Then I'm back in the same quandry wondering why the Volt doesn't get some more significant fraction of what the NiMH EV-1 got for range...

:p

The EV-1 was advanced lead acids. It's doubtful that the DoD was heavily limited on them, as it likely is on the Volt. Check Jay's Hymotion kit review. He managed 160 W-hr per mile, not hypermiling. That works out to 160 miles from a 16 KW-hr pack with 100% DoD, right in line with the EV-1's capabilities.

Perhaps they are limiting to 40-80% SoC similar to what Toyota does to make it last the life of the vehicle?


The original EV-1 used lead acid batteries. Then a company called Ovonics (led by the Ovshinski's a husband/wife chemistry dynamo) saw there was a market for better batteries and invented the NiMH battery. GM then bought Ovonics, and made the second generation EV-1 with NiMH batteries.

After the EV-1 was crushed, GM sold Ovonics to Texaco, which was later acquired by Chevron. And Chevron limits the gaslone displacement by the use of its propery ( the Ovonics NiMH battery patent) in licensing that invention. This forced GM to develop the LiION automotive application, essentially reinventing the wheel that it had previously. This is in large part why the Volt is taking so long, and how expensive it will be.

The NiMH EV-1 was said to have 125 mile range.

Just for fun, check out the http://www.gm.com site... refreshing will show you different car backgrounds. One is the fuzzy picture of the production version with smoke (in a wind tunnel), another is the clay model, and two more may be related. One is a view from the passenger side across the front fender -- the car is silver and you can see a grill on the front fender. I can't identify it but there is a screen visible through the window with some tabs on it.

The second one is a close up of a dash with a digital speedometer and a smaller digital fuel gauge and range display off to the right -- included is an "EV Range" indicating 20mi. I looked up the fuel cell concepts and the dash didn't resemble this? Is it from the Volt?