From that press release the battery tech doesn't even exist for it yet. That capacity and size LiIon battery wouldn't be ready until 2010-2012... so its going to be a wait.

 

That's basically in keeping with GM's "Gonna Maybe" philosophy. They announce these clever press releases and then finish with, "of course, you can't buy one for 5 years". And it's ALWAYS five years from now, no matter what it is.

See... GM's philosophy is different from Toyota's. GM would rather shut their doors than divert even one penny from Executive Comp into R&D. Toyota, on the other hand, *likes* R&D.

That's why the Prius is an engineering work of art while the Vue is a 1990s engine slapped to a 1980s transmission slapped to three batteries and a rubber band. HSD would have impressed Leonardo DiVinci.

 

Ummmm............... no.

 

chysler is part of the group working on 2-mode as is bmw.

They come by the 500mpg number by saying a gallon of e85 only contains 15% gasoline therefore 15% gas plus free energy from electric and ethanol = 500mpg. basicly they ignore the 85% ethanol in the equasion and count it as free energy.

Wayne Gerdes is going to do a lot of posting over the next few weeks at cleanmpg with details of his talks with many engineers and VPs at NAIAS and will be going in to great detail about the Volt. He spent a good hour or two talking to GM about the Volt and how it works and what GM plans for the future relating to the Volt, 2-mode and what they are going to be producing in the coming years.

The Volt is kind of cool and I believe Wayne got some good pictures to go with his report.

 

I love how this site can be consistently inconsistent. But then I guess I need to allow for differences in personality and temperament. What do I mean by that?.....

A Couple months ago, Pravus Prime was all ticked off because GM waited until the 11th hour to announce that the 2008 redesign of the VUE would include a 2-Mode ("Forward VUE" thread). He obviously would have liked to have seen it announced much earlier.

Now AshenGrey is all nicked off because GM announced the intended production of the Chevrolet Volt and offers his often used "Gonna Maybe" tag. Okay, whatever. I doubt very seriously that AshenGrey can list any programs GM said would be built that were not. (I could but obviously, I won't )

Ahhhh. So by this I should infer that you know what GM Executive bonuses were this year and what GM's R&D budget is? Post them. Or is this just huffiness on your part. FWIW, I do know what what the R&D budget is and has been.

Okay. Let's go with that.

Peace,

Martin

 

Frankly I think that the Volt could be one of those 'maybe' concepts, but the maybe is going to depend primarily on the direction of our government over the next two years. In other words, barring huge leaps toward more green behavior with the current congress, the introduction of the Volt or a similar vehicle will be a lock should a democratically controlled congress be met with democratic president elect. In short, GM is hedging a bet. They aren't promising anything right away and privately will reserve the right to dump the project completely if we maintain the status quo environmentally.

I'm going with the hedge at this point.

 

If CNW said something good about Honda I'd still wince. The fact they were dealing wtih a GM product does not change the fact CNW is characterized by shoddy research and baseless conclusions. Really - GM would be much better served to find someone else to get quotes from. It's like a drunk uncle who shows up at your DWI hearing trying to explain to the judge that the family never drinks and you're a nice guy and should be let go. After the first sentence you wish he'd leave and stop trying to "help".

This is a fascinating car and I hope it, or something close to it, gets built. You realize of course that GM is now on the clock...

 

The Volt could be a hit if it makes it to the marketplace and performs close to what is advertised. It could go a long way to improve GM's image in all things green.

If something like the Volt could meet expectations, then people like me would finally have a domestic alternative to the hybrid Civic and Prius.

I view this like sports. The Volt is like a Heisman Trophy winner or hot free agent - potential. The bottom line is scoring and winning. Past projects such as the Saturn VUE have come short - like A-Rod. What GM needs is a project to pan out like Tom Brady.

 

Agreed. But GM would be crazy to implement what is essentially the EV2 and do so without regenerative braking.

To use your sports analogy, I view BAS as a solid AA or AAA player, but not quite ready for the Major Leagues. BAS would be a fine hybrid system for a *much smaller* vehicle. You'd get some bang the the dollar in a BAS Aevo or a BAS Cobalt. But it's simply too weak of a system to make a real difference for a Vue, and it's probably going to prove insufficient for the Malibu.

If GM can get the Volt to market, sell it at an affordable price (i.e. Not going the nillion dollar FCV pricing structure), and make it reliable, they will have a major league player.

 

History would say that your position (in BLUE) is a very logical one to take, but I have a lot of reason to believe that the people currently running this company (Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz, Troy Clarke, Tom Stephens, Jim Queen, Larry Burns) and the people responsible for developing products and technologies to address the issues that the Volt is capable of addressing are sincere in their intent to deliver products that do not compromise when it comes to performance and ecological responsibility. The deciding factors around if, when and in what volumes to build the Volt or something like it will center around being able to do so in a financially responsible manner. In other words, if it can be build at cost that will sustain a price that willing customers will pay, it will be.

People continuously bring up the "abandonment" of the EV1 as evidence that GM will never do anything else environmentally friendly and also suggest that all the knowledge gained in developing and building the EV1 got fed into a shredder. The Volt is in part born from technical and practical learnings from the EV1. A major problem with the EV1 was that it required a very specific charging unit. If you wanted to drive an EV1 from California to Texas, you couldn't because the infra-structure to charge it did not exist outside of California and Arizona (and later New York). It was at best, a commuter car. The Volt solves that problem by being able to be charged by plugging in anywhere there is basic 110V power AND by having the ability to use a petrol engine to recharge.

Part of the path to solving the cost problem lies in the further development and reduction in cost of Lithium Ion battery technology. GM is working very aggressively to do that. Companies that are looking to hide behind legislative favor don't go around pouring money into additional technology enabler research just as a bet hedge.

We'll probably continue this "bet they will - bet they won't" debate until the first vehicles roll of the line. Just like with the BAS......and the 2-Mode......and the FCEV.

Peace,

Martin