Webchat: Journalists to Discuss the Volt
Last week, auto critics Scott Burgess of The Detroit News and Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press had the opportunity to drive the Chevrolet Volt engineering development vehicles – Chevy Cruze bodies with GM’s Voltec electric propulsion system and chassis. Their stories can be found here and here, but they’ll both be available on FastLane tomorrow at 2 p.m. to chat with you and answer your questions about what it was like to drive the Voltec mules. You can also participate in the chat at detnews.com and freep.com. Please join us if you can.
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The Volt will most likely be a low volume car, since it seems to be tough to convince enough people to buy a Volt instead of a Prius, or other alternatives soon coming. GM is too late, again.
1. What’s the fuel economy after the battery runs down? It has been said that production intent body meets production intent chassis sometime in the next month but Andrew Farah is quoted on GM-Volt.com as saying the size of the gas tank is under review. At this late date? Why? Is charge-sustaining mode fuel economy not neasuring up?
2. It’s said that no one outside GM has driven the car with the ICE enabled. When are you going to let people experience this? Is it a shaky and unpleasant proposition in a testbed vehicle and you’re waiting for a more finished and polished car before letting others try it out?
3. What’s the base price going to be? Before any tax credit is applied.
4. When will you be able to build this profitably and in volume? The other big news today is whether or not you’re filing for bankruptcy… well, not whether or not but when. Profitability should be your #1 goal. If this car doesn’t address that, should it be part of the “Good GM?”
5. If this is a big win, why not cancel your two hybrid vehicle lines that are doing 1500 or so units/month. That can’t be making you any money. If the Volt drivetrain gets it right, why continue selling drivetrains that get it wrong? Or are you making money on those programs?
too late for what? The Volt isn’t being made to save GM and make lots of money. Neither is the Prius! The Prius wasn’t even profitable until very recently (and how many years did Toyota LOSE money on the Prius before that?). It’s not like Toyota would suddenly go out of business if they stopped selling the Prius, it’s a niche car compared to their more mainstream models. Same thing with GM and the Volt. For every Volt that’s sold, they’ll probably sell 5-10 each of the Malibu, Cruze, Impala, etc.
The Volt isn’t out there to save GM, it’s out there to usher in a new era in the Automotive Industry. This is brand new technology, never before seen in automobiles. Perhaps you missed the part about triple digit fuel economy ratings? What other 4 passenger car out there can claim that? “too late” my foot!
If GM builds this car, if they avoid a debilitating bankruptcy, and if they can get the car to market for less than $37,000 by the 2011 timeframe, they will not be able to build enough of these cars. With gas going above $3 a gallon, probably for good, soon, the public is going to really want to power their cars with american produced electricity, whether from their power company, or a wind generator, or a photo voltaic array on the roof of their home. The Volt isn’t just going to be a fun car to drive, it will be a step away from the influence of OPEC on the world economy.
Bring it on, but at a reasonable price, and then reduce the price some more as the battery builders economies of scale start to factor into the equation.
Dave,
You express yourself very clearly. If Prius first now is profitable, when do you think Volt will make money? As it is now, GM has no money, and if Volt isn’t profitable, they cant afford it! Not now, not after the bankruptcy and restructuring. If GM had this car on the market 4-5 years ago, it could have been profitable now. That’s why I say GM is too late. And that’s not nonsense.
Wade, I’m afraid I misunderstood your original comment. I thought you were implying the Volt was just a re-hashed Prius that’s showing up years later. I agree with you that now is a very poor time for GM to bring out a vehicle that won’t turn an immediate profit. Ideally as time goes on and the technology is improved it becomes cheaper to make and thus more profitable. Similarly, E-Flex isn’t going to be a one model platform; similar models will likely come from Cadillac and possibly other brands, increasing quantity and reducing price of components.
In my opinion, the Volt is a big step in the right direction for GM as well as the auto industry. It introduces a lot of EV technology while still maintaining a vehicle that is practical for an every-day user (seats 4, range of 300-400 miles with 40 of them being electric battery powered, good space, safety, performance, styling, etc.). It’s unlikely that 100% battery powered EV cars can just be produced out of nowhere and have a usable range similar to a gas vehicle with a full tank, without first introducing cars that use the technology on a smaller scale. The Volt offers this, with a very good battery that will deliver the 40 miles electric range. This will give the battery suppliers a chance to collect important in-use field data that they can use to further develop battery technology. As these advancements are made, we’ll get to long-range fully electric vehicles one day. I for one love the ease of mind offered with a Volt powertrain. I don’t always have 8 hours to sit around and wait for a car to charge, but I can usually find 5 minutes to get to a gas station and fill up, then motor off getting 50mpg or more
The road to fully electric vehicles is long and challenging, but the Volt is a great start, and you have to start sometime…how else can you expect to ever get there?
Phil Colley,
Your quick response, at the tail end of the web chat, of EPA fuel economy in the triple-digits implies that putting a full electric charge and 6 gallons of gas into the Volt will result in the ability to go 640 miles before fuel and charge are exhausted.
Is that the case? Range on the Volt will equal 40 miles plus N * 100 miles where N is the number of gallons of fuel in the tank?
Charlie H – No, that’s not the case. GM and other OEMs are working with the EPA to develop vehicle test procedures by which ALL electric vehicles – E-REV, PHEV and BEVs – will be measured. The objective is to create a common “yardstick” so consumers can compare different vehicles. These standards take into account the fact many Americans will rarely use the Volt’s engine-generator to power the car, so balancing the two power sources – pure battery electric and engine-generated electric – for a representative E-REV test cycle and MPG rating is important. While we continue to work with the EPA, we are increasingly confident that a triple-digit label is more than probable.
Feel free to chat with me more at http://twitter.com/philcolley
Phil Colley,
What’s so difficult about a standard comparing electrics to liquid fuel cars? There is a direct relationship between kilowatt-hours and Btus. Both are units of energy, and it’s an easy, linear conversion.
1 kilowatt hour = 3412.14 Btu, and there are ~115,000 Btu in a gallon of gasoline. (That means 33.7 kWh = one gallon of gasoline.) You tell me how many kWh a Volt consumes going one mile, and I can easily tell you its equivalent mpg.
It’s easy even when the range-extender ICE kicks in. The electric drive wheels will still consume energy measured in kilowatt-hours. I’m sure the Volt will have a way of recording how many kWh it consumes. Just total the kilowatt-hours, convert that to a liquid fuel equivalent, and divide that into the miles covered.
I think you may be making the problem more complicated than it really is.