FastLane

By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman

It’s been a historic week for us, and I don’t mean in Washington. And let me just say upfront that I know there is a lot of talk online about that subject. But I am not going to comment here about any government loans or hearings or GM’s financial situation — just like I wouldn’t engage you in conversation about it if I ran into you in the produce aisle. We have other places online for that conversation, such as gmfactsandfiction.com.

I would like to give you a brief update, however, on the progress we’re making on the Chevrolet Volt, and I would characterize it as great progress.

We have moved on to the next phase of engineering development for the vehicle. That means that we’ve moved from the Volt test mules using previous-generation Malibu bodies (affectionately known as “MaliVolts”) to test vehicles using vehicles from our next-generation global compact car architecture.

That architecture will not only spawn vehicles like the Volt, but also the Chevrolet Cruze and others like it. And I have to say, after driving it with the Volt system placed within, I feel terrific about the driving dynamics of that architecture. It instantly feels several price classes higher than what it actually is, due to the level of refinement.

The relative quiet and absence of vibration stand out, among other things. The chassis integrity felt outstanding to me… the steering response was good, the brakes were good, the turn-in was good and so on. I think it needs very little in terms of additional tuning. So I have very high hopes for when we get some test vehicles running with the actual Volt production body aboard.

As for the powertrain and propulsion system, I couldn’t be more pleased. It was 30 degrees and windy and flurrying. We started with about a 60-percent charge on the battery pack, to see how it would perform and when the engine would kick on.

To my delight, we went about 19 silent, electrically powered miles before that engine engaged. And when it did, it was so quiet and non-jarring that they had to tell me it had come on, because I wasn’t looking at the tach. Granted, many years in airplane cockpits have taken their toll on my hearing, but still, I can say with impunity that the engine was quiet and not at all intrusive in terms of noise.

Right now, the engine is tuned rather aggressively so that once it did kick on, it tended to cut in and out quite a bit at low speeds. But we will find the right balance to address that — that’s why we’re doing all this development work! I know there were concerns about what it would be like when the engine kicks on, whether it would excite the structure and cause all kinds of vibrations and such, but I have to say it wasn’t an issue. It was wonderfully masked, and will continue to improve as testing continues.

I ended up putting in about 30 miles behind the wheel, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the vehicle, the development, or the team behind it. And they will continue to work round the clock to further refine the Volt and get it on the road — and in your hands — year after next.

By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman

We’ve weathered a lot of skepticism since the Chevrolet Volt concept was introduced at the 2007 Detroit show. The Volt has been called “vaporware” by some members of the media. We’ve heard executives from other manufacturers tell the press that the battery technology won’t work. We’ve even been accused of using the Volt to “greenwash” our image.

Well, as everyone knows now, the Volt is real, and the covers have come off. And it represents nothing less than the first step in the reinvention of the automobile.

The vehicle’s design has come under some criticism, most of it, to me, unwarranted. The challenge to the designers wasn’t to design the most beautiful car imaginable and accept the compromises you have to make to do so. It was, make no compromise to fuel efficiency and electric range, and then do the most beautiful design possible, around those aerodynamic dictates.

When you look at the exterior of the Volt, you might notice certain aerodynamic shapes and design elements of some other cars you might see on the road. But beneath the skin, it shares very little with any other car that’s ever existed. So I submit that while it’s typically design that makes an emotional connection with buyers, in this case, the Volt is going to be bought for emotional reasons, but it will be for the emotion tied to the technology contained therein.

The Volt means a lot to General Motors, and to the industry, on a variety of levels. First of all, this is solid technology that is going to be proven reliable. It’s a practical way that we can electrify the automobile and drastically reduce our dependency on imported petroleum. It’s also important to GM to help reinforce and continue its proud history of technological innovation, and to help restore the image of leadership that accompanied that history.

In terms of the impact of Volt on the automobile industry, I think you’ll see lithium-ion technology filter out to the rest of the industry, even to our competitors who initially said it wouldn’t work. I think they’ve figured out that we may well be onto a winning formula here, with 40 miles of driving powered by electricity from a battery and a small engine — powered by gasoline or E85 — to create additional electricity to power the vehicle for several hundred additional miles. I suspect most of our competitors will have vehicles with technology similar to the Volt within four or five years.

What does that mean for society at large? I think it can have an enormous benefit. Our statistics show that 78 percent of Americans drive 40 miles a day or less. That means that nearly 80 percent of Americans can commute powered by electricity from the grid, never using a drop of gas.

When we achieve substantial production, and if our competitors do as well, and the public takes to this new way of driving — and there’s no doubt in my mind they will — we will drastically reduce gasoline and/or diesel consumption and we will simultaneously be drastically reducing our dependency on oil. This puts the country in a much more comfortable place geopolitically and also helps the environment. So at this point, I think it’s very hard to overestimate the importance of the Volt for GM, for the industry and for society in general.

The production version of the Volt represents our progress, and our commitment to seeing that all become a reality in short order. We’d like nothing more than to see everyone drive a Volt and stop going to the gas pump so often to fill up on ever-more-expensive fuel imported from an ever-more-unstable part of the world.

With the Volt, you go home, you plug it in, and you’re done. And for roughly 80 cents’ worth of electricity, you’ve got a fully-charged battery, ready to take on another forty miles of gas-free and tailpipe-emission-free driving. If that’s greenwashing, then come on in — the water’s fine.

By Bob Boniface
Director of Design for Chevrolet Volt, GM

Earlier today, I spent some time discussing the development of the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle at the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Mich. My team has put a lot of effort into creating a beautifully designed, fun-to-drive vehicle – inside and out. The beauty of the Volt’s design is much more than just surface deep, the interior and exterior design is an important element of the vehicles overall mission to be one of Chevrolet’s most energy efficient vehicles - ever.

Why are our efforts in the design studio so important? When you’re driving down the road, it takes energy to slice through the air that is pushing against the car. That force is known as drag and it can account for up to 20 percent of the energy consumed in an average vehicle. One of the challenges as a designer is to reduce aero drag, while still creating a design that is compelling. We do that by experimenting with different angles and curves and then testing the car in our wind tunnel, which blasts air at the car to measure the effect of drag.

Aerodynamics is extremely important for an electric vehicle like the Volt, which is designed to drive up to 40 miles using only electricity to power the car. By minimizing aero drag, we can maximize the range of the battery. So, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that my exterior design team spent countless hours in the wind tunnel with our aerodynamicist to refine the Volt’s exterior. We believe this was time well spent - when you’re trying to extend gas-free driving of the vehicle, you’ll take all the efficiency you can get.

(Take a look at this video, which you can also see in our video sidebar, inside the wind tunnel.)

We believe the Chevrolet Volt’s exterior design is an attractive balance between aerodynamic performance and styling. Included below is a detailed image of the driver-side front quarter of the vehicle. If you look closely, you can see the rounded and flushed front fascia, tapered corners and closed grille are aesthetically beautiful and functional, enabling air to move easily around the car. In the end, we believe the vehicle is both aesthetically pleasing and extremely efficient.

The pictures below also showcase many of the exciting styling elements and design themes carried over from the concept vehicle to the production model design. Let us know what you think of the photos by leaving a comment.

Here’s some interesting footage courtesy of Volt Nation from a Q&A Bob Lutz did at last month’s VN conference in New York. - Will Stewart, blog editor.

By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman

This is a little late coming, but I just wanted to take the time and space to officially thank everyone who traveled to New York, some from fairly far away, for the Volt Nation event at the auto show there last month.

And I’d like to thank Dr. Lyle Dennis, the foundation of Volt Nation, for organizing such a great event, and for his boundless enthusiasm. In fact, all the attendees were rather enthusiastic, and we are very appreciative of that, and of their rabid interest in the Volt program.

As I told the group assembled there in New York, the Volt team feeds off their enthusiasm, it’s a great motivator for us.

Not that we need any extra push to get going on the project. The team continues to make progress, and we continue to be committed to seeing the program through. As I said in New York, we are going to get this done – we are not going to be beaten to the punch like we were on hybrids.

I told the Volt Nation audience that GM had the technology to do hybrids back when Toyota was launching the first Prius, but we opted not to ask the Board to approve a product program that’d be destined to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. In the end, it cost us much more than that; it cost us our reputation for technology leadership and innovation.

We made that mistake once. We won’t make it again. I think the whole company has learned when you step out and do bold things, you win and when you’re cautious and let other people do the bold things, you lose.

Many great ideas die every day because we value the safety of the tried-and-true over the risk that true innovation requires. This is not going to be the case with Volt; we are going for the brass ring.

Further updates to come, but thanks again to Dr. Dennis and Volt Nation for their support.

By Pete Savagian
Engineering Director, GM Hybrid Powertrain Engineering

The public’s appetite for information on the Volt never ceases to amaze me. The concept obviously struck a chord, although I probably shouldn’t be surprised; I was one of the chief engineers for our last battery electric vehicle - the EV1. The public’s reaction to the Volt is somewhat similar, although on an even larger scale, to the reaction we received when we built the EV1 - the first modern electric vehicle.

The EV1 was one of the most technologically advanced vehicles for its time with a passionate, loyal group of customers. We learned an awful lot from the EV1 program, knowledge that’s being put to use right now on the development of the Chevy Volt. The fact is, reducing our dependence on petroleum requires vehicles that provide the petroleum-free benefits we know electric vehicle drivers are passionate about, but we also need to offer the flexibility to be able to drive hundreds of miles at a time between fill-ups. People expect that type of freedom every time they take the wheel.

We believe an Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (E-REV) like the Volt is that kind of vehicle. E-REVs are electric vehicles that provide full performance on electric power alone and only engage energy from the gas in the tank after the battery is discharged. Based on our studies, a vehicle like this offers tremendous potential to reduce petroleum use and emissions.

Earlier today at the Hybrid Vehicle Technologies 2008 Symposium in San Diego, Calif., I shared some results from our analysis of what an E-REV could do in the hands of regular drivers. We used real world data from the Regional Travel Survey conducted by the Southern California Association of Governments over the past few years. The survey measured the daily driving habits of over 600 commuters in the Los Angeles area, one of the world’s busiest, most congested driving regions.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman

Exactly one year ago today we revealed the Chevrolet Volt to the world, and what a year it’s been…

Leading into last year’s North American International Auto Show, we felt the Volt was something special, but I have to admit, even I was surprised at the overwhelming response.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re in Washington in the next few days, you might want to take a look at the Chevy Volt plug-in electric concept car, while it’s stationed there.

The schedule and locations are on FYI.

For the rest of us outside of the Washington area, we’ll be posting photos on Flickr soon.

– Christopher Barger, Director, Global Communications Technology

Be sure to click over to FYI to read a first-person account of seeing the Chevy Volt on the streets of Washington, D.C. John Towriss, one of our consultants, was on the scene Wednesday as the Volt concept car made what I think may have been its on-street debut. His thoughts made for a fun post; check it out.

– Christopher Barger, Director, Global Communications Technology

By Christopher Barger
Director, GM Global Communications Technology

We’ve certainly noticed the attention paid by readers of this blog and FYI to the Chevrolet Volt. Obviously, we’re thrilled with the enthusiasm around the vehicle and the many questions we continue to get about it. I also know that you’d like those questions answered, especially right here. In the spirit of making this as much of a dialogue as we can, we asked Nick Zielinski, Vehicle Chief Engineer for the Volt, to take a look at some of the most frequent questions on FastLane about the car — and to give the best answers he could to them at this time.

Can we answer everything in detail right now? No — for reasons I think Nick addresses in this session. And since there’s still a lot of work to be done, there’s probably a lot more questions to ask as well. But the team is very ready to answer everything we can right now and engage your questions — and we hope to be as open as humanly possible about our work on this vehicle. So here’s a next step in that process: Nick Zielinski answers some of your questions about the Volt.