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A few days a potentially big story broke as a result of an interview that BusinessWeek did with Continental North America CEO Bill Kozyra. In that interview, Kozyra is quoted as saying that the battery packs for the Chevy Volt would be production by late 2009. He is also quoted as saying the batteries would be in the Chevy Volt in late 2009. This of course got Volt fan's hearts all aflutter with the thought that they might be able to buy a Volt at least a year sooner than previously thought. Well Volt fanatics, it's time to take a valium and sit yourself down.

You'll have a whole extra year to save your pennies for that new E-REV. I talked to Rob Peterson at GM shortly after seeing the interview and he knew nothing about any change in the schedule for the Volt program. This morning I finally got in touch with Jim Gill, the director of communications at Continental Automotive. Jim explained that there was a miscommunication between Kozyra and the reporter. The lithium ion batteries that Continental will have in production in 2009 are the smaller units that they are building for Mercedes-Benz mild hybrid system. If Continental/A123 Systems does get the production contract for the Volt battery packs they will not be in production until at least the second half of 2010. That production contract has not been awarded at this point. On a side note, Conti has delivered a second prototype Volt battery pack to GM this week. That pack arrived at the Warren Tech Center on Monday.

[Source: Continental]