AutoblogGreen

@1:Did you miss the post about your previous attempts at shameless self promotion?

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I agree, Steven. AG needs to suspend his account for spamming. John Lewis Mealer, are you sure you want to post here? Someone may go through your comments and decipher what your secret fuel is. They will steal your idea and use it to power a rocket to finally land on the moon.

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GM talks a lot about their fuel efficient vehicles. Here’s 2008 Most and Least Fuel Efficient Vehicles (ranked by city mpg)
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bestworst.shtml

Where’s GM?

What about pure electric cars & trucks? Where’s GM?

Here is a collection of 7 short videos taken at the Smith EV stand at the Commercial Vehicle show 2008. http://www.youtube.com/user/cvsnec2008

They are using Lithium Phosphate batteries and largely Ford chassis.

What about high mileage diesel cars? Where’s GM?

GM LOVES to build E-85 cars even though the fuel is not available or is HEAVLY taxpayer subsidized. GM also LOVES to hype Hydrogen fuel cells even though that fuel won't be available for 25-30 years (if ever) and has a 4X less efficient energy cycle than Battery Electric Cars.

Let's hope that there is REAL change going on at GM and not just MORE PR hype. History tells a far different story than GM’s marketing department.

GM does one thing VERY well… talk, talk, talk.

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The mealermobile apparently runs on hot air. His website implies his vehicle "does not use gasoline, diesel, propane, methane, hydrogen (which is highly improbable for any vehicle), or water for fuel." and is a "non-petroleum, non-electric powered vehicle".

He is insisting on a "non-disclosure agreement" before revealing any details, no doubt his lawyer is demanding a fat fee for filing that agreement. He also disparages other "closely related concepts", including a French one, so obviously it's another air car.

On second thought, maybe it is a hybrid, running on compressed air and hype.

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Of course the @1 should have said @2! He's a slippery eel!

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I think someone has already tried a car powered by rubber bands. You get great power at first, but then they unwind way to quickly. Not so good on durability either.

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"Environmentally destructive"? Are they kidding?

Lithium carbonate, the lithium source in both packs, is made from precipitating salts in salt flats. Let me say that again: they're going to salt flats, nature's barren waste dumps, and sifting out a particular salt. And this is bad why...?

The anodes of both sides are graphite. We use graphite in many orders of magnitude higher volume than batteries could ever hope to. It's either mined straight or produced in a relatively harmless synthetic process.

The toxic lithium cobalt oxide anode of traditional lithium-ion batteries isn't used in either of these. The A123 packs use a lithium iron phosphate cathode, whose raw ingredients are the aforementioned lithium phosphate, iron (we all know what iron is like, and how it's found in ICEs, too), and phosphoric acid, which is a staple industrial chemical that's even found in soft drinks, made from mined phosphate rocks (particularly fluoroapatite -- one of the minerals that can make up teeth) that's mixed with sulphuric acid (which we get as a byproduct of the oil industry). The lithium iron phosphate nanoparticles are bound together with carbon from *sugar* -- again, basically harmless. For each raw ingredient, the use for battery production would be a drop in the bucket, as they're all so incredibly common.

The other competing pack is a lithium manganese spinel pack with cells from LG chem. The source reagent is a manganese salt. I don't know which salt they use in their particular process, but it's basically going to be made by leaching a manganese ore in some common industrial acid. Manganese ores are very similar to iron ores, so you're looking at the same basic issue. We use manganese ores in the *tens of millions of tons per year*; battery use would be a drop in the bucket.

In short, I can only conclude that this author is deliberately brownwashing. But let's continue:

The discharge/recharge and heat dissipation properties of Lithium ion battery packs are problematic and unresolved

Lithium ion batteries and its variants charge/discharge cool except in very rapid charge/discharge usage, thanks to their >99% efficiency. For high performance battery needs, like A123-powered motorcycles, I've heard of people even *insulating* their packs to trap more heat to increase power output. On the other hand, NiMH, used in the EV1 and RAV4EV, is only 50-70% efficient, so there's lots of waste heat to cool.

test data is simply not sufficient to suggest that a passenger vehicle, ready for 7 to 10 years of product life under varied environmental conditions, would be ready for the consumer market by 2010

What test data do you need? They've been used in power tools for years. *Some* car has to be the first, or it'll never get used in automotive tech.

Finally, the very raw materials needed for Lithium ion battery development and manufacture are themselves becoming more expensive due to higher demand and limited manufacturing capacity

The raw materials are dirt cheap. The only expensive raw ingredient in lithium ion batteries is the cobalt oxide. Which *none of the packs the Volt is considering use*. Lithium carbonate, the lithium source, is about $4.50/kg, and given how little is used, you're looking at perhaps 1-3% the price of the cells. Prices could double or triple (say, if you had to use seawater extraction) and you'd hardly notice. Heck, you'd hardly notice a tenfold price increase.

What inane drivel.

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Wow, and you would expect a BMW employee to have nice, totally unbiased things to say about GM. Kind of like asking a Democratic congressperson to give an assessment of a Republican president, of vice-versa.

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Not suprising that Mark Fendley working fora rival company BMW would try to slam GMs green car efforts, especially since BMWs own "Hydrogen 7" is so incredibly expensive and inefficient that it is doomed to failure.

Claims that GM will have to subsidize the battery costs pale in comparison, financially speaking, to the "Hydrogen 7" celebrity giveaway program. Considering that final price has yet to be set, claims of a subsidy are wildly premature.

Claiming that the batteries are "largely unproven and untested" is false, they have been tested and proven, and GM is doing additional testing as well. Cooling and thermal regulation has long been solved. Supplies of lithium - a common element - are not a problem.

No, his article is just a bunch of FUD in a vain attempt to stifle a rival.

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All this "it can't be done" crap just serves to feed the fire. When GM actually does it, it'll be even more appreciated.

Whether PHEVs really are better than regular hybrids is yet to be shown, but I know I want one. I'd be great to not have to buy gas.

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These bureaucrats at gm make me laugh. All they invented in the past have failed, fiero, corvair, ev1... They adopted fuel injection 15 years after the germans and they were putting EFI stickers on the back of the car. If they haven't got big oil and goverment support for their diesel bus in the past they will not be number one in the u.s. today.

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A bit off topic but has anyone seen a life cycle analysis (carbon preferably) of NiMH batteries?

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KarenRei, thank you for your thorough debunking. I think your post, or an expanded version of it should be published in some prominent corner of the web, as a solid reference. I see uninformed comments everywhere, claiming batteries wont last and will be too expensive and too dangerous and so on, while completely failing to understand the fundamental difference between cobalt oxide and iron phosphate, and other types of lithium batteries.
Whether GM and Volt pull it together, is a separate matter, but LiFePO4 battery production is ramping up like crazy in asia, and first imported products are hitting the overseas markets now as well. Good, reasonably priced EV scooters for instance, that finally can to compete on all metrics with their petrol counterparts.

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Well, I do have this wiki, which I link when discussing issues with EV newbies:

http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/greenwiki/Electric_vehicle

Feel free to contribute, correct, add, reference, etc.

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"What about high mileage diesel cars? Where’s GM?"

In Europe. Opel (that's the Saturn looking brand) Corsa 1,3 EcoFlex diesel is 119 g/km on the emissions. Even Saab models aren't that bad for medium cars: 9-3 1,9 TDi gets 147 g / km.

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I'm worried about the Volt:
1) too much battery? ( with the price of $35,000 ). Do we all need 40 miles of EV mode? Option to cut to 20 EV Miles?
2) Price: ouch.
3) Long Hood? Were they going to drop a V8 in this 3 years ago?
4) Too Big? Is this Chevy Malibu size?, with no smaller model going to be available?

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If they only had BACKUP Files of the EV1.

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"The discharge/recharge and heat dissipation properties of Lithium ion battery packs are problematic and unresolved"

For a hundred years we've had engines that EXPLODE THEIR FUEL to make power without melting down and we can't figure out how to dissipate heat from a battery?

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Tim and A. Brien,

You don't know anything about the true technology development that GM has pioneered or been near first to market with. I have to step in on behalf of GM again, (and for full disclosure I did work there for 8 plus years). You guys need to learn about more than just what you hear in the media and realize that GM is a technology leader whether you like it or not.

When it comes to fuel economy competitiveness within vehicle segments that sell the most, like mid sized cars and full size trucks, GM is the best or near the best. The most impact is made where there is the most volume. GM has developed many technologies and been amongst the first to market in many fuel-saving technologies such as partially locking torque converters on automatic transmissions, cylinder deactivation, direct injection, the simpler, cheaper mild hybrid, although they are admittedly late to the party with a full hybrid. The two mode hybrid has just come out. Don't forget that GM has developed and sold hybrid buses that save millions of gallons of fuel every year.

Give credit where credit is due. I drive a GM Saab that has more cargo room than a Ford Edge SUV and probably damn close to a Lexus, but I average 28+ mpg with half city half highway miles out of an efficient 4 cylinder turbo, safe, fun vehicle. Why doesn't Lexus sell a 4 cylinder entry luxury car that can match that? Why can't Honda make hybrid buses? Where's the criticism there?

Don't forget which country you live in and how much our economies depend on our domestic auto industry. You may not know it, but your job may indirectly depend on the well-being of the Big 3. Criticize where it is due, but be fair in how you do it. Our government doesn't support our auto industry like other overseas auto companies' countries do and God knows it doesn't support our workers and white collar employees for healthcare or pension like other countries do.

UH2L
http://www.thingsivenoticed.com

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I am not all too concerned with 40 miles by battery alone as to having a car finally remove the engine from the drive wheels. The whole idea of a series hybrid appeals to me as this means a constant velocity small motor can be used to turn a generator.

It only makes sense that a small motor providing electricity should in the end provide much better mileage.

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