Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, MPG, Chevrolet, GM
It's official, Flint engine plant to build Volt range extender
Back in June when GM CEO Rick Wagoner outlined product realignment decisions at the company's annual meeting, the Flint engine plant was identified as the home of a new family of small engines. GM has now filed paperwork with the city of Flint indicating that the new Family 0 engines would be built at the facility. The Family 0 engines will include three and four cylinder powerplants ranging from 1.0-1.4L in displacement. Among the first engines will be a turbocharged 1.4L that will go into the new Chevrolet Cruze. Last week GM's Larry Nitz identified the normally aspirated 1.4L will be used to drive the range extender in the Chevy Volt ER-EV. A new factory will be built adjacent to an existing engine plant and truck plant. The $326 million facility will cover 530,000 sq ft when it launches production in 2010.
[Source: Flint Journal]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dave 12:38PM (7/30/2008)
Hopefully they will be mating these to some trick auto transmissions like double clutched six speeds. If they are going to use four speed auto's I think they will not be at parity with their competitors.
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Dave 12:39PM (7/30/2008)
Also, saw some PR's on EESTOR. They filed another patent and indepently validated their prod process. Zap will have these in their car by late 2009. So....IF this happens and EESTOR is successful maybe range extenders will fall by the wayside.... wouldn't that be nice!
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Serge 1:10PM (7/30/2008)
Dave, I think you meant Zenn Motors not Zap (http://www.zenncars.com/media/press_rel/07_08/EEStor_confirms_progress_July30.pdf). Zap is a highly-suspicious outfit.
a.brien 1:47PM (7/30/2008)
Gasoline generators and range extenders will always be needed for a battery car to be of some use. It give power and range. Battery cannot have both, it's too touph for a battery to have both especially if you don't want it to weight more then the car. If there is a gasoline battery recharger , it will still be an electric vehicule, 4 wheels drive preferably if you want effective regenerative breaking.
Gm is wrong on all counts with their volt concept. They need a lighter vehicule with a smaller battery ( but high voltage)and a smaller gasoline battery recharger and an high voltage electric condenser. That way the gasoline recharger is operating in the efficiency zone, medium to high r.p.m and on-demand and a size of 2 cylinders of 400cc is sufficient, around 50 h.p. Then the battery must be able to give approx 150 h.p with an autonomy of 5 minutes at normal speed. The condenser is there to smouth out the power delivery of the battery and to assist in regenerative breaking where there is a sudden burst of electric current where the battery might not be able to take it. If it's well done that car might return 100 mpg when driven at normal city and highway speed.
Gm is not ready even to test their system in a mule because they didn't figure what kind of battery they want, what kind of recharger they want and maybe they don't know if they need an electrical condenser. Probably it will never be on the road or if there is , it will be crash tested permanent in quantity like the ev1 was and the patents can be sold to exxonmobil or again to chevron.
Im on the market for a green car, green mean too more green papers in my pocket. Gm is slowly been taken out of business by their owners, big oil + high-financial. They decided today to cease financial extortion in their leasing departement.
If they want my business, they can re-invent the volt and all their other models, by beginning to design a high-voltage wheel motor of 60 h.p for regenerative breaking and acceleration. Then a battery that power 4 of these motors for 3-5 minutes capacity.
You begin by the car itself then the motors and the rest of the electrical needed is just a matter of sound engineering.
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Rojo 6:10PM (7/30/2008)
Where are you getting all of this?
1. The first paragraph just completely incorrect.
You are apparently assuming that battery technology has not been evolving since its commercial inception and is no longer continuing to evolve now. This cannot be further from the truth. Viable vehicles are made today that require no generator for a decent range. Please see: "Tesla Motors"
Capacitors can, are and will be used for peak bursts to an electric motor, even assuming they would be needed as battery technology progresses. Even now, batteries are handling high-current requirements for massive acceleration. No, you can't push 800 ft/lb of torque *continuously* and expect a long range, but this is no different than a gasoline engine in power vs. endurance. HOWEVER, an electric motor will be *capable* of sipping electrons or opening the flood gates as needed, where an internal combustion engine will need to be tailor-made (to a greater extent, anyway) for either application. Please see: "Killacycle" and "Bugatti Veyron"
An EV need not be all/four-wheel drive to benefit from 'effective' regenerative breaking. Granted, hub motors are more efficient for the effect, but are by no means a necessity. Please see: "Tesla Motors"
2. This is all misguided opinion. First, you fail to understand that the reason the 'masses' aren't all over the EV scene is because the EV must be practical. The Average Jane/Joe wants to be able to accommodate more than two people while having enough room in the trunk for a few bodies. They don't want to sacrifice what has become everyday amenities for great fuel efficiency. GM understands this and Toyota obviously understands this. On the technical speculation, the RE ICE in the Volt *will be* running in its power band to give its best power/consumption ratio since it will not directly power the vehicle. This is common sense! Also, lets say for the moment that the 4-cylinder's output would also push 50 horsepower. Four cylinders can more efficiently produce 50 horsepower than two larger ones as you'll have less of a gap in the stroke, require less fuel for each combustion cycle and have to push less-massive pistons. Concerning the batteries, this drive train has been built from the ground up as an EV with a range extender. It will be *made* to handle sudden peak currents. Further, from the very beginning of GM's Volt PR campaign, they have promised a 20 mile range without any generator usage. That will be well over five minutes.
The Volt power train is ALREADY being tested in Malibu-based mules. This is old news (that you can find right here on ABG!) They had two battery suppliers working in parallel and last I remember, have all but signed the dotted line with one of the manufacturers.
You either have some bad sources of information or else completely non-existent ones.
Bill 7:01PM (7/30/2008)
It would be nice if before posting here people would spend some time on gm-volt.com so they're more up to date.
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Rojo 9:35AM (7/31/2008)
Though it helps when the guy making a rebuttal can type '40 mile range' instead of '20 mile range'.
No idea where 20 came from...
a.brien 1:18PM (7/31/2008)
Rojo,,rojo, Im right on all counts. If gm put on the market their volt
with their actual design, it will be outdated in one year or maybe 2 if other car manufacturers continue to sleep and it will be a financial disaster. This prototype(volt) is over-built in many aspect and almost totally inneficient on performance, cost of operation and cost of ownership. It's a ridiculous concept. They try to beat their ev1 car of years ago, the one that have been sold to chevron oil compagny.
An electric car well made don't have to use massive energy inputs like conventionnal actual ice car of today do. Today
a car of the size and intended performance of the volt consume
approx 30 mpg. If the volt is build according to my plan it might consume 100+mpg.
The advantage with electric drive is the energy input follow approximatelly the real energy consume and generated by the car when it move on the road. There is minimal energy loss in the electrical appliance of the car if it's well design and all the energy serve you instead of big oil-war-politic-internal security-terrorism corporation.
For efficiency it take an efficient gasoline battery recharger. A 1.4 liter ice engine is way too overkill and inneficient for the energy needs of this small car and it add a lot of weight in the ice engine itself and the associated electrical generator. They must invent
a battery with all the power needed, approx 130 h.p but for 5 minutes because it will weight too much, then a small gasoline electrical generator can replenish that battery in minutes, no need to go as big as 1.4 liter, 400cc continously, approx 50 h.p is sufficient because that king of car consume approx 10-20 h.p as an average. In extreme case if you drive fast the energy available will be 50 h.p max continously but that give a speed on the road of 80+mph so it's not a problem if it give 100 mpg as an energy input. If you do small commute at low speed the gasoline recharger might not even kick in because you are on the first charge and you re-take energy in regenerative breaking.
Im on the go& dam* market to buy an efficient performance car.
As of today billions have been invested to do so by honda, gm, mitubischi, tesla, fisker karma, chevron, shell, doa, europe, autoblog green, toyota, japanese goverment, richard branson,
zenn, panasonic, etc. Today there is still no good car for me to buy except maybe eco-fueler but they are not present in the canadian market.
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