Man, it's been almost five minutes without GM's vice chairman Bob Lutz has given a positive Chevy Volt update. We just heard from him over the weekend about the possibility of a 20-mile-EV-range version someday, for example. Today, speaking in Dearborn, Lutz said that "there's almost no reasonable doubt in our minds anymore that this is going to work." This, of course, is getting the Volt out to the public. We knew this has been GM's message for a while now, but according to Reuters, Lutz said the testers of the Mali-Volts have "routinely had it to the high 30s, low 40s and they go up hills with it and everything." Well, if GM is able to go up hills with the Volt mules, then there's nothing to worry about, is there?

[Source: Reuters]

Apparently the the spy-shots of a Chevy Volt mule that turned up on-line late last night were not necessarily what they appeared to be. According to GM the photo's in question actually showed a ride and drive mule that is just testing suspension hardware. The gray car we saw earlier doesn't have any of the E-flex powertrain hardware installed. The giveaway would be the absence of a mis-shapen hood on that particular car. The red Malibu you see pictured here is actually one of the powertrain mules that has been circulating the roadways of the Milford proving ground for the last five months. Under that big lump on the drivers side of the hood lies the power electronics module. This vehicle actually has the electric drive motor, the engine/generator combination, power electronic module and a small nickel metal hydride battery pack. The pack is basically being used as a buffer between the engine/generator and motor so that those components can be tested. Powertrain and software engineers are using this car and other to test hardware components and start developing the control software that will make all of this work. Because the battery pack is so small, the engine/generator pretty much runs all the time in the charge sustaining mode that will happen when the lithium ion pack is depleted. The plan is still to start installing the lithium ion packs into mules like this one within the next few weeks.

[Source: General Motors]

Click above for high-res gallery of Chevy Volt mule spy shots

GM has been rather open when it comes to discussing the ongoing development of the Chevy Volt. Check here for our latest round of updates and you'll see that the Volt is moving along quite nicely. Still, there's a long way to go before the vehicle is ready for the road. The test track though, as you can see in the photo above, is another story entirely. According to Brenda Priddy's spy photographers, the Volt's E-Flex underpinnings are currently being tested cloaked under last-generation Malibu bodywork. We knew they'd be coming and are glad to see some visual proof. The production Volt will be based on GM's Delta platform, not the Malibu's architecture. The mules you see in these shots should contain an electric motor, an engine/generator set and some of the first battery packs from CPI and Continental. We're anxiously awaiting our chance to get a ride in one of these Malibu-bodied E-Flex mules.


[Source: Chris Doane for Brenda Priddy and Co.]

click to enlarge

GM invited a good four dozen or so journalists to the General Motors Technical Center today for an in-depth update on the status of the Chevy Volt. I'll have a seriously nauseating amount of detail for you later, but for now I wanted to share a few highlights.

Denise Gray, the director of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems (she's working to get the hybrid taken out of her title, considering the whole E-REV thing), showed the chart above as part of her presentation. As you can see by looking at the white line (feel free to enlarge the chart - in another tab, perhaps - by clicking on it if it's hard to read) the main operating range for the Volt's 16 kWh battery pack is 8 kWh (50 percent) . It doesn't really reach 100 percent or drop below around 30 percent. Gray said, as GM has said since the Volt's introduction, that finding the right 8 kWh of the pack's power to be the "sweet spot" of the operating range. Whether it's between 80 percent and 30 percent of the pack's power or, preferably, 90 and 40 (to give the battery more of a cushion when capacity decreases over time) has not been decided. The Volt is a work in progress.

Other things of note I learned today:

• Should you really want to, you will be able to drive the Chevy Volt as a pure EV, without a drop of gas in the tank.
• Malibu mules fitted with the lithium-ion battery packs will begin testing later this month (actually, we kind of knew this already, but it bears repeating).
• GM engineers are dealing with a lot of issues on this car that they've never had to deal with before - for example, how do they deal fuel that might sit in the tank for weeks or months at a time? (through, a pressurized tank) and realizing that some of the durability components in the ICE generator might be able to come out at some point because that engine just won't be running as much as an ICE in a standard vehicle.

For Frank Weber, the global vehicle line executive for the Chevy Volt, and many other GM representatives who guided us through the center today, the message they wanted to send us home with was that the Chevy Volt is not a concept vehicle - it will go into production. Guaranteed.

As I said, we'll have much more later. For now, check out the GM press release after the break.

Back on the March 20, we recapped a bit of news from the first ever meeting of the so-called "Volt Nation" which took place at the New York Auto Show. Now, Lutz would like to thank the Volt Nation, along with ringleader Dr. Lyle Dennis (left, in the photo above), creator of the popular GM-Volt fan website, for meeting with Lutz and Volt design chief Frank Weber. The Volt Nation meet-us was where enthusiastic members of the community were able to ask their questions of the GM officials (You can watch videos of the entire meeting here).

A few details came out of the meeting, mostly regarding the batteries, along with the revelation that GM was willing to lose money on the Volt. This stance is echoed once again by Lutz on the GM Fastlane blog, to which he adds, "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." Lutz laments losing, and he proclaims yet again that the Volt will get done. We tend to believe him.

[Source: GM Fastlane Blog]

Our friend Ray from Jalopnik happened to be in Southern California the other day when he got sit in with a bunch of bloggers having a chat with "Maximum" Bob Lutz. The ever quotable Mr. Lutz expounded on a variety of topics including the ongoing development of a car that debuted as a concept earlier this year. In the earliest stages of product development before parts are available to build full prototypes, they test various components like powertrains and suspensions on heavily modified existing cars that they call mules.

There are apparently already some mules running with engine-generator and electric motor destined for the Volt. Lutz has now revealed the first mules that will include battery packs will be based on current generation Malibu body shells. Although the Malibu is larger than the the Volt is destined to be, it will be easier to package the hardware into one of these than the smaller Cobalt. If all goes according to plan (when was the last time that actually happened?), we should get a chance to drive these mules early next spring.

With a variety of rear-drive vehicles in the pipeline for the next few years starting with the G8 and Camaro, the question of 35 mpg CAFE standards was bound to come up. The key here is "The Senate proposition of 35 mpg is impossible based on what the market's looking for." That's not to say they can't meet the standard technically. It's just really hard to do with the kind of vehicles that people actually want to buy at current fuel prices. One possible solution to the conundrum of meeting market demands at the same time as the regulations is the possibility of putting the Two-Mode hybrid system into vehicles like the Camaro. What a novel idea, I wish we had thought of that.

[Source: Jalopnik]