At the big unveiling of the Chevy Volt, GM said the vehicle would be able to hold 12 gallons of liquid fuel and be able to go 640 miles on that energy and what was stored in the batteries. Well, that announcement was 18 months ago and things have changed since then. The latest that we've heard about is that the liquid fuel tank will be something smaller than the original estimate.

Kicking Tires quotes "a source" that says that the exact size of the smaller tank is not yet set but that, "We're working on that." The new goal is to give the Volt a range of 360 miles without any help from the initial charge, so that would imply a tank of maybe eight or so gallons - still plenty for most drivers most days in a PHEV like this. While the aerodynamics of the Volt have proven to be much more important than weight when it comes to increasing the miles per gallon number, every bit counts. We're waiting on a reply from GM to see if the smaller fuel tank move is official.

UPDATE: GM's response was that they will share "the detailed technical information on the production vehicle at the appropriate time."

[Source: Kicking Tires]

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]

Much has been said recently about both the potential cost of the Chevy Volt and who will supply the batteries for the production car. During our recent chat, Bob Lutz he told us that the current mule vehicles are all being tested with packs from only one of the two development suppliers although units from the other supplier are still being tested in the lab. Now, Volt Vehicle Line Executive Tony Posawatz has told reporters that a final production sourcing decision will almost certainly happen by the end of summer. Most of the speculation has been that LG Chem/CPI will get the nod although Continental/A123 Systems remains possible. CPI delivered its first prototype pack to GM more than 2 months before Continental and is already preparing to build lithium batteries in Korea for hybrid applications at other carmakers.

When it comes to the question of cost, we still don't know how much a Volt will cost, although Lutz acknowledged it would be higher than originally hoped. A sticker price closer to $40K than $30K seems likely. As one alternative to help curb costs, Posawatz revealed that sometime after launch, the company could offer a version with an 8kWh battery pack that drops the EV range to only 20 miles from the 40 miles that will normally be available. With rumored battery costs running over $10,000, this could potentially slash the cost by several thousand dollars.

[Source: Reuters]

When GM launched Chevy Volt concept last year, officials explained why they badged the car as a Chevrolet. The Volt was intended to be a mass market car that would be affordably priced and widely available. Chevrolet is a global brand for GM and the company wanted to make it clear that the E-Flex technology would be available everywhere. Unfortunately, while the long-term plan is for E-Flex to be widely available and affordable, at launch it will be anything but. With Chevrolet being a budget priced brand in the rest of the world, selling the initial Volts as Chevys could make marketing problematic in the places like Europe.

GM wants to make the Opel brand a technology leader in Europe, but E-Flex is among the most technologically advanced systems GM has. Offering it in a Chevrolet first runs counter to the plan. GM faces a similar dilemma with the Corvette, which doesn't really fit in with the rest of the Chevy lineup. The Corvette is essentially sold as a stand-alone brand in the rest of the world without referencing Chevrolet. Mike Arcamone, vice president of GM Powertrain Europe, told Automotive News that Opel and Chevrolet would both offer E-Flex vehicles within months of launch, the Opel would likely launch first over there.

Although the Opel Flextreme concept that was shown at Frankfurt last September used a diesel engine for the range-extender, the early production Opels will only use the gas/E85 flex-fuel engine from the Volt. While the Euro-Volt will use the same styling as the American car, the Opel will apparently have a different body style, perhaps more like the Flextreme.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. req'd]

GM's product development chief Bob Lutz is one of only a handful of people to have driven the first Chevy Volt development mules with the full lithium ion battery pack in place. The mules have now been dubbed Mali-Volts alluding to the Malibu body shells that contain the E-Flex. A post went up yesterday on the GM Fastlane blog about the drive, and shortly afterward I got to have a longer one-on-one chat with the Vice-Chairman. Lutz was in a particularly good mood and he described himself as "thrilled" when he finished his first 20 mile drive at the Milford Proving Ground.

It took 14 months to go from a non-functional concept to a driveable vehicle with an all-new powertrain. Right now, one of the two battery suppliers is in the lead and all the running vehicles are equipped with packs from that company. Packs from both companies are still being bench tested however. Both Lutz's drive and the 40 mile electric drive that happened around the same time occurred on the proving ground roads, although Lutz acknowledged that since everyone knows what the cars look like they can head out on public roads too. Check out the full story at GFF and the video after the jump.

There hasn't been a whole lot of positive news for Michigan's economy in the last few years and the auto industry has been among the low-lights. Since the 1980s, the city of Flint, in particular, has been the icon for everything that has gone wrong in the U.S. auto industry. However, in the midst all the bad news from GM about truck plant closings on Tuesday, there were a few positive nuggets especially for Michigan. We've known since last fall that GM was planning to build the Chevy Volt in Detroit come 2010, but getting official production approval from the Board of Directors was definitely a sign that the program is on track. Also buried among the negative stuff yesterday was the plan to add a third production shift at the Lake Orion assembly plant near Pontiac. Lake Orion builds the Pontiac G6 and recently added production of the Chevy Malibu. Malibu sales are so strong right now that more capacity is needed. In Flint, where many of the production facilities that once dotted the city have now been shuttered or demolished, 1,000 jobs are being preserved by the assignment of a new engine family to the engine plant there. A family of small engines ranging from 1.0-1.4L will be produced in Flint. The 1.4L is the new turbocharged engine that will go into the new compact coming from Lordstown, Ohio next year as well as the Saturn Astra and other models. The 1.0L may well be the three cylinder that is used to drive the range extending generator for the Volt. Hopefully for Michigan this is just the start of a resurgence for more efficient and more reasonably sized vehicles to replace all those over-sized SUVs of the past decade.

[Source: Detroit Free Press]

Click the Volt for a high-res gallery

Round and round we go... where we stop, nobody knows! That sounds like an apt description of the merry-go-round that is the Chevrolet Volt, especially when pricing and delivery date are concerned. Perhaps what we are witnessing in this case is the first truly transparent product launch in history. Do major shifts like this happen with all vehicles, or is the new technology needed to make the Volt a reality causing pricing headaches for GM management? Maybe it's all of the above. Whatever the case, GM CEO Jim Wagoner has been quoted on Forbes as suggesting that General Motors will be selling an electric car for less than $30,000 by the year 2010.

Another possible explanation for this pricing confusion could involve the upcoming plug-in Saturn Vue. How can we be sure that Wagoner was referring to the Volt when he cited the pricing and deadline of the electric vehicle? We can't. It's possible that GM could have a plug-in Vue ready for the market in 2010 with an electric-only mode, making it an electric car of sorts. We'll just need to take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to the Volt's, and the Vue's, debut.

[Source: Forbes]

Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman and Volt booster, told Edmunds AutoObserver today that the Volt is achieving its 40 mile all-electric target in initial on-road testing. "It is reliably meeting its objectives," Lutz confirmed. "Even with a rough calibration, even with the wrong drive unit, the wrong body, etc. etc., it has been hitting its 40 miles on electric power."

There was no word on which of the two battery suppliers' products was installed in these first drives on GM's proving grounds in Michigan. He did say the Volt's Battery Management System was successfully keeping temperature rises to a minimum and maintaining even heat distribution across the cells.

Lutz ever more enthusiastically says the Volt will debut for sale in Chevy showrooms in November 2010. And he went out of his way to underscore Chairman Rick Wagoner's interest and support for the Volt project.

[Source: Edmunds AutoObserver]

Even though GM has said it will wait until late 2008 to name the battery supplier for the Chevy Volt, Continental CEO Manfred Wennemer told Reuters on Thursday that he believes his company has a "good chance" of winning the fight with LG Chem / CPI. Of course, it's no surprise that a CEO would talk up his company's chances, but winning the Volt contract will be a huge coup to whoever wins it. Wennemer said that not winning won't kill the company, but "it would be very, very important for us to be the one," he said. Winning the Volt deal would see Conti build a production plant in the U.S., Wennemer said. Since both Continental and CPI packs seem to be doing fine in the testing lab, there is probably a lot of number crunching and haggling going on behind closed doors to figure out which supplier can deliver the right packs to GM for the right cost.

[Source: Reuters]

There has long been an interesting paradox in the realm of cars. For some peculiar reason, people who buy really expensive cars are willing to make more compromises to the foibles of the car and cut them more slack. How else to explain grief that owners of Italian exotics withstood for decades in terms of reliability, ergonomics and build quality. Buyers of mainstream cars that often have far fewer problems as a percentage of the number of vehicles built have a fit at every little thing that goes wrong. That same paradox exists today. The Tesla Roadster by virtue of its price and performance falls into entry level of exotic cars. Despite numerous delays in getting the car into production, and obvious compromised in terms of its functionality, most people have been willing to cut the car and the company a lot of slack, myself included. In my case my experience in the auto industry allows me to understand the difficulty of the task Tesla had. I never actually expected them to meet their aggressive timing targets and I've written on numerous occasions about the potential problems they might have. Nonetheless most people believed in the company.

General Motors on the other hand faces an entirely different standard with the Volt. In spite having a much more complex vehicle to develop with a much greater level of functionality and a shorter time frame than Tesla, GM seems to be being held to a higher standard than Tesla. At the slightest hint of time slips or cost increases, so many people jump on GM thinking that the car will never happen. Admittedly, we have yet to see a running prototype of the Volt (although they do apparently now exist) but that doesn't mean the company isn't fully committed to making the car happen. GM's task of creating a car that will be an affordable mainstream sedan for four passengers that meets modern standards will strangely mean that customers actually expect it to work all of the time. That's a situation that the much more expensive Tesla won't face to nearly the same degree.

[Source: Motor Trend]

According to Dr. Lyle Dennis, the founder of the GM-Volt.com fan site, over 20,000 people are on the "Chevy Volt Waiting List." For comparison, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV online petition currently has just 1,350 signatures calling on the Japanese company to sell the electric jellybean here in the U.S.

The Volt waiting list, though, isn't a declaration of an intent to buy or a place to put down a deposit. Instead, it's a grassroots way to let GM know that you're interested in buying the Volt when it comes out in late 2010. Still, I don't doubt that many - most, probably - of the people signed up would gladly fork over the money ($40,000? $35,000?) for the car. Wanna add your name to the list? Sign up here. More details after the jump.

Last week, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. got space in the Wall Street Journal to question "whether GM is a genius or a dolt for developing the Volt." Jenkins suggests that gas prices might drop again. If this happens, then GM can say goodbye to consumers who want the Volt, Jenkins says. A big drop in gas prices is unlikely, based on recent trends and predictions, but not impossible. Jenkins' argument is one reason that an artificial floor on fuel prices - through higher gas taxes or a set minimum on oil prices - would secure the industry's investments in green cars. Jenkins is also unimpressed by GM's willingness to lose money on the first Volts, but he does see one strategy where GM "bribe(s) consumers to drive Volts off the lot. That is, if doing so frees GM to build and sell other cars bigger and more powerful than the cars its rivals can afford to build under the CAFE rules."

In the end Jenkins doesn't answer his own question. To be fair, this chapter is far from finished and an answer can't be declared just yet. While we're still a long way from Job 1, I think it's pretty easy to answer that the real dolt move here would be to not try to create a car like the Volt.

[Source: WSJ via BusinessWeek]

Scott over at PetroZero had the opportunity to pose some questions to Bob Lutz the other day and, as always, the responses were interesting. First off is the idea of the E-Flex platform operating entirely free of batteries, with the engine/generator simply running continuously and feeding electricity to motor. While this is certainly technically possible, the current E-Flex system is not architected for that possibility. The generator has no direct connection to the motor, rather it feeds the battery. The engine is designed to run at constant speed and wouldn't achieve anywhere near the efficiency if it had to provide transient operation. Because the motor requires more power on demand for acceleration, the engine would have to speed up. In this usage scenario, the efficiency losses of converting mechanical to electrical and back to mechanical power would come in to play as described by Toyota and others when they criticize the whole concept. A conventional parallel hybrid would actually be preferable in this case. The whole premise of improved efficiency from E-Flex is built on the idea that the vehicle will run off grid energy the majority of the time.

The other possibility that Lutz mentions is eliminating the engine/generator and going battery only. This is actually not a new idea and was discussed as a long-term possibility back in late 2006 when GM held the first background briefings on the Volt prior to its auto show debut. The idea is that if battery technology progresses to the point that a Volt type vehicle could provide a reasonable electric range without a range extender just by using a bigger battery, it could easily be done. The idea is mentioned in the first E-Flex technical description I wrote here. Finally, Lutz indicated that within the next two weeks he will be taking an initial test drive in a real Volt prototype. According to Scott this is an actual Volt prototype not a Malibu-based mule. I find that unlikely at this stage. A mule drive is almost a certainty though.

Update: Rob Peterson at GM confirmed that it is only a mule that Lutz will be driving. Actual Volt prototypes are still many months away.

[Source: PetroZero]

When GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz speaks, controversy usually follows closely behind. Unlike many high ranking executives Lutz often wanders off the defined script such as when he recently commented on global warming being a crock of .... I sure wouldn't want to be one of the PR handlers having to spin his words. In his latest chat with Detroit News columnist Manny Lopez, the electrification of vehicles was obviously front and center as it often is these days at GM. The EV1, of course, comes up and the accuracy of Lutz's claims will certainly seem open to debate. As recounted by Lutz via Lopez, GM tried and tried to find buyers for the EV1 but no matter how much they dropped the price, only about 800 people were willing to step forward. That was the reason for leasing the vehicles, according to Lutz. That statement seems highly dubious if EV1 fans are to be believed.

Certainly the market for the EV1 was extremely limited because of its practical limitations and the high cost, but it sure seems like more than 800 people were interested. Or maybe its a case of the hindsight that revealed there were actually 40 million people at Woodstock. Lopez and Lutz apparently also talked about how out of touch some (actually most, based on my own experience) people are with the realities of building a car. That's an area we try to address here on ABG regularly by discussing the technology that makes these modern machines go and what it takes to make it happen. One-off prototypes are easy to build but they aren't going to cut it when you have to meet modern customer and regulatory expectations. On a final note, Lutz revealed that the first Volt mule is now running with a lithium battery pack in it.

[Source: Detroit News]

Click above for a high-resolution gallery of the 2007 Toyota Prius Touring.

Sure, hybrids such as the Toyota Prius are already considered by the masses to be the pinnacle of green automotive technology, but they are still most certainly in their infancy. We've already looked at ultracapacitors, diesel, biodiesel and cellulosic biofuels as potential green technolgies, but each of those could be paired with an electric motor as part of a hybrid drivetrain. Although GM would like you to consider the upcoming Volt as an electric vehicle, the fact remains that it also carries a small internal-combustion engine onboard, making it a hybrid of sorts although many people (ourselves included) are referring to it as an extended-range electric vehicle. Because so many potential breakthroughs include hybrid technologies, we look forward to the idea carrying on as one of the most promising ways for automobiles to go green.

Now, what's Number 1?