GM's Volt: A New Plan - 11/18/07

GM has finally realized that the need for a green car is now.    After years of discharging the notion that they had failed in areas such as hybrids, having substandard vehicles, and relinquishing technology leadership to other rivals GM is getting with the program.  They are using real-world customers to test 100 hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles.  Now, they are getting ready for the introduction to their electric car named “Volt” by 2010.   They also are the first to have full-sized hybrid SUV’s, GMC’s Yukon and Chevrolet’s Tahoe.  They are looking to find alternatives to the internal-combustion engine like fuel cells, cellulose ethanol, hybrids, and electric cars.  The problem is that the fuel cells are tremendously complicated due to the fact that there is no infrastructure for fueling them.  There are a lot of problems to resolve because there is no model to learn from.  This is a new feat.  The entire interaction between the internal combustion engine and the battery is new and now there is a massive power load plus the software is very intricate. 

GM is trying to write as much as 70% of the software themselves.  There are a lot of possible sequences that they must test, which is why it takes so long.  Hopefully by the spring of 2008 there will be a prototype of a battery powered cars.  The plan is to put them in old Malibu’s using battery packs.  The data says that this can be done.  The suppliers know lithium ion chemistry and we are not inventing here.  It would be a gigantic surprise if this doesn’t work. GM is attempting to regain the title of technology leader.  Right now Toyota takes that name with the Prius.  Every car that they make is a little bit of Prius.  Toyota looks like a more economical way to go while GM is hurting the environment with gas guzzlers like the Suburban, Hummer, and Silverado’s.  They are using lithium ion batteries rather than nickel metal hydride.  They have now decided that instead of having a bunch of lithium ion batteries in the vehicle with a range of around 100 miles they have a smaller battery with a lower range.  This has now been introduced in the Detroit show.  They are skeptical about the 2010 date but a lot of the team thinks that they can do this.  They are hoping to reinvent the automobile but are expecting on 60,000 sales at first.  They are trying other option but Electric is number one right now.  The others are Advanced hybrid, Plug-in hybrid, Advanced clean diesels, and then way out there is Hydrogen.

Back to the Hybrid Vehicles Index