GM's next Next Big Thing (a.k.a. Chevrolet's plug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt) just got a whole lot bigger. Conceptually. The Detroit Free Press reports that GM execs are trumpeting their [Wall Street-friendly] plan to Volt-ize everything that isn't nailed down, including SUVs. Eventually. "The executives would not say how many vehicles they expect to run with the E-flex system, but Andrew Farah, the Volt's chief engineer, said the system is most likely to first be used on GM's global compact and midsize car architectures. The electric propulsion system would need to be greatly altered to work with larger vehicle architectures, such as those for SUVs or pickups, he said." You got that right. Meanwhile, Volt Supremo Frank Weber "expects major improvements to the Volt… to occur on a yearly basis early on. That is different from most vehicle lines, which typically offer major updates every three to five years." Good news? Uh, well… "Weber said the automaker has already identified nine areas on the Volt where it expects to make major improvements or greatly reduce costs in the second year of production. It can't make those improvements in the first year, or it would delay the quick timeline the automaker is on for the launch of the car."
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Hmmn, Beta-Testers sign here.
The Volt sounds more and more like a me-too Tesla.
But let me get this straight, what’s the incentive for buying the first year Volt, except for the novelty value? If they already know it’s gonna be inferior to the next years Volt?
Given all the hype GM is giving the Volt, doesn’t it have to get off to a good start? Yes, it’s new technology and new technology tends to take a while to get correct. But GM is already advertising this car over two years, at least, before it’s introduction. If it comes out with a lot of problems, it will reinforce the perception in many peoples mind that GM is crap. There will be egg on their faces if it comes out in 2011 but it is good, but there will be a lot more if it comes out in 2010 and has many problems.
If the Volt version of the Cobalt runs $25K higher (i.e. $40K vs, $15K), then who exactly is going to be buying the Volt versions of every other vehicle that they can’t afford now that subsidized leasing is dead?
This is not all entirely new technology, as far as the drive system goes. They stated they learned from the EV1 and transferred the technology to the volt. It’s the batteries that are new. Even though Toyota is coming out with the same thing at around the same time, they are working with the batteries that got them to the dance.
If Toyota gets it right with the plug in Prius (and chances are that they will) and GM needs to make on-the-fly changes and upgrades and updates the first couple of years, Happy_Endings is right, peoples’ perception of GM will not change. It will still suck.
I suspect Toyota is coming out with theirs to put the screws to GM. Toyota has been behind the scenes quietly upgrading their Prius as a plug in for a couple of years and will let their vehicle do all the advertising it will need.
what’s the incentive for buying the first year Volt, except for the novelty value?
To be the first on the block to give a big UP YOURS to big oil.
It may not be rational, but there will be no problems finding ten thousand people in the US willing to pay a premium for that.
…of course, ten thousand is about half of Prius’s monthly sales figure.
GM has a decision to make-price it high, sell very few, and write off the design cost of a couple billion or so, or price it low, sell a bunch, and write off the design cost of a couple billion or so and a couple billion more a year in losses from selling it below cost.
They’ll only have ten thousand in the first year, so pricing it high will be fine — unless people start to think of it as “the expensive Volt.” They’ll need to manage that carefully.
“Prius… vehicle do all the advertising it will need”
Hmmm… come to think of it, I can’t think of the last time (or any time) I’ve seen a Prius ad.
“nonce :
what’s the incentive for buying the first year Volt, except for the novelty value?
To be the first on the block to give a big UP YOURS to big oil.”
For the first 40 miles….in summertime….without any hills to go up and down.
I love this! What a media circus. All this blah-blah-blah about a vehicle that probably won’t see the light of day. But the Volt story is great PR material so I can’t blame GM for milking it. It’s all they’ve got really.
Meanwhile, Volt Supremo Frank Weber “expects major improvements to the Volt… to occur on a yearly basis early on. That is different from most vehicle lines, which typically offer major updates every three to five years.” Good news?
Yes, good news and expected. This is one of the benefits of a true electric car architecture. It will put the until-now-mostly-mechanical automobile on a product improvement path that looks more and more like digital products. Some people will misinterpret this. But if the Volt paves the way for mass production and mass acceptance of true electric cars, yearly upgrades will become the norm in automobilia. Good. It will quickly get to the point where upgrades will be modular and sold as such to be incorporated into the car you bought last year.
Phil
Phil Ressler :
This is one of the benefits of a true electric car architecture. It will put the until-now-mostly-mechanical automobile on a product improvement path that looks more and more like digital products. Some people will misinterpret this. But if the Volt paves the way for mass production and mass acceptance of true electric cars, yearly upgrades will become the norm in automobilia.
As you know, I normally leave you alone on this stuff, if only because I’m just recovering from our debate over my XLR-V review. (That is over, right?)
Anyway, this the same automaker that sold its Northstar engine on the fact that buyers didn’t have to even look at it for 100k miles. And rightly so. The idea that anyone wants to get their car upgraded like a piece of damn Microsoft software is deeply misguided. IMHO.
Early adopters and eco-heads, sure. Passionate pistonheads (like, say, you), maybe. The average buyer? Nope.
And please take this in the spirit in which it is intended, but you really should work for GM PR. You are FAR better at defending that company’s products than any in-house flack I’ve ever met, heard or seen. Assuming of course, you are not already so employed. I kid. I kid.
As you know, I normally leave you alone on this stuff, if only because I’m just recovering from our debate over my XLR-V review. (That is over, right?)
I suppose. I still have mine and I like it more, not less, as time accumulates and recent drives of new SLs and the like are absolutely unpersuasive to me otherwise.
Anyway, this the same automaker that sold its Northstar engine on the fact that buyers didn’t have to even look at it for 100k miles. And rightly so. The idea that anyone wants to get their car upgraded like a piece of damn Microsoft software is deeply misguided. IMHO.
Well, you might think it’s misguided but it’s going to happen regardless, if electric cars go mainstream. It will be unavoidable. Continuing real-world data will lead to software improvements and possibly iterative improvements to parts like electric motor magnets, even chipsets. This will be more like upgrading your video card in your PC game machine, than a Windows patch from Microsoft. In any case, lament it all you want — IF electric cars are embraced for their ability to free the average commuter from 80% of his oil drip, you’re going to get an upgradable, high-plasticity configuration car relative to what we’ve had to-date, and people will not only get used to it, the youngest customers will come to expect it. With relentless improvement in software governance of the vehicle, clean modularity of some hardware components, and certain improvements to battery chemistry as production scales and real world data accumulates, there will be no reason not to offer upgrades and incremental improvements. It will be hostile to the consumer not to.
Phil
And please take this in the spirit in which it is intended, but you really should work for GM PR. You are FAR better at defending that company’s products than any in-house flack I’ve ever met, heard or seen.
Thank-you, but don’t get me started on GM’s blundering marketing. Nevermind Rick Wagoner; when I think about what senior marketing people get paid there vs. the quality of their execution, I can feel my normally relaxed, low blood pressure spike.
Phil
And…
Assuming of course, you are not already so employed. I kid. I kid.
Google is your friend. It’s always easy to verify my employment and see that my only association with GM and Ford is that of having been a serial paying customer.
-PR
Yes! I vote for giving the senior marketing people at GM a quality execution.
nonce :
To be the first on the block to give a big UP YOURS to big oil.
There are other alternatives to Petrotheism.
I can filp ExxonMobil and the house of Saud the bird whenever I feel like paying the extra $.50-75 per gallon to fill up the Liberty CRD with 100% Biodiesel.
You could also purchase a Civic GX for an ~$8k premium over the standard Civic and gain solo Carpool privileges. Yes, you are still burning a fossil fuel, but with an entirely different supply chain than oil.
Yes! I vote for giving the senior marketing people at GM a quality execution.
I’m available night or day.
I think Phill is right about the ease of yearly upgrades IF the electric car takes off, but I think he is a little premature. It will probably be several dacades before we see something like that mainstream and ALL the automaker will have to get to a point of standarization. Just look to the standardization of home PC and how long that took, and then add in a time factor of 2 or 3 since the auto industry is much slower adapting and product cycles are much longer.
And this all relies on the fact that electric cars meeet MOST consumers needs and make up a large majority of sales, not going to happen for a while.
And GM will not be the company to make this happen their product planning and internal management is just too screwed up to make it possible, they are just to slow to react and have no insight into what consumers really want.
I really think that when this does happen it’s going to be from someone totally out of nowhere that redefines the business, changes the way it functions and reinvents consumers thinking.
People don’t really have an interest in fiddling with their cars but to bring the car in to the dealer once or twice a year for upgrades wont seem like such a big deal.
Someone is going to be smart and jump on the idea of a never ending lease sort of like susbcriptions for major software upgrades are handled now to lessen the impact of the high initial cost.
RedStapler Or you could go to vegetable oil and really save yourself some money. My brother is currently paing $1.30 a gallon to fill up his Merc 300D.
No one can see that you are driving your non-Saudi oil car. (And, really, buying “non-Saudi” oil just makes Saudi oiler cheaper, so someone else will buy it instead of buying the non-Saudi oil that they would have normally bought.)
But, with the Volt, you can show the world that you aren’t using any gasoline at all. For 40 miles.
It’s entirely emotional, and not rational at all, but it’ll still be real.
Robert Farago: The average buyer? Nope.
With the exception of the truck, just about everything I own that cost more than a kilobuck or so is field-upgradable in some way or another. One especially noteworth example is a small company called Sound Devices:
http://www.sounddevices.com
I still get regular software upgrades — completely free — for stuff I bought from them a few years ago, even though they are a two models ahead now.
In anticipation of the same, I want a RED Scarlet video camera:
http://www.red.com/
and I want this mainly because it’s going to be the best video camera, bar none, for that price. But also (and almost as important): the level of support they are offering to their existing customer base.
(Check into the RED forums, and compare to some of the stuff around the GM Volt.)
A good deal of the inexpensive stuff is too. Connect a cellphone to a computer which is connected to the internet, and chances are good a window will pop up with “Hey! I found new software! Wanna install it?”
Heck, a few weeks ago, a $200 telescope mount I plugged into the computer did exactly that. This is just a pair of electric motors, for heavens sake.
Back to cars. The first question I had for a Ford dealer when looking at the Escape Hybrid, was “Can you flash new firmware?” (The dealer stared at me, completely mystified. After further consultation, the answer appears to be “no”, but I’m not exactly sure if even the service people understood the nature of the question: I was talking about Ford-written software, not third party stuff.) I asked the same question of a Toyota guy for the Highlander Hybrid, as well as the Prius. Essentially the same response.
I wasn’t surprised by this, since these companies probably do not perceive themselves in the software business. At least not yet. But hints are emerging: even Ford is now touting their 2009 FEH is better than the 2008 in some ways simply because of improved software.
So I’ll give it five years or so. If the Aptera catches on big in California, they will probably be the first to do stuff like this, given the “glass cockpit” approach to instrumentation they have taken. (An approach I sorely wish is adopted by the ‘normal’ car manufacturers.) $500 upgrades (or whatever) to convert a 2015 FEH into a more fuel efficient 2016 FEH will be offered, and average buyers, used to stuff like this for cameras, phones, and dishwashers will find nothing unusual about it.
No thanks GM. I’ll take an Astra 3-door with the EV-1 and the NiMH batteries. No ICE wanted or required.
-or-
A 2003 Toyota RAV4-EV except with a Gen 1 CR-V body and chassis. Merely a question of style preference.
I prefer no gasoline or diesel at all in my daily driver – i.e. none of the political mess or corporate big oil in my gas tank.
Maybe a Phoneix Motor Cars SUT is in our future…
Certainly fills all my needs at nearly the same price as the Volt.
Folks, the EV1’s messy end still bothers me. Al GM had to do was sell them instead of crushing them.