In all this heady Volt-o-mania, it should be remembered that GM is trying to boldly go where no lithium-ion battery has gone before. The vehicle’s success (i.e. its ability to live-up to the performance-related hype perpetrated its corporate shills) depends entirely on its li-ion battery pack’s ability to hold a suitable charge, discharge that charge, recharge that charge, and do so for a good long time, without losing its ability to charge, discharge and recharge appropriately. A Reuters article [via Planet Ark] kinda makes you wonder about all that… “Among the challenges to overcome are extending the life of high-power lithium batteries and bringing down their relatively high cost, Tien Duong of the US Department of Energy said on the sidelines of a lithium battery conference held at this government laboratory. ‘Life means 10 years, plus. For hybrids we know (their batteries) last 10 years plus. For the PHEV (plug-in electric vehicle), we don’t know… One of the phenomenons that cuts short the life of the battery is power. You may have a lot of energy, but if you run out of power, that’s no good.'” You might even say it’s bad. Speaking of which, “Toyota is making quite an effort to build a lithium-ion battery,” Toyota’s Noboru Kikuchi told the attendees. “Simply giving up nickel metal hydride batteries seems like a bad idea.” And so they’re not going to do it. [thanks to JT for the link]
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Yesterday I saw Mr. Lutz say that GM has a 3-year lead on Toyota regarding batteries. But if it takes Toyota, say 13 years, to get the LI batteries working, that lead might not mean much. But it won’t be the fault of GM management, it’ll be on the battery (non) makers or maybe the govt or somebody else.
One of the serious advantages that the Prius has is that a) it manages battery level so as to avoid the deep charge/discharge states that damage the battery’s net capacity and b) that NiMH really does handle more charge/discharge cycles than LiIon, though at the expense of gross power capacity and weight.
If Toyota is chicken, it’s probably with good reason.
Nothing ventured nothing gained. GM doesn’t have much left to loose. Either they make it happen or they don’t.
There’s NO WAY they’re going to get 10 years worth of charge-discharge cycles out of lithium batteries, unless they have some new battery chemistry they’ve developed.
GM doesn’t have to make it work for 10 years. C’mon people, we’ve seen this all before. All they have to do is to get a few smiling faces into their prototype cars that they’ll sell at a loss and the Volt will be declared a success.
The low volume of the production will keep the number of potential lawsuits down and make it easier for GM to ignore their pleas for help to keep their cars running three years after they bought them.
Spiegel Online, on yesterday’s presentation of the Volt in Rüsselsheim, Germany:
“It is still not clear who will be able to supply the Volt’s batteries in sufficient quantity and acceptable quality. Nevertheless, the dominating emotion is optimism”. Yeah right.
The premise is they’ve got new battery chemistry.
There is a plethora of new battery technology coming. I don’t see how it’s ready for mass deployment in 2010, unless you’re using the early adopters as beta testers. Ask the Edsel division of Ford Motor Company how well that plan works.
Except for the steering-wheel shift buttons, though, the Edsel had no particular new technologies. It failed because it was a new entry in a market segment that was in the process of collapsing, and because its styling didn’t go over well — a comparison to some recent SUV introductions is probably apt.
Better comparisons might be some GM innovations of years past: the aluminum Buick 215 (which was by no means a bad design, but during its GM career, tested the limits of GM’s metallurgical capabilities); the turbocharged Olds 215 (a belt-and-braces approach that was overengineered for its modest gains; the Vega’s aluminum-block four and the much-vaunted, highly disappointing DOHC Cosworth derivative; the Cadillac V8-6-4 (a concept that’s now all the rage, but way past GM’s state of the art in 1980)… As you see, GM has been down these roads before.
netrun called it. World’s most expensive PR gesture.
It’s totally fine if the Volts shipping in 2010 only have batteries that last for 5 years, as long as better battery technology is imminent. What GM is doing is taking a loss on new technology, but a loss they don’t have to pay yet.
Here’s a scenario using numbers I pulled out of a hat:
Qty. Cost Price Battery Future
Year sold each each Replacement Profit Costs
---- ----- ----- ----- -------------- ------ ------------
2010 10K 40K 40K $5K in 5 years 0 $50M in 2015
2011 40K 38K 39K $4K in 5 years $40M $160M in 2016
2012 60K 36K 38K $3K in 6 years $120M $180M in 2018
2013 100K 32K 35K $2K in 6 years $300M $200M in 2019
Again, I pulled those numbers out of a hat. You can make up other numbers to show them going into the crapper if you want. Knock yourself out.
Looking only at net profit (ignoring development costs), GM is never cashflow-negative in this situation. On an accrual basis, they go positive in year 4.
If those numbers were an accurate prediction, then GM would be foolish to wait for battery technology to catch up. They need to get on the front of this train, not chase its kaboose.
(This is also the type of funding mechanisms you see a lot in technology start-ups, not in traditional car companies.)
Radio controlled cars are probably a good test of lithium batteries. For the longest time, R/C cars used nickle-based cells. Now, must people use LiPo cells. Compared to NiMH or NiCad, the LiPo’s are far better, as we’d expect. However, the cells are VERY sensitive to mechanical damage, overcharge, overdischarge and temperature. Also, who has a LiPo battery that’s 10 or even 5 years old that works anywhere near as well as it did when new?
The tech to manage a battery is available on a $20 battery charger from Harbor Freight. Nothing to crow about. If the Pious has just gotten this ability, then they’re a bit late. Then Japan has always relied on dated but tried tech in I.C.E.’s so what’s new here?
And , even the toy industry can manage Li-Ion batteries. The R/C cars have had this tech for years now. Their chargers for racing Li-ion cars are really pretty advanced, and from the U.S.
GM has always been technology over rich in their vehicles, believe me. The general public has no idea how controls intensive the Tahoe Hybrid really is. It rivals machines 10 times more costly, in computing capability. What is visible to the consumer is simple user interface. If there is a way, to utilize the Li-ion tech, it’s going to come from the U.S.
monkeyboy: “GM has always been technology over rich in their vehicles, believe me. The general public has no idea how controls intensive the Tahoe Hybrid really is. It rivals machines 10 times more costly, in computing capability.”
Retort #1… Well, there’s the justification of the Tahoe hybrid’s $55K MSRP… GM packs the computing power of a roomful of Xeon servers into each and every one. In addition to its other advantages, your new Tahoe hybrid can run all your web apps. No propellerhead should be without one.
Retort #2… You mean it rivals the computing capability of a machine (the Prius) which is available for about 40% of the Tahoe hybrid’s price. Yes, the Prius solves the same basic problems for a fraction of the cost.
Either way, GM’s sold perhaps 3K of these beasts this year, so it’s no big deal whether the Tahoe hybrid works well or not. The recent price promotion and rebate finally moved another one off the local Chevy lot after 4 months sitting out in the weather. The Prius, by comparison, sells really fast. I know which dealer I’d prefer to be.
monkeyboy: “GM has always been technology over rich in their vehicles, believe me. The general public has no idea how controls intensive the Tahoe Hybrid really is. It rivals machines 10 times more costly, in computing capability.”
Tahoe is a limited quantity vehicle group to start debugging the tech. GM limits exposure of MTBF and corrects it before it hits the VOLT. GM better treat those pissed off rich people real good.
blindfaith: “Tahoe is a limited quantity vehicle group to start debugging the tech.”
When does this limited volume test/debugging pre-production business end for GM? The Tahoe hybrid was introduced in late 2007. They sell a few hundred a month. The BAS system vehicles… also practically zilch for volume, introduced in 2007. One could count the weird-oh BAS Silverado from 2006 or so (limited geographically for some sort of CARB-type benefit – I’m not sure they sold any). Announced Volt volume for 2011 is 10K. That’s 3 years from now. The Saturn Vue two-mode hybrid is promised for 2009. In volume? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Memo to GM: The hybrid era started in 1997. Toyota stated the Prius was selling at a profit in late 2002.
The time for experimenting is over.
Look at GM’s financials… they can’t afford to screw around with expensive low-volume, admittedly unprofitable cars that may be likely to fail expensively inside the warranty period; they need high volume cars that they can sell for decent margins.