Recent reports that GM won’t even let the fanboys drive their Volt mules in the all-important range-extending “generator mode” were troubling enough, but recent chatter from inside GM suggests that maybe Chevy should have simply designed the Volt as an electric-only vehicle. “It’s best utilized in urban vehicles,” GM Product chief Tom Stephens explains to Automotive News [sub]. “We have to consider what is the usage of the person buying the vehicle. For a commuter who drives 40 miles a day and takes it shopping on weekend, it’s the perfect application.” Yes, and a Hummer is the perfect vehicle for those who want to practice counterinsurgency tactics on the weekends, but the market doesn’t necessarily reflect that, does it? No, it’s image über alles at GM. Is it any surprise then to learn (via GM-volt.com) that the Volt was originally imagined by Bob Lutz as an EV-only city car?
Despite starting with an all-electric city car (an “urban vehicle for a commuter who drives 40 miles a day and takes it shopping on weekends,” so to speak) and ditching those plans for the range-extended Volt, we now hear that GM is developing the car Lutz wanted to build before John Lauckner interfered. Only it’s going to debut after the Volt launches.
“The microcar would offer 90 miles of range using the same 16 kWh battery pack as the Volt,” says gm-volt of the Opel/Vauxhall Trixx. “Presumably the car’s extremely small size and lack of generator and associated hardware would allow for the increase in range.” The “original Volt” microcar is now planned as a 2012 Europe-only model. But why?
From Subaru to BMW, the first electric cars are emerging as small, city-centric vehicles. With range limited by battery technology, smart manufacturers understand that electric cars will be niche city vehicles for a number of years. And with only pathetic neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) currently on offer in the US market, short-term strategies should be focused on winning sales from those who might consider an NEV if it weren’t limited to 25 mph. But that’s not the Chevy way.
Relentless hype has created the impression that the Volt will be a “real car,” an impression that it will always struggle to live up to. As strange as it may seem to read this in the pages of TTAC, Bob Lutz’s comfort level with niche vehicles actually showed a more realistic path forward. Had GM developed a purpose-built city car with less room and no range extender as its first EV, it could have offered more electric range and more realistic expectations about the technology (not to mention a more realistic price point).
Instead it’s going with the Volt, an (allegedly) extended-range EV that pretends to be a mainstream American car. Is GM putting the cart before the horse? More like putting the range-extender before the proven EV. As witnessed by the fact that even GM marketers don’t understand that it doesn’t actually charge the batteries.
What’s this “Volt” vehicle that you are referring to? I hadn’t heard anything about it. Sounds kind of neat.
Tex
p.s. Isn’t GM in some sort of financial trouble? If so, how can they afford to develop something like this?
Something that I and others here have been saying all along – but I guess it has to cost $40,000, or it will not make a profit.
Besides, an engine plant is going to be sitting on their hands if the “range extender” isn’t part of the package.
Make it modular in some fashion. Want the motor? Here! Want the extra battery in its place? Here ya go.
Ed, how solid is your info that the ICE does NOT charge the batteries? It seems like there is a lot of (intentional?) confusion about the issue, especially inside GM (and its supporter groups).
For fear of descending into a child politician-like debate (“IS!” “Is NOT!” [Repeat until the next adbreak]), I would like a link to the REAL info.
Had GM developed a purpose-built city car with less room and no range extender as its first EV, it could have offered more electric range and more realistic expectations about the technology (not to mention a more realistic price point).
You mean the EV-1?
TTAC seems to choke on saying that name.
The Mitsubishi i MiEV is already in limited production, and is a small 4-seat city car with the 80-90 mile range.
If Telsa had the scale and resource of GM, the Telsa roadster could very possibly be costing $40k only.
The “original Volt” microcar is now planned as a 2012 Europe-only model. But why?
A tiny car won’t fair well in the USA. We all know that.
I have an economic explanation for why the all-electric cars are all tiny little things. An ICE has a large fixed cost of manufacturing and a small incremental cost of a more powerful engine if you want to scale up to a huge SUV instead of having a microcar. Contrast that with an EV engine and battery setup, where the fixed cost is relatively small but adding more batteries to get a decent range from a huge SUV adds a huge cost.
Given this cost structure, EV has a competitive cost advantage in smaller vehicles and ICE has the lead in larger ones. As the EV technology gets better, the competitive advantage will move up the food change to the larger vehicles. Unfortuantely, the USA Volt has the worst of both worlds: fairly large car (lots of batteries and/or short range) coupled with an ICE (for high fixed costs).
Another practical advantage of small EVs is that the smaller batteries in a small EV will charge in a more reasonable amount of time from a standard house electrical system. Retrofitting the electrical system in your house to charge an SUV EV in just a few hours would be a large expense and thus a large barrier to adoption.
midelectric beat me to pointing out the EV1. Not so much on the realistic price point, but it was 10 years ahead of its time and battery tech. Still, 80 mph capable and 100-150ish mile range IIRC, people would buy that now, if they were buying anything.
@Engineer:
This is from an earlier comment of mine about this seemingly irrepressible issue:
The Volt is/was always designed to run (hopefully, in city driving) forty miles in all-electric mode, drawing down the battery from its “full” 80% state-of-charge (SOC) down to its “empty” 30% SOC. At that point the 1.4 liter ICE engine starts spinning the generator at one of five fixed rpm levels, depending on the given power requirements of the car’s electric motor. There is no reason to “recharge” the battery, since that would be giving money to those OPEC terrorists. That is, “not recharge” as defined in the usual sense. In actuality, the battery will always be charged/discharged somewhat during this “charge-sustaining mode”, because of two (primary) factors. There will be small mismatches between the generator’s output and the electric motor’s requirements, moment-to-moment. Excess juice from the generator will be shunted to the battery; power demand in excess of the generator’s output will come from the battery. Additionally, regenerative braking will always charge the battery. So while the whole system is designed to maintain an approximate 30% SOC in charge-sustaining mode, in reality that level will fluctuate due to these and other factors. And unlike the body of the Volt, this never changed: GM always said from the (virtual) get-go that “a gasoline/E85-powered engine generator seamlessly provides electricity to power the Volt’s electric drive unit while simultaneously sustaining (at 30%) the charge of the battery.”
Engineer: this might answer your question.
I wonder if GM has thought about a car that you poke a really big key into the top of it, and then you rotate that key a lot …
It should have just been designed from the get-go as a normal hybrid car and GM’s direct competitor to the Prius. Just like Honda did with the Insight. There certainly would have been a better business case for that.
I CAN SEE THE ADD NOW.
Come on down and buy a Chevy Volt.
It will go 40 miles on a charge.
(your milage may very)
at the low, low price of 40 thousand dollars.
(battery not included)
A quick poll
How many of you think there will ever actually be a VOLT for sale?
I have said it 100 times I don’t think this will ever touch a showroom floor. I don’t think it’s going to survive the judge during Ch 11, how can it it’s a guaranteed money loser for years.
You mean the EV-1?
Didn’t GM wind up that program because even they recognized it was costing too much?
Of course this car will eventually make it too market.
Obama wants a clean car future. Since US taxpayers now own the thing indirectly (the Treasury is not a federal agency) the Obama guys will direct them to build these new cars. Why else would they be allowing California to set their own CAFE standards of nearly 40mpg? It’s because they got small electric cars lining the future product portfolios.
Volt, yes it needs an all electric variant to compete and hopefully come in at a cheaper price. Lutz was trying to tell people since it had 2 powertrains it was x2 as expensive. I’d like them to use that logic with just an electric only model.
The TRUTH about the VOLT; GM for now is sticking an ICE into it, while entrepreneurs in Israel are adding small efficient turbines that can spin up to charge the batteries.
People don’t realize this but, the EV1 was designed with a trailer for a range-extender, but GM axed that, the electric car was not supposed to be successful. Remember GM lost spent taxpayer money to build that car!! $500 MILLION from the Clinton administration. So Lutz’s statement we lost a billion is incorrect, they lost 500m of GM dollars and 500m of grants from Uncle Sam….
So really the Volt is a step backwards and we should of had an electric car by now…
GM can sell an all electric Volt car and rent range extenders or sell them to people who need to go more than 90 miles. That covers the electric car market much better than combining both functions as a niche product with limited appeal at $47,499 price tag… oops, I mean $39,999 with federal tax credit….
According to my GM engineer friend testing the volt’s electric engine, they’re testing it to the limit to see how fast they can let the car go…. over 110mph. They also computed the cost of the engine right now,.. over $11,000… maybe in mass manufacturing it will cut that down… with a battery pack costing nearly $20,000 plus a Chevy Cruz equals 46K (15k + 20K+11K =46K) without the ICE, it’s more like $36 base, that would take the Tesla S-model to town at that price. If they want to competitive, GM should go after this Niche…
If GM wants to compete with the Tesla S, perhaps they should build a Caddy version. Tesla S is leather lined and a really great looking car.
Somehow I didn’t think this was supposed to be a niche product. I really don’t know, was it meant to be this expensive or was there to be some kind of battery breakthrough?
Sunnyvale you are spot on about electric vs. gas power traincost escalation and how EVs have an edge at the small end of the scale.
At the extreme end of the scale is the Nautilus E30 Electric Class 8 Truck that weighs in at a hefty scales at a hefty $210,000. For comparison a regular ICE Class 8 costs $80-120k new.
I don’t think the Volt would be successful as an electric only car. In their current state of technology, electric cars cannot fill enough needs to be someone’s only car. Sure, maybe you only drive more than 40 miles once a month but what do you do on that day?
The ‘range extending’ ICE allows the Volt (should it ever see the light of day) to be the only car in your garage.
benders: ” don’t think the Volt would be successful as an electric only car. In their current state of technology, electric cars cannot fill enough needs to be someone’s only car. Sure, maybe you only drive more than 40 miles once a month but what do you do on that day?”
You drive one of your other cars. Seriously. How many families or couples do you know who have the means to buy a new car (electric or no) and only one car? A short-range electric car as a second car is a decent size market, if the price is right. Even my wife would go for one. The subject of the Volt has come up and, on hearing $40K, “No way!”
I’ll bet its for sale in 2011MY. In fact I’ll put up a hundred dollar bill. I’ll send it to Robert and he can hold it. Anyone who wants to take the bet it won’t go on sale and wants to put up a hundred let me know. The only caveat if GM goes C7 tango uniform and doesn’t recover from its restructure the bet is off and each gets their $$ back. And this is a first come first serve. 1 bet 1 person.
I didn’t say it has to sell, It only has to be for sale.
I met a guy in Tucson last night that built his own 100% electric car. He was over at the house with it. He bought a used Ford Escort wagon (Front wheel drive) and pulled the motor out. He then put in an electric motor. The car is powered by 14 lead-acid batteries stored in a box he built for the back of the wagon behind the rear seat.
It charges on his household 110v. He said that he can also charge on his 220v circuit too if he needs it fast. He just plugs it into the 220 outlet.
He gets over 50 miles range on it and loves it. Goes plenty fast, 70+ mph.
Oddly, he kept the tranny (5 speed standard). He said he only uses 2nd and 3rd gear.
He said it cost him about $15k.
The only downside is that the car has no HVAC. Being Tucson, he doesn’t need the heater. But he said he missed A/C. But not enough to send money to Mid East and South American dictators.
As he was showing me all the inner workings of his car I could not help but think of GM’s Volt project. This guy is a retired professor of art, not an engineer. Yet he has managed to do in 6 months and for less than $20k (used Ford Escort included) what GM can’t figure out after billions and years of development.
Farago: If you want, I can take some pics and you can interview him. He is really cool guy, a friend of my mothers.
The “Trixx” will have only a 90 mile range? So we have had 13 years of development to get to 20-40 miles less range than the Gen II EV1? And less than half the range of a Tesla, but we won’t go there.
Given what Tesla has been able to do, asterisks and caveats notwithstanding, one of the Detroit Two and a Debtor oughta be able to produce a vehicle about the overall package size as an EV1, but designed as a small wagon or hatch sedan for greater utility, and a 150-200 mile range.
Also, there is an inherent problem with the Volt that I still haven’t heard the definitive answer to. The sales pitch is, if you drive less than 40 miles/day and plug the car in at home, you will be able to drive entirely on electricity. I suspect, though, that the car will be programmed to run the ICE every so often even if it is not “needed,” just in order to keep the ICE operational. Anyone who has tried to awaken a “ran when parked” barn-find car knows that the worst thing you can do to an engine is let it sit. The gasoline will turn to varnish, the dry cylinder walls will corrode and the engine might seize up entirely. I can see it now, GM fighting with owners over warranty claims where the owner failed to add Sta-Bil to every tank of infrequently used gas. Kinda like the mandatory coolant additive for 4.1 and 4.5 liter Cadillacs in the 1980’s.
Paul Niedermeyer
You have stated your position several times. It’s theory.
Where is the independent test?
Paul Niedermeyer said “Additionally, regenerative braking will always charge the battery.”
Not when the battery has been topped off after being recharged overnight and starting off in the morning or whenever after being charged.
what sucks for Lutz, in 2007 he bought 53,336 shares of GM stock at a price of $20.09 a share. He still owns 81,360 shares of GM stock. ouch!
He should have dumped it like Kerkorian…
law stud – The battery is only recharged to 85% SOC in an overnight charge, so possibly they might let regen push it higher.
They might not, figuring the hit on battery life (ie number of cycles for a given degradation in capacity) isn’t worth the extra range.
Those with calculators will rapidly work out that if you have a nominal 16 kWh battery pack that is only ever charged to 85% full, and discharged to 30%, you are getting a lot less actual battery capacity than it says on the box. About 9 kWh.