Dr. Lyle J. Dennis of GM-volt.com fame has a pronouncement for his flock: “I have seen the electric car promised land.” Dr. D is referring to his visit to “the pre-production operations (PPO) facility at a time where the first genuine Chevy Volts, called integration vehicles (IVers) were being assembled.” (There’s a joke in there somewhere about an IV drip, but it’s not for me to make it.) Unfortunately, Fritz Henderson’s sworn promise of transparency doesn’t apply to photographs of Volt mule assembly, ’cause God knows what Toyota what might do with the information revealed by snapshots of the process. But Dennis is nothing if not sycophantic—I mean resourceful. He offers the EV faithful this shot of “the actual garage door the first Volts will drive off into the world through.” Ending a sentence with a preposition is not something up with which TTAC would put, but we appreciate Dennis’, uh, zeal. “And so without any doubt [yea verily] the Volt has truly been born and its arrival into public production for launch in November 2010 appears at this point an absolute certainty.” Appears to be an absolute certainty, indeed.
By most accounts the volt is going to cost too much and have to many conditions surrounding it’s claim to fame to have many sales. All Toyota needs to do is offer plug in capability for the Prius and it’s over for the volt.
You have dependable experience in one corner and in the other we are supposed to believe GM can make an electric car to compete with.
Nice door. Probably an empty warehouse down in Detroit across from RenCen,
Where’s the smoke?
Where’s the mirrors?
GS650G, you do realize that a plug in Prius would probably cost around $10,000 more than a normal Prius (larger battery + larger motor cost + charging circuitry) and probably wouldn’t have much of a trunk. TNSTAAFL.
“Unfortunately, Fritz Henderson’s sworn promise of transparency doesn’t apply to photographs of Volt mule assembly, ’cause God knows what Toyota what might do with the information revealed by snapshots of the process.”
Laugh their asses off?
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SkiD666,
Toyota claims the current Prius is ready to go. Just replace the current battery with a higher-energy model. Not a lot of range, it’s true, but Toyota undoubtedly aims to keep the price low, so a large battery is not in the plans. In fact, there’s $2300 or so of battery price in the current Prius already, switching to a higher density battery is likely to be on the order of just $2500 more.
They will be providing them to some fleets this year.
For some, less EV range actually makes more sense. If you don’t routinely go 40 miles per day, why pay for all that range? My normal workday is just 6 or 12 miles (if I go home for lunch, it’s 12). I’d be much happier saving money with a 10-12 mile range vehicle and burning just a pint of gas to supplement the electric charge.
I’ll bet most of the Volt’s real target market don’t routinely require 40 miles range. A less costly Prius could eliminate the Volt’s market.
Of course, some will buy something like this at any price. So, GM’s pitiful 10K units for the first year will sell. After that, nothing goes to high volume without a significant reduction in battery cost at the battery suppliers. The Prius, with development already amortized across a million vehicles, is better poised to take advantage of supplier cost reductions.
He offers the EV faithful this shot of “the actual garage door the first Volts will drive off into the world through.”
That looks like a bay door from Any Industrial Park, Any State, USA. There’s rust on the bottom lip of it. Classy.
GS650G,
The plug-in Prius will have a much shorter all-electric-range than the Volt (provided that the Volt is produces as-advertised). IIRC, it’s 7-9 miles, and my guess (as a driver of a 2004 Prius) is that the plug-in Prius would be more likely to use the gasoline engine during those first miles if I were to forget to drive like an old man.
General comments:
Lyle really does seem to be sycophantic toward GM. I sometimes wonder if he works for GM’s PR department.. But, in the end, I think he’s really just be an electric car enthusiast with a dream.
I’m a regular over at gm-volt.com, and I really hope that the Volt is all that it claims to be be. I’m sure that gm-volt.com is a major part of GM’s PR campaign one way or another, but I keep going back for more…
If the hype materializes and the price is reasonable, I’d sure love to own a Volt! Like the Prius, though, the Volt wouldn’t be a car for everyone — especially the autocrossers and racers in the audience. Also, people with long commutes may be better served by a conventional car, a Prius, or a Jetta TDI. But with a 40-mile all-electric-range, I’m pretty sure that *I* personally could go for months at a time without using liquid fuel.
I do agree that Toyota is probably more likely to deliver a working plugin car than the GM. There’s a useful every-day Prius sitting in my driveway, and I’m pretty sure that Toyota can make a major but incremental improvement to it — that’s just what Toyota does. The volt is less likely to be produced, but if it is produced, it could make the Prius obsolete. As much as I like the Prius, seeing it dethroned by something better would be super-cool.
Another car that I hope to see in the mix is the Ford Focus EV. It doesn’t have the gasoline engine to extend the range, but what little I’ve heard about Ford’ss program makes it sound pretty credible. Also, the Ford engineers had some criticism for the Volt drivetrain that seems spot-on.
Hopefully I’ll get to make a 3+ way comparison in late 2011. If that happens, I’ll be one happy geek! :-)
P.S. (For those of you who think that Prius drivers are a bunch of granola-chewing hippies and pocket-protector-wielding geeks, wouldn’t you love to see all of us running out to buy an American car that runs on American fuel? I sure would!)
Is it possible to make a sensible comparison between the Prius and the Volt?
Prius depends on lower-density nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries because until now, Li-Ion was not considered dependable enough, in the long term. However, according to Wikipedia, Toyota will offer a Prius plug-in hybrid powered by lithium-ion batteries to fleet buyers beginning in late 2009.
But what range will its E-alone mode offer? The economics of EV driving change radically as soon as the daily commute is viably 100% electric. I don’t think Prius will be able to offer that range (of min. 40 miles) in electric mode.
Volt on the other hand wants to offer electric mode for about 98% (statistically speaking) of driving routes. The range extender is only supposed to be for the occasional long-distance trip. In most countries with a modern fuel-taxation regime, costs per mile for pure electric are 1/10 to 1/4 that of gasoline. This is the rational for Volt’s high price.
As Paul Niedermeyer has written in TTAC, GM has no history of introducing new technology in any other than a half-assed way. Toyota on the other hand made hybrid reliable. IF GM gets the reliability 100% right, it may have a winner, if fuel prices keep rising. As they said in Britain during the war, if we had eggs, we could make ham and eggs, if we had ham.
SkiD666,
GS650G, you do realize that a plug in Prius would probably cost around $10,000 more than a normal Prius (larger battery + larger motor cost + charging circuitry) and probably wouldn’t have much of a trunk. TNSTAAFL.
That is 100% the case with the current plug-in Prius conversions based on the 2nd generation Prius. These plug-in conversions are hot rods, even if the knobs are twiddled for efficiency rather than speed — and, as in all engineering, compromises were made.
I haven’t been following every detail of the plug-in Prius that will be made by Toyota. From what I’ve read, though, I think the cost and the trunk-space issues will be incrementally better than you suggest. They’ll be able to alter the overall design of the car to accommodate the bigger components that will be required, and they’ve done a brilliant job of balancing those requirements with the existing Prius designs.
I don’t get what some rust on a door in the great, damp state of Michigan means.
How does rust on a door relate to the GM/Volt subject?
“the actual garage door the first Volts will drive off into the world through.”
The Volts are going to drive off and through the door? Won’t that likely damage them. GM needs to start hiring PR guys that can write intelligible sentences and use proper grammar.
Martin Schwoerer,
Is it possible to make a sensible comparison between the Prius and the Volt?
This has been endlessly debated on gm-volt.com. As you say, the technologies are quite different and it certainly isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison.
But the Prius is the car-to-beat in the green-car space. It’s not perfect, and doesn’t address everyone’s needs, and it runs on gasoline — but it is well-engineered and it makes a great set of goalposts.
It’s also hard to argue with the fact that the Prius exists and you (the reader) can test-drive one today, even if many readers of this blog really wouldn’t want to. :-)
So, I think it’s worth making a comparison, since the Prius and the Volt will both appeal to efficiency-minded buyers (provided the Volt materializes). Let’s make ’em all and let the marketplace sort it out. :-)
There are all sorts of legitimate criticisms to be made re GM and the Volt project. But parsing Lyle J. Dennis’ grammar? A tad on the picky side, perhaps?
Where are those 40 acres? Oh, and would that be a “Gov’t Mule”? (Apologies to Warren Haynes.)
I don’t get what some rust on a door in the great, damp state of Michigan means.
How does rust on a door relate to the GM/Volt subject?
The author of the article took the time to point out the importance of this bay door because of what lies behind it. Keeping what’s behind the special door a secret and leaving it rusty is fine; Letting folks know what’s behind the door and allowing it to be rusty should make heads roll somewhere.
SkiD666, et al,
(Crap. I wrote all this earlier. And shorter and therefore better. I must be losing my mind.)
Reading the GM-Volt article, as always, leaves me with more questions…
Why are the drive motor and the electric generator in the same housing? Lyle mentions this in his article. They’re not mechanically linked, so theres no need for this. I would have expected GM to package the generator as part of the ICE. and put the motor wherever it was convenient to the wheels.
And there’s apparently one driveshaft coming out of it. This arrangement implies a differential. Wouldn’t it make more sense to independently power each wheel with a separate motor? Wouldn’t it be more efficient? More effective on slippery roads? Easier to implement traction control?
Where’s the smoke?
Where’s the mirrors?
Behind Door Number One.
I still can’t get past the fact that (I believe) that for large parts of the country, the Volt concept electric car just isn’t going to work).
My drive to work is 19 miles each way…. but it was 81 degrees at 7 am this morning and it’s going up to 102.
What happens to my range when I turn on the A/C?
Is the engine big enough to run the car and the A/C at acceptable speeds? What happens to the mileage when I do that?
Questions, questions, questions….. and the answers are hidden behind Door Number One.
Perhaps I will post a picture of my garage door(it looks nicer!) on EBAY and sell the long lost seventh Buggati Royale that is behind it (wink, nudge).
Bunter
The door is great, but I’d like to see a few shots of the electrical outlet that a Volt will plug into.
GS650G, you do realize that a plug in Prius would probably cost around $10,000 more than a normal Prius (larger battery + larger motor cost + charging circuitry) and probably wouldn’t have much of a trunk. TNSTAAFL.
Still makes it cheaper than a Volt and it’s a Toyota. Sold./