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“This is really just the beginning of all the final tuning. We are at the 50 percent point. Fundamentally, we’ve got everything directionally correct, but now we’ve got all the tuning yet to do.” Andrew Farah, Chief Engineer, Chevrolet Volt. [thanks to Justin Berkowitz for the link]
19 Comments on “Quote of The Day: 100% of 50% is Still 50% Edition...”
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Mr. Farah is correct, if he is referring to political tuning. Job One is to figure exactly out how to plug that cord into Washington — preferably via circuitous circuits that fragment and conceal the subsidy while insulating the Obamonites from failure.
tparkit :
Mr. Farah is correct, if he is referring to political tuning. Job One is to figure exactly out how to plug that cord into Washington — preferably via circuitous circuits that fragment and conceal the subsidy while insulating the Obamonites from failure.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand your point. I get the general gist (subsidies bad, Obama bad) but I’m not following the cord analogy etc.
In my opinion, this isn’t a partisan thing. Every president in US history has expanded federal spending, power, control, regulation, and so on. Both parties. Really.
More important than bashing Obama (which is not only as entertaining as a rash but risks pissing off about half the people reading your comment) is to be bashing the Volt.
GM unveiled the Volt concept in January 2007. We have been on the receiving end of their PR hailing it as the second coming it for more than two years. They have over-promised, changed the specs downward several times, and frequently describe the Volt in the present tense – as if it actually exists as a car you can buy.
They could save a lot on tuning if they realized most economy car shoppers don’t want to pay $40k for such a product.
How about engineering it down to 22K to compete with the Prius? Or making the Malibu a hybrid like the Fusion and creating a real American revolution.
Point is, most people are not asking for a 40K car with so many asterisks next to the technical specifications.
And come on, does anyone think it’s going to be reliable? We’re not that dumb.
As for Obama, he is the first president to preside over the nationalizing of the automobile industry in such a direct manner so it’s appropriate to hang this around his neck. The other 43 presidents didn’t go this route, even though Amtrak comes close. I just hope we don’t have to buy one of these things as a condition of remaining in our homes.
@GS650G:
I’d debate it with you, but I think we’d probably both much rather have a beer. So wherever you are, cheers.
I don’t think the Volt was ever intended to be competition for “economy” cars, if that’s what Prius and its clones are condisered to be. Though I have nothing good to say about Obama, the Volt was going to be made long before America’s mistake last November. My problem is understanding who GM was/is expecting to buy this $40K fiasco. Wish I could see their product planning results to gain insight into what demographic GM is targeting ……. if one even exists!
snort
Boy have I heard that one before…on every construction site I was ever on. What every desperate contractor will tell you (if cornered), is that the last 15% of a project takes 50% of the time…and Farah is only at 50%???
Pipe them in air, light, food and water….they are so far down they may never see daylight again…if/when they do, they will remember this project the rest of their lives. The only thing that could make it worthwhile is if the Volt turns out to be a game changer (in a positive way, not the last nail in the coffin). Remember vaunted world-beating world-envy American technology? Can Farah & Co. beat the Prius head start?
How far we have fallen………
Looks like it’ll be ready as soon as those punitive energy taxes (Cap-n-Tax) come to fruition.
If ever.
Even Cap & Trade doesn’t make this car economical.
The problem is the battery: it’s unproven and expensive. At one time, the projected cost included a warranty replacement.
Layered onto that is the problem that GM can’t make small cars economically (imho) and they’re trying to build a car that really is very different in a (for GM) big hurry.
Then there’s the technical problem of managing the battery and ICE so that the car meets expectations for driveability and economy.
The basic plan of operation is that the driver leaves the house and runs the battery down for 40 miles. If he stops and recharges at that point, the car behaves optimally as an EV.
But, if he keeps going, then the gas engine starts… and does what, exactly? Nobody outside GM is quite sure and it seems like GM doesn’t have a handle on it, either. You can’t hit the base of a hill with a dead battery, the engine is big enough to move the car but not at speeds Americans like. So, you must generate power and recharge. But how much? It depends on what the driver is about to do, which the car doesn’t “know,” so there’s some worst-case planning going on. (GM – I have some suggfestions)
Lately, it seems they’re looking at the driveability and driver expectation aspects. A true RE-EV would run the ICE just one way, at some optimum full throttle speed. This means you’re driving along and, when the computer thinks the car should be charged, the engine kicks in at full power. That’s going to be disconcerting, or so GM thinks (the idea of a GM four running at full power does suggest a certain amount of NVH and to have it come on suddenly…). Now they’re talking about the ICE following the driver’s accelerator input, which would probably seem more natural.
This weakens the economic case for the car, as they can’t tune the ICE and generator for the sweet spot and mileage suffers.
As an EV, too, it’s not all that advanced. It apparently still has a differential. I don’t know why they didn’t go with one electric motor per drive wheel, it would surely reduce drag. This also weakens the case for the car as both EV range and gas mileage suffer. Well, I do know why… cost and time. But at $40K, wouldn’t we expect a fairly advanced EV?
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With respect to marketing, at $40K, it’s not for someone who’s out looking for a Corolla. The first 10K people will have to really want one of these and I expect there’s at least 10K people who will buy this car for the technological advances that it does have and the EV range.
The 10K is limited production in the first year with very limited economies of scale. In year 2, GM aims for 60K. That’s when they’re going to start marketing it to people concerned about price. Even with the tax credit (repeal that, please), the economic case for the car is weak.
Unless battery prices come down and GM gets some more cost-cutting into the car to reduce the price, it has a limited life.
And, straight out of the gate, a $40K compact car is truly a “WTF?” kind of maeuver that doesn’t instill confidence in GM.
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My problem with this car isn’t that it’s technologically different or that it’s a GM or anything like that.
My problem with this car is…. well, there are two problems…
First, the relentless drumbeat of hype. Just build the damn thing and we’ll let you know if it’s a game-changer when we buy it. The noise surrounding this thing is like the thrashing of some large dying animal. It also doesn’t help the company’s image that a tax credit was engineered to help sell this car.
Second, this car does not aim to be profitable within a timeframe that could help GM avoid or survive bankruptcy. Right now, their responsibility is to advance good business plans that make money. The Volt isn’t such a plan. I am quite sure Toyota’s plan was to make money on the Prius and they’ve certainly done that. The Volt has no hallmarks of that kind of thinking. GM should be investing in things that will make money.
If GM has a profitable future, it isn’t in the 200K of these things that GM may produce by 2015.
@Justin,
If tparkit’s cord analogy was meant to imply that the Volt’s future lies in political hands rather than free markets, then he is right. In fact, I would suggest that the Washington electrical cord is more of an umbilical cord.
As for politics, how can we talk about the Volt without being partisan? It is one of the most partisan cars on the market, both in terms of its raison d’etre as well as its source of funding. Obama is also partisan, as is George Bush, and just about everyone else on the planet but the Tooth Fairy. Taking the partisanship out of TTAC forums would be like taking the animal byproducts out of hot dogs.
+1 @KixStart
After the novelty buyers are used up, who ARE the buyers for this vehicle?
When you start to think rationally (even the least bit rationally), this car makes no sense.
What does it do that a Prius doesn’t do for you at $15K – $20K less?
This car is not about pollution reduction… it doesn’t really reduce pollution to any measurably level below that of a Prius. Most modern cars produce almost no pollution, CO2 aside.
It may save a little more gas, but even at $25K and $4 a gallon, the Prius can’t justify its price difference How could the Volt at twice the price?
“Fundamentally, we’ve got everything directionally correct
It took them this long to figure out which end was the front? ;)
In addition to the price tag the other thing that is going to doom this car is the looks. The Honda Insight looks like Prius because… well that’s what hybirds look like, even non-car people know this. The Volt is too generic looking. If your spending $40K on some radical new space-age fuel-less wonder of technology it better atleast look the part.
Any engineer knows the first 80% takes 80% of the time, and the remaining 20% also takes 80% of the time.
So if he’s right, they’re well behind schedule.
“20% takes 80% of the time” must be what happened to the Camero. GM would be money ahead to just announce that “evolving market conditions”, or some similarly evasive verbiage, dictates that Chevrolet Volt development be discontinued. I just don’t believe there’s a market for this car to make a profit. Move over XLR, SSR, and GTO ….. there’s a new dud in town.
Having read GM’s various Volt web sites, the concept of the Volt seems simple.
It’s not a hybrid, so the engine does not charge the battery, except under the condition where the battery is somehow below the minimum charge level. Using the engine to charge the battery is inefficient, so they don’t do that, and anyway the electric motor IS the generator physically, and it cannot both drive the car and accept power at the same time. Under braking, the motor reverts to being a generator and tops up the battery.
So you charge the battery at home, and electric drive for the first 40 miles. At that point, the battery is disconnected, and the engine starts up and powers the generator/electric motor set. So the car still delivers power to the wheels via the electric motor.
Depending on terrain, the engine runs at one of three preset rpm to deliver the power through the electric motor to maintain speed, climb a hill, or climb a steeper hill, i.e. acceleration.
The devil’s in the details, so managing all this so that the car does not proceed down the road in a series of bunny hops, which would piss the proud new owner off, is where the development work is going.
I believe it is very difficult to do this in an acceptable manner, and that’s what will take time to tune. Putting a timetable on it is probably impossible. As an engineer for the last 40 years, I have found that acceptable product development does not conform to the timetable set by accountants, especially when the product is relatively “radical”.
We are at the 50 percent point
Fifteen posts in and I’m the first guy in this crowd to thow in Xeno’s paradox?
If you’re a bankrupt company and not investing for the future while trying to get out of bankruptcy you will end up bankrupt again. The first generation Volt won’t make any money, just like the Prius, but the second generation will.
Lokkii:Fifteen posts in and I’m the first guy in this crowd to throw in Xeno’s paradox?
Oh yeah, that was the paradox of why the ancient Greeks could never do a successful crash test with their war chariots….see over any given period, the chariot went a distance, then it went half the remaining distance, then half of that, and so on, so they never actually hit the marble abutments.
Besides, it was really hard to get a horse to run into a wall……
wmba,
Not quite. The electric drive motor only doubles as a generator during braking. However, since the ICE is not mechanically connected to the electric motor (unless that has changed), there’s an actual generator on board connected to the ICE crank that supplies power to the electric drive motor and the battery as necessary.
Lyle Dennis, of GM-Volt, reports that the drive motor and the generator are housed, for no reason I can fathom, together. If they’re not connected… why are they in the same housin? And then there’s just one driveshaft out, so I suppose there’s a differential involved, too… but I digress…
The ICE only makes 80 or so hp and the vehicle weight 3400 lbs, so the vehicle is going to be terribly slow if the electric drive motor can only call on the output of the ICE and generator after the vehicle reaches the minimum battery depletion point.
So, as you then do correctly point out, the devil is in the details. What GM is going to do about vehicle operation after the battery reaches the depletion limit is a matter of much speculation and “tuning.” A straight BEV would be much simpler. It seems to me that what GM’s doing requires algorithms that understand what the car will be called upon to do in the next twenty minutes but that’s a very interesting problem, to say the least.