No hybrid race between Toyota, GM, exec says

Hi 9G...,

GM corporate communications has apparently decided that its not going to call the Volt a Plugin Hybrid, even though technically, that is what it is. They are going to call the Volt a REEV, which stands for "Range Extended Electric Vehicle".

GM has been calling the smaller battery version of what the Volt is a Series Hybrid car since at least 1979, when I saw one of the university research projects they supported. It was the exact same architecture as the Volt, but with a smaller battery. It used a Chevy Vega chasis, and a Yamaha 2 cylinder motorcyle engine as the prime mover.

Lutz is just going along with this marketing malarky.

 

Thanks for reminding me of my '72 Vega ... at 14 months? BOOM! NO more motor. If GM were to pay me off for that POS this year, at 5% interest over the years, they'd owe me $11,500.00 now.

At least 1979? Try 10 years earlier ... 1969 ... THAT'S how many years GM has been screwing this dog:



Thanks for nothing GM.

 

Do you actually own that piece of newspaper, Hill ? You might compete with my dad-in-law for packrat of the year !
Thanks though -- awesome post.

Now that GM has made clear that the Volt REEV is different than a Prius PHEV, all is clear for the Volt to be first out the gate, and top of the top in everything in it's class.

Ahh, don't you love spin ?

 

Lutz is so quick to mention the Volt will go 40 miles on battery alone, something the coming Prius plug-in won't do. He just doesn't want to tell anyone the Volt won't go over 25 mph during those 40 miles.

Thanks for the post hill, that is so funny!

 

I've got a flat but curvy 1.1 mile stretch of low speed road that I do all on battery dropping only about 1 bar in either direction starting from a dead stop...makes me wonder what the Prius battery range is.

 

Man, this guy is a spin master for sure. Paint the Volt as the best thing since sliced bread, and the Prius as old tech. Speak of it in the present tense as if it actually exists. Neglect to mention that the Prius is a much more sophisticated design that can do everything the Volt can (including run in pure serial hybrid mode) and that the only difference in range will be how each company decides to balance the cost vs. battery size equation. As I've said before, I think Toyota will sell a lot more 10 mile PHEVs at $25k than GM will 40 mile PHEVs at $40k. Consequently, Toyota's PHEVs will trim a lot more off our national fuel consumption despite their limited range since people will actually buy them.

Thanks for the scan hill, that is priceless!

Rob

 

If you follow his logic, Prius with an EV button is an electric car too. It just has 2 miles range before the range extender kicks in.

 

"Lutz also stopped short of predicting when GM would return to profitability, but said if it can further reduce structural costs, get higher prices for small cars, and if the U.S. auto market recovers, its top executives say they hope to return to black ink in 2010. GM reported a $15.5 billion second-quarter loss and has been burning cash this year at a rate of more than $1 billion a month." - Anybody interested in some GM stock?

 

"But Lutz said he expects Toyota's plug-in will debut in controlled fleets and not in large numbers. He said GM will have production versions of the Volt working in a large test fleet in late 2009."

I predict that in late 2009 Lutz will predict that the Volt test fleet will be working next year.

 

Re: Hill's 1969 reminder. That car (would be) so quiet that you could hardly tell if is was running.

Think of all the vision-impaired pedestrians who have not died in front of such a roadway hazard, in the last 39 years.

Thanks, GM, for saving people who probably are outside your customer base.

Anyway, to make this a race, GM will need some $teroid$ from the government.

(I must be in a poor mood today).

 

<AHEM>
The Volt is for all practical purposes, a set of PowerPoint charts. GM has yet to get one to the show room floor. At least the two-mode has made some sales, which the Volt has yet to achieve.

Bob Wilson

 

So, if I'm reading it right.. the Volt will be a battery only driven vehicle ?

Only running off an electric motor (or 2) with batteries as a supply.

When the supply runs low (how low SOC?) then the little internal petrol charger will start and recharge the batteries. In the meantime, what does the driver do ? Pull over ?

Surely the re-charge rate will not be able to outrun the dishcarge rate when it's being driven ?

The batteries will need replacing after a year or 2 at that rate!

What's the expected speed that this will work at ?

 

From my Prius energy studies:

Monitoring the state of charge is tricky but not impossible. When the energy reserves get low enough, start the ICE.

Actually, it only has to provide an average of enough energy to keep the car running. With aggressive regenerative braking and solution of the battery charge rate problem, it should work. Just when the driver reaches their destination, the engine continues to run or plugs it into the grid.

Near as I can tell, maintenance of the electrolyte is the key to long battery life. We have yet to see GM's technical answer in the area. It is not that difficult of a problem to solve.

As for speed, it is too soon to answer. We'll have to see a test example.

Bob Wilson

 

Can I order the Volt in the color of my choice??

Say - "lemon" yellow???

Dbcassidy

 

Since the battery pack can not be recharged and discharged at the same time, you'll need to pull over and wait. That's the electric car. You don't drive the electric car while charging.

If the gas engine powers the electric motor AND recharge the battery pack, that will be a series hybrid. We have the power produced by the gas engine split to drive the car and recharge the battery.

 

It would be unsafe to have a vehicle running the engine while parked/unsupervised. Imagine your car deciding to run for an hour in your garage without your keys in it, etc. It's going to be plugged in for charge.

As I understand it the gasoline engine is to run a generator to keep the car moving when the battery drops to 30%.

 

i HIGHLY DOUBT the volt will run as most here expects it too.

also, lutz's (no surprise here) statements are misleading. i expect that the "40 mile" electric range will only go about 25-30 miles before having to start the recharge process in order to have a "queue" of batteries to run the thing.

now, having a user controlled "EV" switch for those times when are (you hope) going just under 40 miles is sure to have some interesting consequences...

 

I think it is necessary to seperate a good concept (series hybrid) from GM's implementation of the concept.

As Bob W. pointed out, the engine only needs to be sized just larger than the long term average of the power draw. This is known to be MUCH smaller than the average size engine put in a car. Likewise, having the engine run based on the SOC is most certainly a proven winner as shown in the Prius. No need (with good engineering) to pull over or have the car engine run or run when the key is turned off. The real art will be setting all the parameters to make the PHEV (or whatever set of letters GM wants to use) optimizing fuel efficiency.

Now will GM pork the pooch in their execution? Completely different question.