Will the Volt have an 80 mile range?

If this battery technology works in production, the Volts will cost more than $60K.
Will you buy it?

 

Now with this, GM may be onto something.
The 40 mile range is just a bit shy for my needs. An 80 mile range though would really fit my needs.
Add to that the fact that I need Zero gasoline the first 70-80 miles and I am ready to buy IF they actually deliver.
We will have to see though, it is still 2 years off and others may come out with a better product.

 

To double the EV range, the battery capacity will be doubled.
The 16kWh Li Ion battery is estimated at $20K, this will add $20K to the $40K price.

The nano technology will increase the power density but not the cost per kWh at this time as new technology always cost more until it is matured.

 

It is because of higher power density or more power for the same volume.
The Volt has a fixed size battery compartment. To put more power into it, it has to have higher power density.
The cost could be lower in the future, my estimate is in 2014 time frame.

 

The argument would be exactly the same for Li-ion over NimH. Li-ion currently offers ~2x the capacity for a given weight, but at ~2X the cost for a given capacity.

 

Keep in mind it took about 10 years for Li-ion to move from demonstrated working batteries to any semblance of volume production at a reasonable cost. Increasing demand combined with greater government funding for research will help shorten that, but it will still be years before its commercially viable. For that matter it takes years just to get from a commercially viable cell to a robust well tested hybrid pack.

 

Just to add some information here, the Volt will be using lithium-iron-phosphate cells at around 100 Wh/kg initially. Similar cells are already being manufactured by BYD for under $300 per kWh (ie $4,800 for a Volt-sized 16 kWh pack). When GM's suppliers ramp up production, there is no reason why they shouldn't be able to make their pack for that price, but they are currently a long way behind the economies of scale that BYD can manage.

Currently the Volt battery only uses 50% of the available capacity (cycling from 30% to 80% SOC , the computer prevents using any more). This is a conservative move by GM to ensure the pack lasts long past 10 years and 100k miles.

If they switched to Altair cells, which can cycle from 0-100% thousands of times with no problems, the pack could be half the weight and size for the same effective capacity, and possibly cheaper too once these reach volume manufacture. Or, a Volt with 16 kWh of these could go 80 miles per charge (using 100% available charge).