Chevy Volt - future GM failure

[yaristotle]

$40,000 for a rushed to market 1st generation GM plug in car...it has failure written all over it even if GM slaps a 250,000 mile warranty it (which they won't).

[tuckevalastin]

I doubt that, the Prius wasn't much when it hit the dealerships and that didn't stop the buyers.


At the same time how can GM perfect the volt without actually releasing it?

[GeneW]

Meanwhile with global warming legislation pending in the US Congress that will drive up the costs of coal fired electric power, one wonders how much of a bargain an all electric car will be.....

Gene

[BailOut]

Originally Posted by tuckevalastin

I doubt that, the Prius wasn't much when it hit the dealerships and that didn't stop the buyers.


At the same time how can GM perfect the volt without actually releasing it?

The Prius was about $22k at release and came from a trusted auto manufacturer with the solidity to back it. GM is nothing like that.

I am not sure why you have the idea that an auto has to be released before it can be improved upon but that is just not so. There are several things that can be done to improve the Volt before it goes into production:

1) Make it a 4-5 seater. Coupes are impractical.

2) Focus it's strengths on range and efficiency rather than performance. Continuing to make vehicles based on hp, 0-60 times and top speeds far in excess of the highest speed limits the country has in place is idiotic and unreflective of the world we live in.

3) Stop self-enforcing the ridiculous idea that COTS batteries are not good enough for use in EVs. People have been driving successful EVs for decades on lead acid and NiMH batteries. About $25k of the Volt's cost is nothing but GM's own battery build.

4) Provide an extended warranty for the drive line and totally outsource it. No one trusts GM to be there, or at least to be fully functional, or to at least be autonomous, in the coming years.

[Rich k]

if they give gm, ford, and chrysler money for a bailout, which i don't like on principal, though which i as well realize may need to happen to save the us economy, i'm seriously considering not ever stepping into one of their dealerships again on the theory that they already have enough of my money (in the form of tax dollars) and i don't want to give them more.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BailOut

The Prius was about $22k at release and came from a trusted auto manufacturer with the solidity to back it. GM is nothing like that.

I am not sure why you have the idea that an auto has to be released before it can be improved upon but that is just not so. There are several things that can be done to improve the Volt before it goes into production:

1) Make it a 4-5 seater. Coupes are impractical.

I tend to agree with this one, if only because coupes are impractical. I owned a CRX for a long time after all.

Originally Posted by BailOut

2) Focus it's strengths on range and efficiency rather than performance. Continuing to make vehicles based on hp, 0-60 times and top speeds far in excess of the highest speed limits the country has in place is idiotic and unreflective of the world we live in.

That is true, however Brian, the world we live in is not the world it ought to be. The average America wants "Butt Dyno" and GM will not commit to a making a vehicle which has the "acceleration of a golf cart".

Originally Posted by BailOut

3) Stop self-enforcing the ridiculous idea that COTS batteries are not good enough for use in EVs. People have been driving successful EVs for decades on lead acid and NiMH batteries. About $20k of the Volt's cost is nothing but the cost of GM's own battery build.

Depends upon the COTS that are chosen. Some choices will be hard to manage and require elaborate assemblies. Others will be expensive to obtain.

GM probably chose a combination that reduced labor costs and price. That's not cheap to do.

I personally think that they should go with a "pack" that has specified dimensions, ampacity and voltage and then outsource it. Aftermarket sales of such packs will help insure a good logistical train and reduce prices for consumers.

You are correct about EVs. Some of the first automobiles were EVs and they probably used Lead-Acid batteries.

Originally Posted by BailOut

4) Provide an extended warranty for the drive line and totally outsource it. No one trusts GM to be there, or at least to be fully functional, or to at least be autonomous, in the coming years.

Sad but true.... but there are insurance companies which could assume this burden.

Gene

PS

This still does not address the issue of US power grid capacity. We cannot replace our current gasoline consumption with electric power over night.

[GeneW]

GM has been working on electric cars for many years, at least since the 1990s. There is a good bit of experience with these sorts of things "out there", so the Volt isn't going to quite be a "Beta Model" running amok on the highways.

Gene

[BailOut]

Regarding the "butt dyno", if you ever look into building an EV one of the first things you'll find that you must choose between acceleration and top speed, between either of those and range, and between all of that and the weight of it.

Ergo focusing on performance kills the range. In the Volt GM is trying to get around this issue by installing a "range extending petrol engine". This adds tremendous cost and weight to the vehicle... all just for the butt dyno effect.

It is a self defeating idea.

[Bob_VT]

The Toyota hybrid system is very good. The early generation rights were sold to Ford/Mercury for the mariner/escape hybrid...... the Nissan altima hybrid is Toyota technology seld to Nissan for a "limited" number of units to be produced.

Electric motors are instant torque and basically faster than a gas engine..... the CVT transmission is the answer to harness and put the power to good use.

GM has tried to create a new technology as a result of pride. I wonder if it might look like a Neon soon!!

[tuckevalastin]

Apparently you believe that GM just thought of a Volt yesterday and decided to start selling them tomorrow. Of course they approved upon the original design but if an automaker just keeps improving upon a design and never releases it they will, 1, not get the real world information for the car, and 2, not accomplish anything as there is no point in a perfect car that is never released. Any automaker comes to a point on any model where they have to release it to the public and see what happens. You can't make a perfect vehicle without the real world results you get once they are sold to large amounts of people.

Also for people such as myself the fact that a car costs $22k doesnt make it unimportant if the car has problems. So I have no idea what that point is supposed to mean.

As for your ways GM could improve the Volt; You are basically telling GM that to improve the car that must make it a completely different kind of car. That's like saying to improve the sweetness of a pepper you should turn it into a watermelon. GM decided on the type of car they wanted to build and they built exactly that.

On a final note trust is a personal thing and your trusts don't match everyone else's. And any smart man will tell you that the first gen of a technology has nothing to do with trust but instead the willingness to pay for a technology which will be better and cheaper in just a few short years. Go find a first gen cell phone and you will see what I mean.

Originally Posted by BailOut

The Prius was about $22k at release and came from a trusted auto manufacturer with the solidity to back it. GM is nothing like that.

I am not sure why you have the idea that an auto has to be released before it can be improved upon but that is just not so. There are several things that can be done to improve the Volt before it goes into production:

1) Make it a 4-5 seater. Coupes are impractical.

2) Focus it's strengths on range and efficiency rather than performance. Continuing to make vehicles based on hp, 0-60 times and top speeds far in excess of the highest speed limits the country has in place is idiotic and unreflective of the world we live in.

3) Stop self-enforcing the ridiculous idea that COTS batteries are not good enough for use in EVs. People have been driving successful EVs for decades on lead acid and NiMH batteries. About $25k of the Volt's cost is nothing but GM's own battery build.

4) Provide an extended warranty for the drive line and totally outsource it. No one trusts GM to be there, or at least to be fully functional, or to at least be autonomous, in the coming years.

[tuckevalastin]

Originally Posted by camelll

The prius was released in japan in 1997 and was not available in the us until 2001, so they had a few years to work with the vehicle and make improvements.

That's exactly my point. Toyota released the car, in Japan, people bought it, gave their feedback, and Toyota improved it.

[Phaeton]

Why not just re-release the EV-1?????????
They already have the technology to build a decent commuter car that would be affordable to the unwashed masses.

[ChinoCharles]

Although I applaud GM for any kind of action resembling effort, I boo them emphatically for bringing this piece of crap to the table. Seriously? A 2 seater EV that looks like the next Cobalt? I'm sitting on GM's left at the next party. I want in on what they're

Seriously, Honda and Toyota are so far ahead of the game it isn't even funny.

[TLyttle]

The EV-1 story is a prime example of GM's arrogance, and stupidity. It ran on lead-acid, off-the-shelf technology, and those who leased them wanted to keep them. So, in its wisdom, GM took the lot back and chopped them up into little pieces. Hell, they kept producing the Corvair for the public, why not the EV-1???

And who in their right mind is going to pay 25G for a replacement battery?

[PetersRedYaris]

AT least Hummer was a good investment... GM is dying, why does it matter?

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BailOut

Regarding the "butt dyno", if you ever look into building an EV one of the first things you'll find that you must choose between acceleration and top speed, between either of those and range, and between all of that and the weight of it.

I don't work with EVs, Brian. I do work with power conversion systems so I have a rough idea of the compromises that engineers face here.

There might be a way to get around some of these issues but like it or not you have to build what the public wants to buy. GM's North American operations must hew to what the public wants, something that it neglected when it kept pumping out SUVs while gasoline rose to above $4.00 a gallon.

There are two issues that I have with EVs.

One is the inescapable idea that there is not enough electrical generating capacity in the US to replace our daily consumption of gasoline. It's pathetically short, about a quarter to a third of the total calories in terms of gasoline are produced each day in the US in terms of electrical energy. Even if we doubled the fleet efficiency, and that's a tall order in itself, we still would experience shortfalls in supply needed to get people around.

Two is the shortage of public places to recharge the batteries of EVs. The power requirements needed to recharge an EV are not trivial and require a good bit of current at common household voltages in order to recharge them in under a few hours.

EVs will never become common place until these two hurdles are over come. Much as I personally and professionally would like to see more EVs on the road, preferably with my employer's technology used in at least some of them this is a reality of this time and place.

Originally Posted by BailOut

Ergo focusing on performance kills the range. In the Volt GM is trying to get around this issue by installing a "range extending petrol engine". This adds tremendous cost and weight to the vehicle... all just for the butt dyno effect.

It is a self defeating idea.

I agree with you that adding a gasoline motor is extra complication, cost and lugging weight around, but to reach the needed levels of performance and range GM accepted this compromise. Otherwise they'd be marketing "glorified golf carts" with poor range.

I liken the inclusion of a gasoline motor to be alike the old "hitching points" on the earliest cars so they could be moved around when they were broken down.

Gene

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by TLyttle

The EV-1 story is a prime example of GM's arrogance, and stupidity. It ran on lead-acid, off-the-shelf technology, and those who leased them wanted to keep them. So, in its wisdom, GM took the lot back and chopped them up into little pieces. Hell, they kept producing the Corvair for the public, why not the EV-1???

People liked the Corvair. You know, it's ironic - the Corvair used the Porsche suspension system. When Nader went after GM for the Corvair's "problems' nobody bothered to remind him that there were thousands of Porsches on the roads with the very same problems. Typical social activist "justice", pick on the poor folk's cars but leave the rich boy's toys alone.

I knew a lot of people who owned Corvairs and liked them a lot. There are still Corvair enthusiasts out there with Corvairs. They were never a car for me, not after I watched a neighbor's Corvair burst into flames one day.

Originally Posted by TLyttle

And who in their right mind is going to pay 25G for a replacement battery?

When you have "special" stuff there's a premium. Sad to say but that's just how it goes.

The Wiki article on the EV-1 speaks about a lot of different possibilities for their EV program, including a hybrid vehicle, a diesel recharging system a CNG vehicle and a three different versions of storage batteries for the EV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

In late 2003, GM officially canceled the EV1 program.[15][16] GM stated that it could not sell enough of the cars to make the EV1 profitable. This,combined with the fact that their parts and service infrastructure costs required to maintain the existing EV1's for the state legislated minimum of 15 years, would mean the existing leases would not be renewed and all of the cars would all have to be returned into GM's possession.

Well, well, well... they had to support the EV-1 for 15 years.... I'd have pulled the plug on it too. You can't just tell some company - "You SHALL support these vehicles for fifteen years", not with an experimental car, one that may not make it in the market.

Gene

[BailOut]

Gene,

You are reading a highly sanitized version of the EV1 story. I urge you to watch the "Who Killed the Electric Car" documentary for a more thorough account.