EV updates

[Dr Mordrid]

GM:

Goodyear will supply the low rolling resistance tires for the Voltec vehicles.

Bose will supply the high-efficiency stereo system. Itr will be 30% smaller, 40% lighter and use 50% less power than their conventional models.

Tesla:

Tesla is likely to get $350 million in US Dept of Energy advanced technology loans targeted to help them produce their Model S Sedan. The vehicle will be rolled out on March 26 at the SpaceX plant in Hawthorne California

Road & Track says it'll look like this;



LG Chem:

LG Chem is negotiaing with Bolivia's dictatorship for lithium ore.

Getting in bed with Bolivia could be problematic for LG Chem as the former tends to get companies to build facilities there only to nationalize them later.

[TransformX]

Great looks for the Tesla

[az]

I agree, though the front looks a bit too japanese for my taste (Nissan 350Z, Toyota Celica). It's probably inaccurate as well, since a Tesla wouldn't need this huge an air intake (which also raises air resistance).

I like the "shoulders", though.

[TransformX]

I like the "shoulders", though.

Very sporty ha?

[Gurm]

Eh, am I the only one not even remotely excited about EV's?

YAY! It can go... y'know, all the way to work. Then I can charge it at a greater cost both monetarily and environmentally than my "gas guzzler". Then it will make it... all the way home!

And it'll only cost ... a lot!

ROCK!

[rylan]

Yeah, not going to pay 40-60K+ for an EV when I can get a good fuel efficient car for half that.

[TransformX]

Yes, maybe, probably, who cares? EVs go FAST!

[gt40]

Eh, am I the only one not even remotely excited about EV's?

ROCK!

Nah, you can add me to that list as well. I don't see any point to these vehicles other than if you've a good amount of disposable income, have your Al Gore specs on, and don't mind hitching a ride with one of your friends who has an IC engine vehicle when you need to go further than 40 miles.

[Elie]

Now they need to sell it for around 30K and I'm in

[Evildead666]

Drive to work, charge it enough to get you home and back to work the next day.
Sweet.

EV's are great, its just the batteries that are going to be hard to get...
As Dr says, Bolivia is looking at this as a way to become the "Lithium U.A.E." and makes loads of cash...

[Gurm]

The environmental impact alone is terrifying. Building Lithium batteries, building EV's, and creating the electricity to power them... far more destructive than drilling for dino juice.

[az]

Very sporty ha?

Yup

Eh, am I the only one not even remotely excited about EV's?

YAY! It can go... y'know, all the way to work. Then I can charge it at a greater cost both monetarily and environmentally than my "gas guzzler". Then it will make it... all the way home!

And it'll only cost ... a lot!

ROCK!

Of course, the technology isn't where it needs to be for EVs to be practical. Yet.

And EVs, the right infrastructure, and compatible or normed connections can form an integral part of a decentralized, stable power grid with huge buffers (so we can use more of the fluctuating regenerative energies like sun and wind). Of course this'll cost a lot of time and money, but who'd have thought we'd have this good an infrastructure for cars (gas stations, refineries, roads, garages...) just a hundred years ago?

Yeah, not going to pay 40-60K+ for an EV when I can get a good fuel efficient car for half that.

And of course, EVs are too expensive right now. That'll change over time, though.

[Dr Mordrid]

The environmental impact alone is terrifying. Building Lithium batteries, building EV's, and creating the electricity to power them... far more destructive than drilling for dino juice.

EPA, enviro groups and independent researchers disagree. Even using coal to fire the plants the CO2/mile is less with plug-in hybrids or pure EV's because of the much higher efficiency of electric drive trains and the efficiency of scale on the part of the power plants. The cleaner the "fuel" for the plants the better it gets; nuclear or hydro currently being best of course but natural gas isn't a slouch either.

[Dr Mordrid]

Interview today on GMVolt.com (a Volt fan site...not GM)

Image of a Volt mule below (mule = Voltec running gear in another chassis for testing)

I recently had the chance to speak to Jon Lauckner. He co-conceived the Volt with Bob Lutz and is GM’s VP of global program management.

What is the current state of mule development?

Frankly, its complete. We’ve built all of the cars that we intended to, around 33 or 35, and we are done with the hardware building phase. The cars have all been delivered to the Milford proving grounds and testing and development is ongoing.

What we learn from that particular hardware phase will be used for the hardware phase that is upcoming. Around the middle of this year we’ll build our integration cars which not only feature the drivetrain components of the Chevy Volt which we’ve had in the mule cars. Those mule cars were built in Cruze-bodies. Our integration cars are where we integrate all of the pieces together whether they’re drivetrain related or the interior and exterior the car altogether in a series of prototypes. We’ll probably have the first ones completed when it gets warm here next summer.

These will look like Volts?

Yes they will be built off of prototype tools. Those will be tested for a short period of time and then we move to the plant. Then we’ll build our product and process validation vehicles. Those will be built in the plant, on the line using the real assembly documents and all the correct tools in a true production setting. Now it will be at a very low volume to start with but that is the final phase. You’re moving from the prototype production into the high volume production facility and getting that ramped up for start of production.

And that low level production will be at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant?

Correct. And when I say low volume production, keep in mind that’s a high volume plant, so the line rate when its running full production runs very high. We carve out some space in that line by leaving some empty slots and then we put a car in there and we send that down the line and people start to develop the skill to assemble that entire vehicle.

And that will start late in 2009?

No that starts in the beginning of 2010. Sometime around the first or second quarter.

Do you have some retooling to do now in D-HAM?

Sure we need to have all the machinery and equipment in place to build the Volt before we start our production and process validation vehicles. We have to go into that plant and take out equipment and bring in new equipment because its a different car than those that are built there to day. We have to reconfigure all the equipment that’s in the plant so we can build the Volt.

Are you still going to build others cars at that plant alongside the Volts?

I believe that’s still the plan but we continue to still refine what we’re going to do with our manufacturing footprint as we see how the volumes progress. So the plan is we’re still going to have another product or so in that plant, but I cant tell you that for sure.

If you were just building Volts there, what would that plants total annual production capacity be?

Well over 200,000 units.

So if the world demands over 200,000 Volts annually you’ll able to do it?

We would be able to do it in that facility or it may make more sense to put the Volt in another facility. We have to see when we get there exactly what makes the most amount of sense.

[KRSESQ]

I wonder how they're doing on the noise issue?

Kevin