GM’s financial troubles won’t impede Chevrolet Volt development

This car won't save GM from financial doom. That was never its purpose. Only the end of the recession and avoiding bankruptcy can save them. Even the government recognizes this. The government!

What this car can do is help GM turn the technology corner to sell efficient vehicles. And to begin to rebuild their image as a company.

ken, i agree completely.

also, i'm still surprised that they are bothering with the stereo. as an electrical engineer and an audiophile (ive got a 1400w stereo in my focus), i can definitely tell you that the typical 200 watt standard car stereo only draws an average of about 40 watts at full volume.. and maybe 10-20w at average listening levels.

GM is putting a 16kWh battery in this car, and with that you could run my car stereo complete with 1200 watts of subs at full clip for 13 hours.. and at 20w for the typical listener, you're looking at 800 hours of listening on a full charge. if you drive at 40mph, thats 1 hour of driving on the 40 mile range, and the stereo would have decreased your electric only time by 4.5 seconds. no lie. do the math,.. its pretty straight forward. 4.5 seconds is where they chose to improve? cmon.

I have a hard time seeing how one car in this era can revolutionize and define a company - like the Model T did for Ford. But, perhaps the underlying technology being developed - if used in a medley of vehicles - could redefine GM.

One thing is certain, though, with all the competition from other car companies, GM will have to constantly make technological and performance advancements...something it neglected to do for a generation, largely resulting in its current situation.

potter, by no stretch of the imagination, electric cars will be relatively simpler than mechanical cars (of course hybrids are more complex than either), however one thing to look at is the simplicity of design. today, any car company could offer to replace your fuel tank in 5 years, but its not like a fuel tank will be significantly better in any measure in 5 years. a battery pack however will improve, and unlike trying to drop a new engine into an old car, theres no reason to think that swapping old tech for new tech will be difficult in a car that is principally an electric car.

The volt platform (E-Flex) was designed as an electric car that can source power from any of the following: ICE's, Fuel Cells, or batteries. this car is going to be modular in the same way that a PC tower is modular. im certain there will be companies out there offering replacement packs for this car with twice as much range as the normal model, or aftermarketers that will pull the ICE out and put in more batteries to make an EV that goes 100 miles, and no extended generation. or pulling the genset (ICE+generator) and putting in a more advanced system... when its just cables connecting one system to the next, the vehicle is a little more easily modified.

you think of hot rods as 50 year old cars that have been completely redone with modern drive train, suspension.. etc... this car will be that same sort of thing.

will it redefine GM? yes. as much as the model T defined ford, the beetle VW, or the camry toyota? not likely. but let's consider why everyone buys foreign cars... because theyre a couple years ahead of domestics.. well finally GM is trying to turn that around by offering a vehicle that no one else is even planning on duplicating for at least another 5 years.

I love it when people throw out the Model T analogy, have they ever driven one I wonder? They are a complete pile of shit and not against modern stuff I mean when compared to what else was around at that time. You need the calfs of a female East German to drive the bloody thing!!!!

What makes the Model T an innovation? How it was manufactured, the very computer I'm currently typing on, the mug my tea is in that I'm sipping on, even the desk I'm sitting at owes its very existance to the Model T. Its what we call mass production!!!

As for the Volt its not innovation neither is it moving forward. If refueling/recharging takes longer than the current 3 minutes to fill my car with dead dino juice plus after I arrive home I also have to plug the thing in to the wall? That folks is moving backwards!

Chris you are obiviously incredibly smart when it comes to all things electrical and were most likely the kid in school my friends gave "wedgies" too, (sorry had to throw that in) but here is my rub with electrics and it goes back to the Model T. Manufacturing! Such technology is not cheap to make and is also produced under clean room conditions which are no different to the manufacture of computers and any thing else which came out of a lab run by a guy in a white lab coat. Am I wrong?

MWOW, i'll have you know no one's ever gave me a wedgie. at 6'4" and 240 lbs, they'd have a damned hard time getting close enough :P

no offence taken, and here's my rub: electric motors are extremely cheap and simple to make. ICE: 10,000 parts. electric motor? a length of wire, a frame, a couple bearings, a shave and some magnets (or more wire). i've been in the ford engine plants in windsor (surely the Windsor engine from ford is of some fame), and i can tell you that it takes upwards of 80 operations (machine stations) to just machine the block correctly. its insanity. the engine plants here are huge and all they do is machine blocks and assemble the sub assemblies to the block.

and no, the cleanliness required to put together an electric motor are along the same lines as whats needed to put together an ICE (which is actually really clean.. Essex engine, which used to put together all the large modular V8's and V10's for ford, is so clean you could eat off the floor. seriously). when you think of electronics, you think of clean rooms where a couple people with PhD's are walking around in white hazmat suits carrying waffers of etched silicon. yes, those processes require the most clean (and for that matter, seismically stable) facilities imaginable because the transistors are millionths of an inch long...

the point that im driving with for mass electric vehicles is that they are 99% of what 99% of the population needs from a car, and once the industry imbraces it, the cost of these things will drop so fast it will make your head spin.

moore postulated in the 60's that transistor technology would double every 2 years. that was ammended to 18 months and called "moores law"... the funny thing? it holds true in almost every area of electrical engineering. electric motors are already 90% efficient, but that doesnt mean the cost cant come down.

currently our lab is researching motors that are better than anything on the market right now, and they dont use any rare earth materials. just iron and copper. extremely simple as far as the machine is concerned. its just the controller computer that is pretty complex, however, electronics are cheap so why not.

got off topic again... the point of comparing it to the Model-T is that the drive-train of a mechanical car is just as complex as the rest of the vehicle. if you can cut that complexity down to nearly 0 (electric drive), you stand to significantly reduce the cost of cars, or increase the performance, depending on how you look at it.

that gets more people on the road, which can be good, or bad, depending on how you look at it.

or for the same price point, the companies can offer you nicer interiors, better drive dynamics, etc etc.

They are going to need to lower the price of the Volt if they want it to be as big of a success as they want it to be.

I agree with Chris in regard to the major price drop once they get into mass production. Anyone remember how much you paid for your first computer.

But it does seem like GM is going to lose the race to be the first to produce the electric car. I mean the Tesla S is going to be available well before the Volt.

I mean this car isnt going to be perfect and will be passed by other manufactures within the next model year. Just get the damn thing out already.

I like the name of car, chevrolet volt. Also the design is so high tech.