Chevy Volt to sport smart charging, flex fuel

Even as it faces a massive corporate restructuring, General Motors this summer will begin testing prototypes of the electric Chevrolet Volt, a car that could be pivotal to its future.

GM on Thursday hosted a teleconference to discuss its community outreach efforts and work with electric utilities to establish an industry "ecosystem" to make electric vehicles attractive to buyers.

The Volt is scheduled for mass production starting in November 2010 in the U.S. and introduction in mid-2011 in Canada. About 80 prototypes will be built for fleet testing this summer, said vehicle line director for the Chevy VoltTony Posawatz, who revealed a few more details about the highly anticipated sedan.

Getting millions of plug-in vehicles on the road in the coming years will require new technologies and the installation of a car-charging infrastructure in communities, say automakers. One technology important to widespread plug-in use is so-called smart charging, where car batteries are charged at off-peak times in the middle of the night.

With the release of the 2011 Volt late next year, General Motors will allow consumers to set what time the car can be charged using GM's OnStar in-car communication system.

"We will have a customer-selectable car-charging feature at a minimum," Posawatz said. "We don't have to put in smart meters to get those kinds of features and accommodations."

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

By controlling when and how fast a car's battery is charged, a utility can smooth out the demand on the power grid and avoid having to install more power plants to meet peak demand. In places where there is time-of-day electricity pricing, consumers could potentially get cheaper off-peak rates.

A Volt, which has a 16 kilowatt-hour battery, will consume about 2,500 kilowatt-hours a year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The average U.S. home consumes about 11,000 kilowatt-hours a year.

Smart charging, which would work with a utility's smart grid programs for running the grid efficiently, will become more important as millions of plug-in vehicles get attached to the grid, said Mark Duvall, director electric transportation at EPRI. The first generation of mainstream electric cars coming out next year won't require it, he said.

Another important step to making electric cars more palatable to consumers is having dedicated outlets that can charge at 240 volts, twice as fast as a normal outlet.

The city of San Francisco is trying to coordinate among different agencies to establish a plug-in charging infrastructure, including streamlined permitting for dedicated car charging lines, said Robert Hayden, clean transportation adviser for the city's Department of the Environment.

Making charging pedestals available in public places for people who live in apartment buildings, for example, is also important to plug-in car adoption, but very expensive and complicated, he said.

Costs?
Because of GM's precarious financial position, there's a lot riding on the commercial success of the Chevy Volt and the underlying electric power train which GM plans to use in different cars.

But in its review of automakers receiving federal aid, the Obama administration's auto industry task force found the Volt technology promising but too expensive to be commercial viable.

GM executives have said they expect to lose money on the first generation of Volts. Posawatz said on Thursday that GM could shed thousands of dollars per car through high-volume domestic manufacturing of components, such as batteries and chargers, and technology improvements.

"It certainly may not be a Moore's Law relationship, but I do believe that we have just begun the journey of taking down the cost of batteries and the vehicle," he said, adding that GM is already working on a second-generation Volt focused on lower costs.

Posawatz offered a few more technical details on the 2011 Volt, which will have an internal combustion engine that can run both gasoline and E85, a blend of gas and ethanol. The engine acts as a generator for the battery for rides beyond 40 miles.

The batteries themselves will have a thermal management system that includes liquid cooling and the ability to start in very cold temperatures even when it's not plugged in, he said.

The anticipated battery life will be 10 years and 150,000 miles. After their use in moving cars, GM anticipates that utilities could use the batteries--still at 75 percent capacity--for grid storage and they would eventually be recycled.

[bpinson]

"The anticipated battery life will be 10 miles and 150,000 miles."

Did you mean 10 *years*?

[meyersm]

Yes, years. Thanks for catching!!! Fixed now.

[The_happy_switcher]

This car is really cool looking but damn it's expensive.

[oassaf]

"...found the Volt technology promising but too expensive to be commercial viable."
"GM executives have said they expect to lose money on the first generation of Volts."

This is started to sound like the PS3 of cars...its gonna be great but makes little financial sense..it will be efficient 5 years after release. Thank god for early adopters

[odubtaig]

It makes perfect financial sense in the long term. The experience they get from this first run will put them in a position to be market leader five years down the line while everyone else is still pulling their fingers out, scratching their heads and making the mistakes GM have already rectified.

Early entry into an obviously important market is often worth some short-term losses.

With any luck, the fallout will take out Peugot and I won't have to watch any more of those godawful 'drive sexy' adverts.

[Endbringer]

Now that the imperial federal government is the de-facto owner of GM and they say the most anticipated, mass produced electric car is not commercially viable, should say wonders. Fact is, people don't want to buy a car that increases their power bill. And to all the environmentalists out there, if electric cars do become the norm, how will the power be provided to run these cars and not actually increase pollution? Nuclear power is off limits, no more offshore (or onshore) drilling, our President wants to put the coal industry out of business, and the alternatives, solar, wind, hydro, etc., do not provide enough to power the United States.

[odubtaig]

I don't know genius, what are we going to do when the oil inevitably runs out? I mean, it's a finite resource and it will run out one day, it's only a question of when. So what's your much more viable alternative?

Hmmmmmm?

PS I really like how you completely missed out how the increase in electricity bills would be more than offset by the lack of having to pay for liquid fuel ever again.

This also rocks:

"Now that the imperial federal government is the de-facto owner of GM and they say the most anticipated, mass produced electric car is not commercially viable, should say wonders."

Yes, because that line of thinking worked so well in the USSR. Especially in the film industry.

[willdryden]

The car should cost betwen 15,000 and 20,000 to manufacture depending on battery cost. They will not make back all the R&D that went into the car, but do not believe for an instant that the individual car will cost more to build than the price tag. The R&D will be used on future models and is money well spent if they follow up this time.

[manalagi001]

The image you show on the front page is not the production Volt; it's a concept that proved to be quite far removed from the production Volt.

[texaslabrat]

nope, that's the production "concept" alright..the one you are thinking of is a lot "sportier" than that.

http://i.treehugger.com/files/chevy-volt-a01.jpg

Easy to see if you look at the two side-by-side ;)

[odubtaig]

"Another important step to making electric cars more palatable to consumers is having dedicated outlets that can charge at 240 volts, twice as fast as a normal outlet."

Anyone mind if I just laugh for a bit? I still wonder how some things work on 120V :o)

[Vegaman_Dan]

There's a market for the used batteries in the power grid? Okay, this is the first I've heard of this part of the story at all and I like it.

[texaslabrat]

It's been mentioned a couple of times in various cnet "green blog" articles..but first time that I've seen it put in this context (ie GM making the statement rather than just random folks speculating). And I agree...it's great to see them looking forward like that as a matter of policy.

[Maccess]

Unfortunately, that kind of aggressive, debt inflated styling went out last year. Today's best selling cars are sensible looking with more conservative styling. That's why Hyundai and Kia have shown 20-50% sales growth while most other car makers saw their sales plunge.

[open-mind]

Debt inflated styling? Does that mean not ugly?

Not sure what Kia numbers you're looking at, but I just copied/pasted this from a Kia web site. Summary: Huge Kia sales decline.
-------------

Kia Motors America announced it?s sales for the month of December. As expected, sales has gone down sharply and the numbers are not that pretty. Last month, sales at Kia has been down 39 percent from a year earlier.

In December 2008, Kia sold 14,644 vehicles, down from 24,016 units sold in 2007. Kia?s 39 percent decline shows that company?s popular fuel-efficient models were little help as consumers steered clear of showrooms due to the dismal economy.

December sales were led by Sorento posting an 88.7-percent increase over the same period last year with sales topping at 3,087 units. Sorento was also the only Kia that improved it?s sales over the previous December (2007). Sorento was followed by Spectra and Sportage SUV with sales of 2,720 and 2,182 respectively.

Kia Motors America also reported a 2008 sales volume of 273,397 vehicles, down 10,5 percent, compared to 305,473 vehicles in 2007.

[aliamir1]

You need a better understanding of p=iv. Voltage just provides the potential difference so that current can actually drive the load.

Example: When you get a static shock the voltage is around 50,000V but the current is almost nothing.

[jkohut]

"There's a market for the used batteries in the power grid? Okay, this is the first I've heard of this part of the story at all and I like it. "

GM should think "home use" for these batteries also. It may be that the 50-75% batteries pack could be taken out and used as a UPS for home electronics or possible as a short term battery backup for a Gas powered Furnace (instead of requiring a Generator) for emergencies. If an owner could integrate something like this into a "second use" then it would help them recoup that big cost of replacing the battery pack. Ford, GM , and Chrysler should also standardize on battery pack output and wiring configuration to get economies of scale by not developing their own individual solutions.

A company as large as GM should think "big picture" whenever possible to help reduce cost to consumer. They should also consider how to make these cars more "user serviceable" so that the Total Cost of Ownership" goes down compared with Foreign Car Manufacturers (to increase the reasons to buy American vs Foreign).

[Vegaman_Dan]

That's a good point. If these used batteries were put in homes, they could be charging up during non peak times to allow you to then charge the Volt at any given time off the grid's load demands. In general, they could treat the house as another variation of the Volt's system.

[TV James]

When it was $25,000, I was saving up for it. When it moved to $40,000, I went back to my plan to by a non-hybrid Toyota Avalon (which, no, isn't $25k)

Love the philosophy of the Volt compared to a typical hybrid. A higher electricity bill is a small price to pay to never have to stop at the gas station during normal non-vacation work commuting.

[pwoon]

Think BYD, and the Chinese car companies.

[tupayaso]

At 40k, we will see how many of these cars will actually sell? For that amount of money, you can buy other vehicles that are comparable with gas mileage. I drive 100 miles round trip each day to and from work alone....this car is designed for the person that just needs to drive to to the nearest store and back. Build it at a more reasonable price and you will have increased sales.