GM provides update on Volt vehicle and battery development

Excellent. Looks like a giant leap for mass produced lithium ion battery technology is on schedule.

 

GM hits Volt battery milestone; What’s the car’s magic price? - SmartPlanet

article generated due to ceremony celebrating the first battery off GM's assembly line. i am guessing in house production should drop the price quite abit

 

Well I'll be Mr.Obvious. To me The Volt will need positive reviews and press upon release. It can't afford a mixed review or negative press. Then, I think it needs to be close to the price of a fully loaded Prius, so in the $32,000 to $34,000 dollar range. Then it has to be a good product. A suprise defect, or a widely publicized problem could sink The Volt quickly.

I think if GM can do all these things, The VOLT could be a revolutionary hit. But Price is really going to be key. $40,000 for an automobile of the Volts size and ammenities will just price it into the range of the very wealthy wanting a toy. It won't get any mainstream traction.

All just my opinon. I'm really excited about the prospects of The Volt and also The Leaf, and probably sooner than we think, Plug-In Prius. The times they are a changing.

 

i still say its gotta be $30,000 max... otherwise, will be niche product only. the Pri over $30,000 is pretty small percentage here i think.

 

Yes the pricing will be an auto-limiter in terms of the public having access to it.

There are two other limiting issues right from the start.

1. they are only going to release it for sale in DC, LA and Detroit
2. they are going to roll it out very very slowly according to Lutz with maybe 5000+ units in the first year and 'full production' by 2015 of 50,000+ units.

Then there's the huge issue of battery life/replacement. Thus far no maker including Toyota is willing to say anything beyond 5 yrs on the Li-Ions. Nissan is planning to lease the Leaf batteries. GM has said nothing. Toyota has stated that an owner may have to replace the Li-Ions sometime after 5-7 yrs but it's unknown.

This is a significant 'limiter' to sales, especially as compared to any of the traditional hybrids.

 

Years of noise for 5000 vehicles ??How Detroit

 

That's interesting information to me. Probably explains why Toyota has been conservative with the implementation of Li-Ion batteries. I don't pretend to be anything but an observer but I think a limited, slow release is disappointing. I know from a business standpoint they don't want to produce a large quantity of expensive automobiles that "perhaps" won't sell but I think it's imperative with an "alternative" automobile that it's perceived as being a "real" product with real company support behind it.

I mean Toyota supported The Prius even in it's early years. Kept supporting it until they sold a million of them. I remember seeing commercials for early Prius, back when admittedly I was too unsure of the product, BUT at least I knew Toyota was backing the product and (realisticly or not) I felt if I wanted a Prius I could go down to a dealership and make it happen.

A limited city, almost non-existent release of 5000+....talk about starting things off with a whimper....seems like a mistake to me.

Where did you get this information? Maybe GM want's to keep it's "Start Out with a Fizzle" plans quiet but I've never heard that they planned to keep the release so limited.

 

This link is almost 2 years old now... quotes Lutz as saying 10k in first year.

Chevy Volt hybrid to see limited production in first year

 

Yep Lutz confirmed this goal at the recent LAIAS in early Dec. What they aren't going to do is build a lot of Volts ( even if they had the capacity to do so ) put them on the streets and hope nothing bad happened.

The Volt has to be perfect. It has to do everything they've been saying technically. It is going to be a $40000+ toy for the Hollywood Hills crowd.

With a very conservative rollout they can pull them all in quickly if necessary. The owners involved won't be overly put out by having one of their cars in the shop for reworking.

 

hubboy . . . this part:

" . . . Through the course of development, the team has learned that the battery management system is the key to extracting the best life and performance out of the battery..."

Um, they learned that with the EV-S10 ... and the EV-1. So ... that sounds like they threw out all the original blueprints.

:Cry:

.

 

What makes Lutz or GM think a conservative roll out would mean the automotive press or world would be conservative or quiet? You can't simultaneously push the Volt as "The Auto that's going to redefine the industry" and soft pedal it at the same time. Given recent history many eyes are on GM and by association The Volt.

IMO 5000 or 50,000 any major "bad" news about the Volt out of the gate is going to make automotive headlines regardless of the number released.

Plus my experience with the affluent say's they will complain the mostly loudly if their $40,000 dollar toy doesn't work right. They'll complain from the seat of one of the other 5-10 automobiles they own, but they'll complain.

If anything close to "GM Pulls In All Volt Auto's" appears in headlines, then The Volt is sunk and GM is in trouble.

 

Too late. They already bought Escalades, which are parked right next to their Prius.

 

They didn't throw them out, they left them in the glovebox when all the EV1's were crushed and melted down to make SUV's.


It should be obvious to everyone by now that the Volt is a publicity stunt, nothing more - the volumes and pricing are not at a level for it to be anything else.

 

Not true. There was some thought of an option to lease the batteries. I spoke with the Nissan Leaf Customer Service line this morning. There will now be two options: Lease the whole car, batteries and all; or buy the whole car, batteries and all. I think too many people wrote to them and said they would not buy a car if they could not own the batteries.

The Volt, OTOH, is a publicity gimmick that will be scrapped before mass manufacture, or will fizzle out after a few cars are sold; probably the former. Are they even going to sell them this time, or is GM going to only lease them again, so that they can crush them after pretending to "try" to go green?

 

I think their real plan is, to hope for a change in the Administration back to Republicans / Big Oil by the time 2012/2016 elections come up, so they can just say "see, it wasn't viable, we built them and no one bought our $40K electric cars" and go back to building Hummer H2's.

GM is pathetic, glad I didn't wait for the Volt [vaporware] and bought my 2010 Prius.

 

u did see that the director of battery development for the Volt has jumped ship. will start with a battery manufacturer startup in Cali, mid march??

i wonder what that says for the state of Volt development? her statement says there were no negative surprises with the Volt, but then again, i am sure she was paid to say it

 

how very bob klutz like.

 

Telling. Very telling. Either there was lack of support from management, or they weren't willing to pay her what she was worth, or...? I'll take a guess: They were not willing to let her do the development work needed to produce a really good battery. Or she knew this was a dead-end project. If the Volt was on the level, this would be a great project to be a part of; but if management was sabotaging it, so they'd have an excuse later to scrap it, it would make her look bad as well. Best to get out now.