Is it fair to say GM will eat a lot of money on battery warranty work?

Combination of 1 and 3 would be my guess.

This smells of the GM Voltec engineers designing something pretty awesome in the mid-2000's and then the bean counters and GM evil decided where to cut corners. That futuristic "skateboard" was exactly what they needed. But it was really expensive and not easily producible.

I have only met one engineer from GM briefly but he was a smart cookie. My guess is all of these now design-flaws were brought up in design meetings over the past decade with the engineers doing the best, and the accountants doing whatever was marginally acceptable in safety and quality standards to extend the life over the warranty period. They cut a few too many corners and now have to "fix" it by doing it the more expensive way.

So there is probably a cabinet in GM somewhere listing hundreds of engineer signoffs on a compromised design along with potential failures and repair methods. When something goes public, they just have to find the original design somewhere and brush off the dust.

 

I only knew one engineer and he retired in the eighties duo don't know if its true but he said it was a constant battle between cost and reliability

 

That's pretty much how it goes in most engineering houses. I am lucky to work for a semiconductor company that doesn't have those sorts of battles. We do it right. Our reliability and support are top notch, and companies that care pay for that. I would not put my name on something that I knew was sub-par.

 

But in the past 11 months GM sold about triple the total number of raodsters ever sold.

I don't think it'll really take off the way they were hoping, but I bet they can keep 1100-1500 units moving a month which is better than some other cars (like several Audi models), and probably enough to keep moving towards Gen II.

 

You know. When I took engineering classes that was the BIGGEST shock of all.. The first unit I took in paper drafting they went over basic concepts of engineering and all. They told us engineering was not about designing something to last forever, but doing it for the lowest cost possible to meet the customers reliability expectations. That was constantly re-enforced no matter what class it was that I was taking. So it is no surprise to me that these type of issues come up and trade off.. I originally wanted to be an engineer to design stuff to a higher standard. Not just do it to be "good enough." That ultimately led to me giving up that path of my life as ethically I just did not want to do business that way.

 

What company do you work for?

The point is that at $108,000 up to about $160,000 (depending on motor and options) Tesla is right on schedule to sell every one of the planned 2,500 Roadsters in time for the switch to the Model S (also their business plan from the very start).

GM had to cut its sales projection in half, and still cannot meet the reduced goal. The Volt is overpriced for what it offers. The Tesla has 2 1/2 times the range of the only other EV presently being sold new in the U.S., and delivers an acceleration (i.e. thrill) that costs about three times as much to get in a gasoline sports car. And all without the need for shifting.

I'd say it's darn good when a brand-new start-up company with its very first car can so accurately gauge its market. And pretty poor when one of the Big 3 can be so off track. (Unless, as I believe, GM priced the Volt to fail because they want to be able to say "We tried," but they don't really want to be in the EV market.)

 

Tesla is certaintly a good company with an excellent product. I think they probably under estimated they amount of cars they could sell even in that price range. Granted they offer a lot of bang for the buck.

Where GM went wrong is they designed an entirely new car, and set a sales target of 10,000 in year one. For any new car other than an iconic brand I think they far over estimated demand.. I think maybe if they had projected 4 or 5,000 cars, and aimed there it would have been better placed. I guess I am biased since I have one sitting in my driveway, but I do feel it is worth the amount they want. Maybe I just set my standards to low? Either way I think it is a very nice car, and at almost 2500 miles now with 1800 total EV miles it is every bit as fun as the day I bought it. The only lingering thing in my mind is figuring out this object that pierces the battery case by 5 inches when you wrap it around a pole, and how in the world they will re-enforce the case. It is certaintly a bad black eye for the Volt. Especially after all the house fires.

 

They decided to stop production of the roadster because lotus retooled the line, leaving tesla to find a new partner or stop production. They could have ordered more from lotus earlier, but tesla is burning cash rather fast. It is more of a straight business decision to focus its money on the S, not poor marketing projections.

IMHO the media is blowing the whole thing out of proportion. If you get a 5" damage to a battery, I don't expect it to work right. GM and the NHTSA are right to investigate and figure out how to improve the design, I just hope these fires don't tarnish all plug-ins.

 

Tesla's business plan from the start was a limited run of 2,500 Roadsters, before switching production to the Model S. The Roadster was to jump-start their business, since a hand-built, high-performance sports car is a market where a new company has a chance to compete. Especially given the electric motor's superior performance compared to an ICE. The Roadster was also to serve as a proof of concept, showing what Tesla could do with an electric car. This helped bring in both investment and the government loan, as well as the partnership with Toyota, who will buy motors from Tesla.

Lotus appeared at one point to have put a cap at 2,400 Roadster frames, but eventually agreed to supply another 100 to meet the initial contract.

So Lotus's production plans have had no effect on the number of Roadsters built.

Tesla could decide to produce a roadster again in the future, but it would be a new design, built entirely in-house, something they will now be able to do, but which would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, three years ago.

It is very rare for a new business to make money earlier than five or ten years. Start-ups are risky. Tesla now faces competition from a growing list of established car makers who are seeing the light. It could go either way, becoming a major auto maker in its own right, or losing out to competition from the established auto makers. What they achieved with my car shows that they are capable of making a great machine. I hope they have commercial success and are able to push electric transportation and the resultant reduction on our dependence on foreign oil.

 

I don't think your start disagreed with me, so I just highlight this part. Tesla originally contracted with lotus to build 1700 gliders, then as sales materialized increased it to 2400. Since lotus made money on each glider, they would have been happy to fulfill any order given proper lead time. This was widely reported in bw, wsj, etc.

Tesla has been able to raise the margin on the roadster, so it is likely if Lotus did not retool for the new elise, tesla would have again added to its contract with lotus to last until the tesla S is shipping. The analysts that I have read said that Lotus did not see long term profitable business with tesla otherwise they could have continued production. Tesla could also have paid lotus to produce more gliders before the change over, they chose to buy 100 more than the contract.

Tesla does have the ability to license and buy equipment from lotus to produce more roadsters or come up with a new design.

http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/29/tesla-extends-roadsters-lifespan-with-new-lotus-deal/

 

Linear Technology

Best semiconductor company out there. We have engineers that we recruited from many other houses and the cultures there were similar to what was described before. Lowest cost that works adequately.

At LTC, it is whatever gets the job done the best.

 

On the Leaf forum, there's a post from a guy who spoke at length with one of the main Volt engineers. Surprisingly, he admitted it was several designers goal to get Volt CS mileage up around 50mpg. And they did it on early test mules. It required a larger ICE. When it was discovered that the larger ICE would be running more frequently (as well as more efficiently) the "too much noise" factor won out. It was decided that the sound of quiet would be more important to buyers, than higher mpg in CS mode. That was depressing to find out.

And so what you said rings true. For you (and maybe many other Volt buyers), the "every bit as fun" factor is significantly important. For ME personally, the whole bait & switch thing bugs me. I was signed up for a Volt back when it looked like the engineers were going to win out:

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/the-...n-the-battery-is-drained-according-to-gm.html

Then, I got another ongoing dose of GM, and it just killed it for me. Still, I hope the product makes it despite the high cost, low CS mode mpg.
.

 

Link?

 

There is a guy on the internet that claims something unlikely happened, but it makes a company you don't like sound bad Tell me more. GM did originially plan a smaller more efficient engine, but decided to shoehorn the 1.4 liter into the car to save cash. GM has talked about this. The other thing, not likely since the volt wasn't designed with room for a bigger engine.

Or it would be if it were true. The prius's larger engine is actually quieter than the gen II's 1.5L. GM did decide to run the engine less efficiently so that the sound would very with speed.

http://www.ehow.com/about_6371635_chevy-volt.html
It seems one engineer reported 50mpg, with no testing.
why would anyone believe the figures.

 

Quiet/smooth running cars have been HIGH on the list of consumer demands and significant selling points by all manufacturers since motor vehicles evolved beyond the horseless carriage stage.

 

Any vehicle other than an econo-box, luxury car, or hybrid/EV is pretty loud. V12 Jags? 300HP sedans... Diesel trucks that shake and blow smoke... Americans equate power with loudness, and many "powerful" american cars are very very loud needlessly. Perhaps this is what fuels the aftermarket exhaust community.

 

Some people like noise. I don't. I love the quiet of my car. A lot of sports-car enthusiasts like the roar of their engines, in the belief that obnoxious loud noise conveys power. And some psychopaths take the mufflers off their cars just because they like to make a lot of noise. The guy who did the original (botched) EV conversion on my Porsche offered to sell me a CD of loud engine roaring. I asked him what's the frigging point of converting to electric and then making the car sound as though it uses gas???

But having said that I prefer quiet, I'd never sacrifice efficiency for quiet. If I had been in the market for a Volt, their decision to lower efficiency from 50 mpg to 35 mpg, just to make it quieter, would have been a deal-breaker.

 

i agree. quieter car means better sound from stereo (less competition for "ear time?")

 

You may have noticed that Jaguar has not made V12s for over a decade, and that Americans do not like diesels because of the smoke. Car and driver liked BMWs active hybrid7 with a V8 because it is more well ballanced than the 12 cylander 7 series. All of the name plates except maybe one japanese that make 12s are european, and those are the folks that choose shaking blowing smoke diesels. Americans take some of those diesels because they want to act like euro trash, or in trucking because they simply are cheaper to operate.

NVH is a key to auto manufacturing. That is Noise vibration harshness. You may see car makers tune the cars to have a better engine note, but better nvh sells cars.

 

I have yet to see NVH demonstrated in any big3 vehicle. Diesels blowing smoke are the goal for many people. Around here it is the exception when a (non-VW) diesel actually doesn't have smoke coming out of it.