Man-Made | Chevy Volt | National Geographic Channel Ultimate Factories - Chevy Volt on Nat Geo: Building the Newest Battery Operated Car Not sure which it's going to be, Man-Made or Ultimate Factories. It's coming up as an Ultimate Factories ep for me on NGC and NGCHD on 3/25 at 5 pm and 8 pm Pacific time and 4/1 at 1 pm. Check your local TV listings or sites like zap2it.com or tvguide.com for your showtime. In the past, I've liked their eps on Lamborghini, Camaro, Ferrari, M-1 tanks and Corvette.
I just stated a new thread in FHOP about 20 min ago.... probably at the same time you did... Hey Mr. Moderator good sir, if you want to merge the threads, go for it!! It is however a really interesting show!!!
Heh, I started this thread days ago. It was very good. I've toured a couple auto plants before and seen a couple documentaries on car production but never seen this pre-production stuff in this much detail. It was great in high def. I recommend it even if you're not a GM nor Volt fan. If you want to see mass production instead w/tons of robots, esp. doing the welding and inspections of the welds, check out Ultimate Factories: Camaro or Factory Floor with Marshall Brian on a Hyundai plant (Factory Floor | Car, Pasta, Snow Blower, Compound Bow | National Geographic Channel) when it's rerun. The amount of automation at that Hyundai plant is beyond what I've seen of any plant I've toured (NUMMI, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota plants in Japan, and a Ford plant). Unfortunately, the Camaro one ep got rerun today and won't be rerun in the next two weeks. I haven't seen this ep in awhile, but Modern Marvels: Assembly Line I think also provides a good overview. Part 1 is online at (unless it gets yanked). Parts 4 and 5 seem might show the same Hyundai plant.
For those who watched the show, can anyone imagine how difficult it will be for a dealer to replace or service the battery if there is trouble? The battery is one large T-shaped piece (as far as I can tell) with tight tolerances with regards to fitting into the underbody of the car, also it is probably rather heavy. Really wonder how a dealer would service that beast.
Watching how much effort it took to install under ideal conditions does make you wonder how inspection/replacement will take place. You can't just lift it out like you would an engine in a traditional vehicle or a battery-pack like that in Prius. It all happens underneath. Something that has still never been mentioned is how often the coolant within must be flushed. .
It would present some new challenges. The traditional lifts used in car service would block the battery from coming out. The car would have to be held up by the wheels or some walk under system (like jiffy lube) with extra wide opening for the top of the 't' shape. This should be very similar to the inverter coolant on the Prius. The Tesla has battery coolant liquid as well. This should be a 100,000 service or even less frequent.
The T pack needs to be sealed water tight to prevent shorting out during flood. Did they show if the Volt use 12v lead acid battery to boot up?
No, they didn't mention and I forgot to look for that. One thing that stood out was that the rear suspension appears to be some cheap solid rear beam. As a reminder to folks, it's being rerun on 4/1. Set your PVRs.
Ultimate Factories: Chevy Volt prototype factory now on iTunes — Autoblog Green mentions it's available on iTunes store now.
I did not see the show, but wondered, and even asked the question on another thread, about changing the Volt's battery. From earlier pictures we have all seen, it appears to be a very large T shaped battery ...to the extent that it only permits 4 passengers. I cannot imagine it comes out from the bottom? it seems to large to come out from the interior? With unit constuction, the "body" cannot be removed from the frame. Any ideas?
yup, time for a new timex? perhaps designed for the life of the volt, or maybe they can change out the indivudual cells (more likely), the pack is probably never changed out after it's built.
It drops out of the bottom the same way its installed. It is not something a home user could do but can be lowered the same way a heavy (truck) transmission would be. My concern is how far the 't' extends side to side. I do not want it near the sides of the vehicle to be damaged in a minor accident.
it's only 36" side to side, you can google the specs and measurements. shouldn't be a big deal to replace it every ten years or so.
