The Gullible Car and Driver Buying the General Motors Fraud

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Car and Driver – October 2008

Running On Empty: Is the 2011 Chevrolet Volt Hype or Hope? - Car News
Now that the Volt’s out of the bag, we take a closer look at the car that’s got GM all charged up.
BY STEVE SILER

GM just turned 100 years old, and at its birthday gala in Detroit in September, GM gave the world a long-awaited first look at what it’s calling the “production” Chevrolet Volt, a car upon which the future of the world’s largest automaker rests.

Proud as we are of GM for getting by for a century, we’re not piling on the presents in the form of unqualified praise and optimism about the Volt, which will start rolling down GM’s Hamtramck, Michigan, assembly line in November, 2010. After all, we remember the 1996 GM EV1, an electric car that proved only that electric propulsion wasn’t ready for prime time.

With the splashy reveal safely behind us, we’ve taken several opportunities to look more critically at the Volt, studying the design, crawling around inside, and interviewing—make that interrogating—many of those responsible for making it a reality, including Bob Lutz, vice president of global product development, and Jon Lauckner, vice president of global project management. They all promise a game-changer certainly for GM, and over time, possibly the world.

Still, a reality check is in order.

Design: Bye-Bye, Gangsta-Mini. Hello, Sensible Sedan.

The “production” Volt seen here has garnered its share of criticism on account of its styling, which has changed vastly from the gangsta-chopped mini sedan look of the ballyhooed Volt concept into a more slab-sided, wind-friendly design that relies on intricate lighting graphics and trim pieces for its cool factor. Frankly, we think it comes across pretty awful in pictures, but we can attest that it appears well proportioned and convincingly cool in person: the details indeed carry the day.

But will all those details on the “production intent” car actually make it to, you know, production? We’re told by Lauckner that pretty much all of them will. The intricate headlamp elements, for example, will remain as a signature identifying mark of the Volt, he says, although the actual illumination technology could change. Ditto the taillamps, which will probably become LEDs. A touch more chrome could be added around the paneled-off grille. Certain surfaces, such as that of the hatchback’s high rear spoiler, could change by a millimeter or two. But the “raccoon-eye” window treatment—an homage to the funky glass windows of the Volt concept—will stay.

In any case, however, the Volt shouldn’t look perceptibly different than the one you see here, according to both Lutz and Lauckner. And that’s a good thing—most of us that have seen the Volt’s numerous clever details and pleasing road stance in the flesh wholeheartedly approve. And GM says it’s a design that takes on different personalities in different colors. We look forward to seeing them all.

Room for George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy—but not Astro

If any car should have such a Jetsons-inspired interior, the Volt is the one. Still, even circa 2011, the Volt’s futuristic space should raise the bar in term of cabin high-techiness. If the exterior’s signatures are the headlamps and black “window liner,” the interior’s is the cool, shiny “iPod console.” In lieu of buttons, it features “capacitive touch” controls, similar to the interior lighting and glovebox controls in the Jaguar XF. It’s a little gimmicky, we think, and might require a bit too much of the driver’s focus to use when whirring along at 70 mph, but is nonetheless bound to wow everyone in the neighborhood the second they sit down. Above those controls lives a separate, fixed seven-inch touch-operated infotainment screen that mirrors the similarly customizable gauge display in front of the driver.

The T-shape arrangement of the battery pack renders the rear seat a two-butt space only. But if you didn’t tell your rear-seaters, they would never know that there were batteries under their armrest (Sorry, Astro, you’re gonna need to sit on the armrest or lay down under the cargo area glass). The rear seats will fold down, too, allowing for a long cargo floor, albeit one a bit far from the ground.

Technology: “E-REV,” not “Plug-In”

The Volt is the first vehicle to be built on GM’s new E-flex architecture, and in the Volt’s case, the T-shaped, 16-kWh lithium-ion battery powers an electric motor capable of delivering the equivalent of 150 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque to the front wheels. As such, the Volt will be able to travel about 40 miles in city-cycle driving (as defined by the EPA), sufficient daily range for 80 percent of American families, according to GM. Once the batteries are drained, a 1.4-liter gasoline/E85-powered engine will turn on, acting as a generator to extend the range to about 250 to 300 miles, supplemented by a regenerative braking system. The gas engine never directly powers the wheels.

Though this sort of technology is more commonly described as “series hybrid” (with one power source providing propulsion, supported by the other), most prior series hybrids use the gasoline engine for propulsion, relegating the batteries in the supporting role. GM believes the Volt, and other electrically driven/engine-supported hybrids, including Volvo’s C30-based Recharge Concept, deserve a new designation, and thus it is working with governmental entities such as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to create the glamorous new E-REV (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle) category. That’s right, get ready for another vehicle category with which to confuse your friends. At least “E-REV” has a rather kicky ring to it—“I drive an E-REV” sure sounds better than “I drive a plug-in series hybrid.”

Durable Batteries

Though batteries always lose their charge capacity over time, Lauckner claims that the Volt’s lithium-ion battery pack is constituted so as not weaken as dramatically as do cell phone and laptop batteries. GM promises that the 40-mile gas-free range will be possible for 10 years or 150,000 miles, the length of time California mandates vehicle propulsion batteries must be warranted. The Volt is supposed to go into production two years from the time of this writing, meaning all of its technologies need to be fully developed and proven today. However, industry sources tell us the claims about the Volt’s batteries are wildly optimistic when weight, cost, capacity, and longevity are considered.

GM admits to certain caveats to its 40-mile range assertion, including driving style, of course, but also proximity to home. Typically, when the Volt’s battery reads “empty” it still contains about 30 percent of its energy capacity. Keeping the battery from fully discharging down to zero extends battery life and performance, but if the Volt’s navigation system “senses” you’re headed home, the battery is allowed to discharge more deeply in anticipation of a good night’s charge. Should a route place the Volt a long way from “home” as the battery reaches “empty,” though, the gas engine will turn on earlier to keep the battery from dipping below the 30-percent mark. Now, that last part rings a little Orwellian, we believe, but it is meant to optimize the performance and long-term health of the battery by keeping it from discharging too deeply. The architecture can also support a fuel cell in place of the gas engine.

But Will It Really Change the Game?

To what extent the Volt will “change the game” is still unclear. The biggest obstacle the Volt must overcome is cost. Even assuming a suitable battery can be mass-produced in time for the Volt’s launch, it will probably cost significantly more than $5000—possibly over $10,000. In addition to requiring most of the components in a conventional car and the battery, the Volt has an electric motor and a generator, plus systems to monitor, control, and cool the high-voltage system. This will add thousands more to the price.

We estimate building a Volt will cost GM more than twice as much as a conventional compact. All told, how much green does something this green cost for consumers? Lauckner says to expect a price somewhere in the mid-$30,000 range, but frankly, we’d be surprised to see anyone get much change back from $40,000 when the paperwork is signed. “Even if we have to forego most or all of our profit, it’s still going to be a reasonably expensive car,” said Lutz.

Cost isn’t the only thing that will limit the Volt’s appeal. It will be compact, and its limited seating capacity and practicality may render it ill-suited as primary transportation for folks with large families. Further, its limited range also eliminates its usefulness to people that live in rural areas.

Limited production will also curtail any sort of large-scale shifts in transportation trends. We’ve heard first-year supplies could be as low as the double-digits, but GM says otherwise. The company says it will build limited numbers of the Volt for the first year, starting with a trickle and then ramping up within a few months for a first-year total somewhere in the “tens of thousands,” according to Lauckner. However, he claims that the production line is flexible enough to produce more than 100,000 Volts annually; whether or not all of the suppliers of the Volt’s many unique parts can keep that pace is a question no one can accurately answer at this point. If the Volt is priced as high as we suspect, demand will limit sales to a few thousand units, which seems realistic given the myriad new technologies used and the inevitable associated teething pains.

In any case, the Volt won’t be available at every dealership right away. The dealer allocation will follow a “focused launch” program with sales and technical training endeavors that Lauckner said will most certainly concentrate on California and other markets thick with early adopters (i.e. willing to spend big money) of anything close to green, let alone something like this.

A real wild card is government incentives, which are still being negotiated. Lutz says that there is a lot of “pro-Volt sentiment” in official circles, and suggests that something like a $7500 incentive could bring it “into the easily affordable band.”

Even at fifty grand, the Volt would hardly be profitable for GM in these early years, considering how much coin GM has already dumped into the project, the actual production cost, and how much will be required for sales and technical training at launch. And unless some cash starts falling from the sky—or the federal government—GM’s financial situation may still be extremely precarious at that point. GM can’t afford to lose money on the Volt as it did on the EV1 and as Toyota did on hybrids for years until demand increased and production costs fell.

By GM’s estimates—which include feedback from local power companies—the cost of charging the Volt would be about 80 cents during peak hours and 50 cents during the overnight off-peak hours, working out to be under two cents per mile when operating on electricity alone, about a dime per mile less than a comparable gas motor. If gas were to stay at or near $3.60 per gallon, this could translate into $1500 of savings annually. What GM doesn’t say explicitly is that the customer will likely have paid an extra $20,000 for the car compared with the price of a conventional compact. Recouping the investment would take at least a decade, at which point the Volt’s running costs and potential battery replacement could further add to its costs. It likely would never prove more frugal overall than a comparable compact with conventional internal combustion technology.

What’s Next?

GM is already thinking about where to go next with the Volt. According to Frank Weber, Volt vehicle line chief, the technological focus of the next Volt is not to enable it go even further on a charge, but rather to make it more affordable using cheaper/smaller batteries to get the same 40-mile range. We think both more range and a lower price would be nice, but GM’s studies indicate that 40 miles is sufficient for most consumers, and Weber feels that making the vehicle more affordable would help sales more than giving it longer range at a higher price. Of course, that is subject to market conditions; if demand for 80-mile E-REVs, for example, renders a 40-mile Volt obsolete at some point, that’s something GM would have to consider doing, according to Lauckner.

As for the styling of the next Volt? During an interview at the Volt launch, Lutz said “I would expect a pretty long cycle” for the car, saying they probably wouldn’t change the sheetmetal between Gen I and Gen II. The “iPod console” and other interior bits could change, but outside, Lutz says “what you see is what you’re going to get for a fairly long time.”

By “a fairly long time,” Lutz must mean about five years, as just two weeks later, Lauckner told Car and Driver that the product cycle would be five years at the most. “Volt will be replaced by an all-new, completely different-looking ‘Volt 2’ five years after start of production at the latest.” He feels that battery technology could go a long way in that period of time, allowing big changes to packaging.

And, GM hopes, to the game itself.