I'd like to see the Volt ship on time, but management forcing the car out the door before it's ready is a recipe for disaster. Lutz can't let his ego get so tied up in the schedule that he ignores his employees.

yadda, yadda, yadda.....and here's the battery they say isn't yet ready for PHEV's and I can buy it off the shelf.

http://www.valence.com/technology/applications_motive.html

How come I know this and they don't?

yadda, yadda, yadda.....and here's the battery they say isn't yet ready for PHEV's and I can buy it off the shelf.

http://www.valence.com/technology/applications_motive.html

How come I know this and they don't?

"Volt is, frankly, an effort to leapfrog anything that is done by any other competitor,"

Effort. Mitsubishi promises to ship full EV by 2009 and has cars in fleet testing NOW, with Subaru and Nissan close at their heels. GM will be too little too late.

Mitsubishi is converting an existing kei car into an EV. GM is creating a whole new vehicle from the ground up.

Developing new product takes time. Especially when there are so many unknowns and potential supply issues. We'll get it when we get it. Have some patience.

The EV1 didn't get much support from inside GM. It was expensive to produce and its low maintenance design offered no revenue incentive, either, as it obviated lots of they typical car's replacement needs. The support went instead into lobbying to bury the California ZEV mandate.

If Lutz wants this to happen, I'd say he needs to exert some force. The fact that the car is actually branded as a Chevrolet (the EV1 was a "GM" brand car) suggests maybe they're more serious. In the 90's when they were making money, the stakes in killing the EV1 were very low. But I suspect the new "commitment" suffers from cloudiness and smacks of being rushed, as evidenced by the decision to trash the body shape and start over (a year into its promotion campaign). When he talks about patents, I do wonder if Toyota takes them seriously; what working models does GM have that are so valuable right now?

GM Volt may very well be number 10 or 12 on the PHEV market place by 2011-12. The Toyota Prius III or Generation I PHEV may very well be around by late 2009. Others may even beat Toyota to it.

GM's legal fight for pattent rights to keep others from manufacturing PHEVs will last many years and fail because the idea does not belong to GM who may turn out to be a rather late comer with the Volt. It may even be the other way around. Others may sue GM unless the Volt is a very different PHEV.

I think the title of the article is a little misleading, since it implies skepticism over the technology, as opposed to skepticism over getting all the pieces put together on time.

Getting a working PHEV on the public roads is no problem at all. Audi did it with the Duo almost 10 years ago here in Europe, Renault with the Electroad.

The big challenge is being able to produce it at a price people will buy it at... and still be able to make a profit.

Jim G-

GM has been working on series hybrids since the 60's, so they have a lot of intellectual property built up.

With all the safety requirements that a new design must go through 2010 is aggressive for the Volt. But Lutz has rightly stayed open about the progress being made on battery technology and testing.

This is a series hybrid. The genset ICE only recharges the battery making it significantly different from the Prius PHEV. GM is going with a LiIon battery (A123, Compact Power) while Toyota announced it is opting for less power dense NiMh instead.

It's a big leap for GM and it will jump over competing technology for a short while. One patent attorney seems overly frugal for GM but... Hey, if Lutz can bring Volt to market at a consumer price (under 30k) - they will need new tooling to keep up with demand. By 2009 summer consumers will be intensely interested in a vehicle with a 40 mile all-electric and 650m liquid fuel range.

Lutz knows this is his brightest moment on the big automotive stage - so as JFK once said, "Let us move forward with the greatest of vigor." I support GM in this effort and expect to see a great new automobile.

GM is currently losing money selling cars with a conventional IC powertrain. Just how does Mr. Lutz propose that GM will be able to turn a profit selling cars with battery-electric hybrid powertrains, that are substantially more expensive to produce?

I can just imagine Lutz speaking at the next GM annual shareholder's meeting: "We're losing five grand on every hybrid we sell, but it's OK, we'll make it up in volume".

Didn't these guys learn anything from the EV1 debacle?

Terry: How will they make money on them? What do you think the price of gasoline will be in 2010 and beyond?

If gasoline is significantly more expensive in the US than it is now (which is exactly what I think will happen), then that gives GM a huge amount of breathing room--they can sell series hybrids and EV's at a much higher price point.

If they'd backed the EV1 back in the day, Toyota would be playing catch-up now.

terry

Earnings Est Next Year Dec-08
Avg. Estimate 2.54
No. of Analysts 17
Low Estimate -1.16
High Estimate 6.05
Year Ago EPS -0.95

From finance.yahoo.com

Well, it seems that most analysts disagree with you.

And FYI, Lutz is a straight shooter. How many corporate chairmen would comment on the wind tunnel test, “It was a huge disappointment. They might have gotten better results if they putit in backwards.”

Classic GM haters would say, “See, the car is a failure!”. Those less biased would say that it’s really refreshing to hear a corporate official say what we’re all thinking!

Harvey D
“GM's legal fight for patent rights to keep others from manufacturing PHEVs will last many years and fail because the idea does not belong to GM...”

That’s a bit of a biased stretch, ah? Have you read the article about Professor Andy Frank, often called the father of PHEVs. He recently patented some of his designs also, and plans to lease the rights for a profit, yet PHEVs continue to be developed.

And don’t forget how Ford ended up leasing Hybrid Synergy Drive from Toyota, who had the patents first, though it looked a lot like what Ford had developed.

Then there’s GM and Chrysler who found out that what each was developing, looked kind of similar, They ended up jointly developing (and patented) the two-mode hybrid transmission. GM is expecting to receive around $1 billion from royalties sales next year.

Companies patent things in order to protect the intellectual property which they developed and paid for. It’s unrealistic to say that someone will patent the PHEV, and stop future development??! It’s ok for Andy Frank and Toyota, and it’s ok for GM.

Rumours remain strong that GM will lease the batteries of the Volt to consumers in order to make a profit. That would be a huge mistake.

I also remain skeptical that GM can meet it's own deadline on getting the Volt to market. I predict it will get delayed until 2011.

I have been hearing that the E-Flex series hybrid idea may make it in that time frame, but that the Volt will not. The Volt was a show car, but the idea may carry through to a consumer product soon enough.