don't believe ANYTHING you read unless you know it is a fact.
Using Phoenix as an example,the cost of the batteries are approx 45k,the system that they were going to use from UQM was close to 30k,throw in the cost of the stripped down vehicle,and with a profit margin the true cost is close to 125k per SUV.
They were going to make it up with CARB credits from the polluters like GM,etc.
Those polluters aren't that dumb,the credits will never be and niether will the Phoenix SUV at that price.
The states will spend your money and buy a few,the elec utilities will get grants and buy a few,as will any corp that gets your money to buy a few.
After that there is no more,except for the hollywood fools with way too much money after cocaine expenses

The reason people slam GM, is because they have been all talk, no action. We don't need them to market an all electric high priced car right now. How about just producing a decent hybrid? Or better yet, a PHEV? People need a choice NOW, or in the near future. I love my Altima hybrid. It was well eupipped at $23,500, and I'm getting a check back for $2,350 for the fed credit. GM is one of the largest corporations in the world, with huge R&D, backed by government money, and they can't produce 1 decent hybrid? (and don't even think about calling those halfassed Saturns hybrids). Pathetic.

Q: How much will the car cost?
A: Goal is to be less than $30,000

Source: volt nation faq page.

Steve,

GCC consists predominantly of "talk." When was the last poster here able to claim they have designed a hybrid vehicle, much less put it into production?? GM bashing is something like member-envy - if you don't got it, you whine about those who do.

I've never posted on here before, but the animosity on this page doesn't speak to highly of this blog's readership. These attacks are laughable;
1. GM supposedly doesn't sell a hybrid
2. The EV1 was allegedly some great and practical design denied the huge throngs that would have run out to buy a car that dies after 80 miles and took 8 hours to refill.
3.Suddenly getting off of oil isn't dealing with "the big picture" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean)
4.The Volt supposed has the aero of a "brick", when it was Lutz himself who first used the term to describe their work at major redesigns of the body because that is so critical for an electric vehicle.
5.Lutz is responsible for GM buying the trams in US cities and destroying them 100 years ago.
6. Even dumber then that one, "Eric" takes that cake in post 2 that GM does "not wish to be the leaders in the technology, only to jump on the bandwagon when others bring this new technology of BEV to market."

That is so ridiculous I don't know where to start, the Volt is the PERSONIFICATION of new technology, this car gets over what the EV1 and every other electric car's fatal design flaw had and still has, being tied down to less then a few 100 miles on a charge. Also their e-flex idea is absolutely brilliant. We will live in a better world when I can go into a dealership and check off a box that says I want the electric-diesel model Volt instead of the gas one, and with this Volt it will be a matter of time.

Seriously people, this childlike hatred of GM belittles the alternative-fuel movement. If you are sincere in caring about it, stop cutting off your nose to spite your face, the Volt can change the world.

@ ralph,

why does legit progress toward YOUR purported goal so terrify you ralph? Toyota lost $20k on each Prius in the first four years - should we sh*&t on them for doing so?? Try getting honest for once in your overly automaton life and admit that new technology has to have loss leaders - sorta like real life.

I still don't get it, why it takes GM so long to make Volt. They spent so much time and money on EV1 and now they say volt in 3 years ( its been quite some time that I heard about it in the works). How come Toyota electric Rav4 is running on batteries for so long , I mean common its not that hard to create good vehicle for any of automanufacturers, theere must be something else that holds all these electric vehicles from public roads.

@ Raphael,

what perplexes is though you clearly stand at the head of the GCC class, you are mute on the subject of bashing those who legitimately work to make things better. The GM Volt is, under present circumstance, a revolutionary vehicle that will dramatically change the NA consumption of petroleum fuel. Though it comes from the least favorite designer and because it forces us to reconsider our "enemy" - we should see this as somehow prescient. You need not be a spiritual soul to know that the work is given to us by those we least believe it should.

Well gosh Alex,

go out and invent your own battery and power electronics and let me know where i can buy it and for how much!

@ markBC,

Sure. Try really WANTING the mitigation of your precious Global Warming, quit the ancient Propaganda Dept. and get with the positive program! What PO's all you GM bashers is your side has failed to do the real work.

@ DS,

Oh yeah, just like the terrified poster.

The Volt is GM's laudable effort to win or gain their "Green Image", mostly PR effort, similar to what the Prius did for Toyota.

Do NOT expect the Volt, at only tens of thousands unit projected production number yearly, to make any dent in petroleum saving effort, nor any real contribution to the effort against global warming.

The real petroleum-saving move will be the GM's formidable 80% hybrid (HEV) fleet (in the millions) that Lutz projected will be needed by 2020 in order to comply with the 35-mpg mandate. Why not make 'em all HEV's instead of stopping short at 80%? While at it (making 'em all HEV's), why not make some of 'em (millions of them HEV's) optimized to run on synthetic or bio-methane and thereby capable of really weaning off from petroleum en-masse? And while at it, why not H2-ICE-HEV, anybody, and achieve real ZEV status at affordable cost?

2Snowboard:
Good post. See my post above to TThoms for 4 other hot button issues that get the lashing everytime they are mentioned. For a good laugh, mention GM and Hydrogen together in the same sentence sometime, then get ready for the rain! Recommend for you to check any logic or reason at the door when posting. Stuff like that isn't welcome here.

Alex:
"It's been quite some time that I heard about it in the works". Actually it's been a little over a year that you heard about the Volt "being in the works". It was introduced at the 2007 NAIAS in Detroit. Normal production of a vehicle from design conception to showroom is generally 3-4 years. That is a vehicle where most of the components and vehicle architecture are already known and available. The Volt is nothing like the EV-1. Apples to oranges. For GM to essentially have to invent much of this car from scratch, and in a condensed time frame, it's a monumental task. Just consider giving some credit where it's due.

Jon
Thanks for the enlightenment. I agree with all your comments. GM is not the only car company that has the ability to produce the EV or PHEV. My shot at GM came from frustration over having to wait years for the EV/PHEV and hearing that we will be waiting more years. In my defense I have taken shots at other car
mfgs when they make comments that are controversial.
Sheep is a good description for me. I get in my Ford everyday and ride to work in a herd of other sheep. What sickens me is the knowledge that we could all be using PHEV/EV's. A few weeks ago I saw an EV for sale
at a dealership. After futher investigation I discovered that you could not license the EV for the public road and the EV was limited to 25 mph in speed.
When I questioned the dealer he said the restrictions were based on the absense of airbags and crash testing.
Jon, I don't know about you but I feel something wet running down my back and I don't think it's rain.

Jon
Thanks for the enlightenment. I agree with all your comments. GM is not the only car company that has the ability to produce the EV or PHEV. My shot at GM came from frustration over having to wait years for the EV/PHEV and hearing that we will be waiting more years. In my defense I have taken shots at other car
mfgs when they make comments that are controversial.
Sheep is a good description for me. I get in my Ford everyday and ride to work in a herd of other sheep. What sickens me is the knowledge that we could all be using PHEV/EV's. A few weeks ago I saw an EV for sale
at a dealership. After futher investigation I discovered that you could not license the EV for the public road and the EV was limited to 25 mph in speed.
When I questioned the dealer he said the restrictions were based on the absense of airbags and crash testing.
Jon, I don't know about you but I feel something wet running down my back and I don't think it's rain.

Sorry, I forgot to sign the first one.

2snowboard,

GM does not have a hybrid. They have something they refer to as a hybrid, but it's not much more than an on/off switch for the engine, a different alternator, and a couple AA batteries. It's a joke. Last month 22 thousand hybrids were sold, GM sold 19. Proving only that there are at least 19 suckers born every month. So now they can SAY they have a hybrid, but "gee, they just don't sell". But keep defending them, and I think you should purchase their stock too.

Roger: H2-ICE? ... give me a break. What kind of company do you work for anyway?

@ Ralph and Donal,

but what about Tesla? Are they using CARB credits? Their roadster is $100,000, and it is faster than a Ferrari. It would seem reasonable that after 10 thousand units sold they would be big enough to produce a different car that isn't as fast as a Ferrari, for much less cost. Why can't a major car manufacturer do this?

Can anybody tell me the extra cost that Toyota would have incurred by continuing its RAV-4 EV line? The engineering is already there, already paid for with the conventional Rav4. You simply swap out the engine with the batteries, and the car they made 10 years ago is proof that technically this is relatively easy to do, so you don't in fact have to go back to the drawing board for 3 years to completely redevelop an electric car.

So what if ACPropulsion and Lionev are using existing Ford and Toyota cars? That's the whole point - most of the engineering and safety testing has already been done for them. Why can't a major auto manufacturer just do this with their OWN cars?

If AMPMobile scan sell conversion units for $15,000 (which presumably have terrible range), then why cannot someone engineer in a $500 generator in some corner to make them serial hybrids? It makes no sense.

Ok who replaced my gcc with jerry springer nation?

Lutz is perfectly right in saying that the world will deal with us climate change is HOW it deals.

The fact is tho we dont realy want it to we would like to try and keep momma nature from waking up and beating the holy bleep out of her children for making a poopy in the washing machine...

Problem is we might have also taken a pee in the fridge and used mommas mackup on the dog... oh and blew up the cat... But right now we are all talking poop.

All alot of people are saying is... the world isnt just about poop in the washer... how do we glue the cat back together?

wintermane, have you been sniffing biodiesel?

to Ralph,

"They were going to make it up with CARB credits from the polluters like GM,etc." I admit I don't know much about CARB credits, but from a broader perspective, what is inherently wrong with using credits paid for by carbon guzzlers to subsidize near-zero emission vehicles? Wouldn't this just be levelling the playing field, or "internalizing", as the economics lingo goes, the full costs of driving a gas-powered car, of the costs incurred to future taxpayers and Florida land owners when we have to build a giant levee to keep the ocean back? So wouldn't it only be fair to use this to massively subsidize electric cars this way, and penalize regular cars so that they come to a nearly equal price?

Or would this simply force the big automakers into bankruptcy? Or maybe it would slap them in the face and provide some real incentive to make electric cars. Not that any politician is going to go in that direction mind you.

Do you have any links for me to learn more about CARB credits?

Mark you knoq I dont use biodeisel;/

My point is amoung many its expected that things will go to heck simplt because people tend to focus on one issue and fail in all the other vital ones. That ghg has blinded us to everything else we are doing badly and yes even making us make things worse as with biofuels.

Considering human track record id say betting on a massive hosing is a good solid bet and im very glad many are now looking at posy change instead of just avoided change.

GM= Green machine

This is for all you tree hugging losers out there , GM will do more for the environment then all your loser green peace , Green blog , and every other brain dead BS org. that you can think off . Get down on your knees and swear to your maker and GM for saving the world !!!!!!!!!!!! dumb asses.....

The facts speak for themselves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride_battery
"In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacturing, including patents controlling the manufacturing of large nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries in the United States. In 2001, Texaco purchased GM's share in GM Ovonics. A few months later, Chevron acquired Texaco. In 2003, Texaco Ovonics Battery Systems was restructured into Cobasys, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Ovonics.[13] Chevron's influence over Cobasys extends beyond a strict 50/50 joint venture. Chevron holds a 19.99% interest in ECD Ovonics.[14] Chevron also maintains veto power over any sale or licensing of NiMH technology.[15] In addition, Chevron maintains the right to seize all of Cobasys' intellectual property rights in the event that ECD Ovonics does not fulfill its contractual obligations.[15] On September 10, 2007, Chevron filed a legal claim that ECD Ovonics has not fulfilled its obligations. ECD Ovonics disputes this claim.[16] NiMH patent expires in 2015.

In her book, Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America, published in February 2007, Sherry Boschert argues that large-format NiMH batteries are commercially viable but that Cobasys refuses to sell or license them to small companies or individuals. Boschert reveals that Cobasys accepts only very large orders for these batteries. When Boschert conducted her research, major auto makers showed little interest in large orders for large-format NiMH batteries. However, Toyota employees complained about the difficulty in getting smaller orders of large format NiMH batteries to service the existing 825 RAV-4EVs. Since no other companies were willing to make large orders, Cobasys was not manufacturing nor licensing any large format NiMH battery technology for automotive purposes. Boschert concludes that "it's possible that Cobasys (Chevron) is squelching all access to large NiMH batteries through its control of patent licenses in order to remove a competitor to gasoline. Or it's possible that Cobasys simply wants the market for itself and is waiting for a major automaker to start producing plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles."[17]

However, recently-signed Cobasys contracts demonstrate that the company is willing to use its NiMH technology in the automotive industry, specifically for use with hybrid electric vehicles. In December 2006, Cobasys and General Motors announced that they had signed a contract under which Cobasys provides NiMH batteries for the Saturn Aura hybrid sedan.[18] In March 2007, GM announced that it would use Cobasys NiMH batteries in the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu hybrid as well. Cobasys remains unwilling to sell NiMH batteries in smaller quantities to individuals interested in building or retrofitting their own PHEVs."

The price of oil at the pump has increased over the years. Do you ever question what is happening to the profits? We use the term “big oil” and “big auto” quiet often. Imagine you are in a position to make decisions for big oil and you have at your disposal all the profits that have been (and will be) generated at the pumps. Will you sit idle and watch a company put a machine out that will destroy your monopoly on society?

We note:

1. GM only announced the Volt after Who Killed the Electric Car came out.

2. GM say they are spending $1 billion on the Volt. Hmm, where have we seen that figure before? Oh yes, what they claim they spent and lost on the EV1.

3. The EV1 had the lowest Cd of any production car ever at the time so why is the Volt design so abysmal?

4. Why were the EV1 adverts absolutely vile with a voice designed to scare the living daylights out of you?

5. Why were all the EV1s crushed in 2003-05 just as Peak Oil was starting to be felt?

6. Why are we waiting years for LiIon when there will never be enough Lithium to make meanigful numbers of LiIon EVs? And now Cobalt is also a constraint on NiMH production but could have been greatly ramped up since 1998 if NiMH had been continued for EV use on a large scale.

7. Why do some people think that an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels from 290ppm pre 1850 to over 400ppm today, record summer temperatures each year, water shortages, violent hurricanes, blurring of the seasons, mildest winters on record, record ice cap melting mean "no global warming"?