The Ace has come out, but will the cardholder botch it? Overall, this is nice, but how long will it take them to go from concept to showroom? If they fastrack it, it may be ready by 2010-2011. OTOH, 7-8 years may be more feasible.

they could do it now, but two drivetrains and a big set of batts will be expensive.

expect at least $10k over the cost of the normal version.

everyone ready to pay $25k for a chevy cobalt raise your hand.

in other words, anyone who wants to buy a small slow less safe car with unproven technology for the price of a full size truck w/ room for 5 and all your lumber and a V8.

this is why nobody sells a series hybrid.

many people will pay $300 towards carbon (guilt) offsets, but it is a rare person who will spend an extra $10k on the smaller, slower, less safe, vehicle that will probably have reliability issues.

I could see myself buying it if it had a slightly higher all-electric range (not much, maybe 60 miles).

However, I think GM is approaching this thing the wrong way, from a marketing and production standpoint. They're taking a bottom-up approach, that is, start with the small car that "everyone" would buy and working up to a more expensive, full-featured version. Here's the problem:

By starting with a car for "everyone" that's never actually been built before, GM is going to be relying on market forecasting that will probably be way off of what they'll experience in reality. This results in production planning being (probably) set conservatively, which means lower economies of scale and thus more expensive cars. More expensive cars mean less demand, which in turn increases cost. It's a cycle that you always want to avoid when it comes to production, so things will need to be planned properly on GM's part, with excess capacity built and paid for.

By taking a top-down approach (say, by doing what Tesla Motors is doing) and releasing much more expensive, "luxury" or "prestige" models, they'll be able to build up initial demand through word of mouth and experience marketing, rather than relying solely on the "need" of the consumer to market the product.

I'd say GM needs to sell a beefed up E-Flex car for around $50,000. It should be a luxury model with an all-electric range of around 150 miles (totally feasible). Limit production to something like 1000 units in the USA in the first year, and target major cities, especially in blue states (no disrespect to the reds).

Focus on selling out of those, get the car in auto magazines and show it at car expos, get the word out, get people talking about GM's new technology that saves hundreds of dollars on fuel. Then, in 4-6 years, you release a cheaper version with lower range (say 100 miles, battery technology should continue to improve over the next half-decade) and mass market it. Guaranteed they'll be sold out and have people on a waiting list like Toyota's Prius.

Mind you, that's just what I'd do if I was working at GM. Who knows, maybe they'll scrap this one too. Or maybe the Japanese will just do it better for less, as they always do.

Now the "Big Oil" and "Big Auto" tie-in is becoming clear: A123Systems and Johnson Controls provide the technology and the patents; Cobasys, a joint venture with Chevron/Texaco (and encouraged by all others in Big Oil) finance battery development and controls the battery patents. They do this using the courts to filing infringement suits. GM buys the prototype batteries from money gained through the Government sponsored Big Three battery consortium. "Big Oil" in effect is still controlling the US energy game and thus the prices by letting consumers move into electric cars and flex fuels on their own terms. A level playing field doesn't exist as long as Congress just stands by and watches. I think hearing on the subject are long overdue. The effect of Big Oil's control serves to slow down development of electric cars and to impede their progress into production, This extents the time we will continue to depend on foreign oil and continues to let other countries set our energy prices and policy. We should be moving at flank speed to get out from under their thumb but the greed of US Big Oil sabotages the entire effort.

I don't give a damn who is making money off this or who makes them, just get these cars out now. I will buy at once.

Give the guys a cheer. This is definitely a step in teh right direction. The 40 miles range is suitable for many people for commuting. If you actually carry lumber, buy a SUV, otherwise this is interesting.

But as people say - when can I buy one and how much will it be ?

Trivial project, routinely made by DIY mechanics, university graduates, and no less than by two dozen small companies. No real news to discuss.

By the way, Cobalt platform is a junk, and series hybrid is proved to be inferior in personal transportation applications.

The only real good news is that electric drive lobby inside GM is getting stronger.

As I said a year ago when working on ev and fuelcell cars this was what gm was working tward.

They want to replace the engie first aproach with an eletric motor first syetembecause a genset can be alot more eff then a mechanicalylinked engine. This is becausew it can be atone set speed for its entire time on and it can be geared totaly for that most eff range gett9ing far beter fielecon.

Also its means they can use a MUCH smaller engine what would normalyrequire a 1.4-1.6 liter engine they manage with 1.

Also its alot easyer to create a multi fuel genset thats eff with each and every fuel. So they could make a single car that has a e85 e100 tank AND a biodeisel tank all for just a 100 or so more bucks then one fuel.

There's no reward for hard work.

GM has been futzing around with concept cars and platforms for many years now -- and we've seen a Saturn VUE to show for it.

Let's see some better products, eh? This sounds like a great idea, but get a quality cost-efficient one out of the lab and into the showroom please.

"This is something that we have been working on for close to a year.

—Jon Lauckner, GM VP Global Program Management "

GM has fast tracked this concept car, suggesting they may be serious about building this one. there is no new technology in this one except for the batteries, maybe they will prove a lot of guys wrong.

so many replies here suggest GM is the same old detroit
company with no new tricks. i think of them as a global company now that's beginning to show some life. they have to change and grow now. did't they lose their number 1 place to toyota this year?

my wifes car is an inline 6 suzuki verona, when we shopped for her new car, suzuki beat toyota and honda by $2500 and the GM owned korean plant that her car came from still had many more options than toyota or honda. it's been a super car for her.

Andrey:
You said, "By the way, Cobalt platform is a (piece of) junk, and series hybrid is proved to be inferior in personal transportation applications."

Can you explain why you feel a series hybird is inferior?

This is by far the best attempt from GE to get back into the game. However, there are a couple of flaws in the components they chose in their electric drive: A123 Systems batteries (the ones GM chose) are great but at only 16 KW*hr, the battery pack will be required to be discharged at rates greater than 1 C, shortening the life of the battery (minor flaw). The specific energy of the A123 system batteries is about 110 W*hr/kg. However, if the SOC is not going to fall below 30% (only 70% of capacity is available) the effective energy density of the battery pack drops to 77 W*hr/kg. Atair Nano Batteries on the other hand have a lower energy density of 90 W*hr/kg but they can be discharged to 0% SCO for 15,000 cycles (not a typo!)which means the effective energy density is higher than those of A123 Systems. With 15,000 cycles and 40 miles/full charge, you can drive the car for over 600,000 miles. As an added bonus, the power density of the Altair batteries is 4 KW/kg versus 3 KW/kg for A123 systems.
The propulsion system that GM is most likely to use is with permanent magnets/DC motors. GM should have picked the most power dense drivetrain in the market: AC Propulsion. AC Propulsion drivetrain is used in the Wrightspeed X1 (0 to 60 in 3 seconds), TZero (0 to 60 in 3.6 secons) and the Tesla roadster (0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds). This drivetrain in very efficient and light (Tesla managed to put the 248 hp electric motor, the differential and a transmission in a 140 lb package!). As a general rule, AC motors are 3 times more power dense than their DC counterparts. GM has to come to terms that they neglected R&D in the hybrid arena for so long, they simply cannot catch up with Toyota. GM must license the best technologies available in corporate America if the really want to have a piece of the next generation hybrid pie.