GM today downplayed a report in Automotive News, an industry publication, that it would be cutting off nearly all product development spending for the next two years in an effort to trim as much as $1.5 billion in spending. Several planned hybrids are also likely to be victims of the cuts. But the Chevrolet Volt has been spared at this time.
When you imagine plugging an electric or plug-in hybrid car into the wall to recharge, what do you envision in your hand? A standard orange extension cord? Time to change that picture; production electric-drive vehicles will all use a special cord, with a plug and socket on the car end that’s unlike any you’ve seen before. (Photo by Zevotron via flickr creative commons.)
As the current congress scrambles to pass an energy bill before its term expires at the end of the year, some parts of the House version of the legislation should be of note to green car enthusiasts.
The drop in oil prices—more than $50 off the record high price of $147.27 a barrel on July 11—raises questions about how soon auto companies will deliver on exciting plans for “game-changing” alternative vehicles.
Over the past year, GM has teased the public with successive glimpses of more and more of the much-hyped Chevy Volt. Now, the first set of photos of the whole car—shown behind the development team executives—have been “leaked” on several enthusiast websites.
Continuing to tease the public and the media with details on the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the car’s designer today showed a handful of slides that revealed further details of the car’s design. The entire car won’t be revealed until the Los Angeles Auto Show in November.
If you were to visualize the most enthusiastic supporter of the much-touted Chevrolet Volt—someone who rallies thousands on its behalf, who blogs daily, whose influence and prestige garners invites to speak with top GM brass—what would that person look like? Probably not Lyle Dennis, a mild-mannered suburban neurologist from New Jersey.
The cover story of the current issue of IEEE Spectrum is a profile of Denise Gray, the GM executive in charge of making sure that the Volt’s battery packs are delivered—on time, in adequate quantities, at an acceptable cost. That could be the most critical role for the project.
Kicking off what campaign advisors have dubbed "energy week," Barack Obama today called for an "end to the age of oil in our time." He backed up his trademark optimism with the most dramatic auto technology proposals of the 2008 campaign cycle. Obama said he hopes to see 1 million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
The American automobile industry is very large and very complex. In a recent conference held in Las Vegas, David Kiley of BusinessWeek and Peter De Lorenzo of Autoextremist.com tried to make sense of it. They talked about cars that run on green beans, vapor and tinsel marketing, and dying roses.
Speaking at the Plug-in 2008 conference in San Jose, Calif., Andy Grove, former Chairman & CEO, Intel Corporation, added his voice to the chorus of government and business leaders calling for electricity-powered vehicles and the mass deployment of plug-in hybrids. HybridCars.com spoke with Jon Lauckner, who is leading General Motors' effort to launch the Chevy Volt, about what it will take to turn such a plan into reality.
General Motors can’t catch a break with its green car plans. As hybrids steadily gained market share in the first half of this decade, the company stayed out of the game. When GM finally stepped forward, it did so with all of the passion of a CPA—all numbers and no guts. Finally, GM executives threw all caution to the wind and conceived the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid—an inspiring vision of what a vehicle could be at the beginning of the post-petroleum age. Unfortunately, GM might have missed the mark again—this time completing tossing out the business planning that it over-applied in the past.
The Chevy Volt concept car has been put out to stud. Its final public appearance was last week, at the Brookings Institute plug-in hybrid conference held in Washington, DC. GM has announced it will no longer be shown in public, and that the styling of the production Volt will be unveiled “soon." So what will the actual Volt look like? It will have to me much more aerodynamic, and from the few glimpses we've had thus far, the body design may just resemble that of the Toyota Prius.
General Motors CEO, Richard Wagoner, announced today that the company will shut down four North American plants in a move designed to shift production away from pickups and SUVs, toward smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Wagoner said that the plan comes in response to a rapid change in consumer behavior tied to rising fuel costs, a trend that he did not expect to reverse soon.
Later this month, General Motors will begin real-world testing a fleet of Chevrolet Malibus outfitted with lithium ion battery technology—as part of a push to bring the Chevrolet Volt concept vehicle to market.
It's been more than a year since General Motors unveiled its visionary Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid concept vehicle—and GM executives are showing a level of dedication bordering on zeal. But enthusiasm, and even a big budget, doesn’t ensure GM’s victory against those who might kill the Volt.
Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman for product development, told a group of automotive journalists that the feasibility of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid concept will be proven by next Easter. By that time, he said that GM will have put the Volt’s electric drive system and lithium batteries in stripped down Chevy Malibu bodies—referred to as “mule” vehicles—and tested the ability of the Volt system to achieve 40 miles of gas-free range. Mr. Lutz made his comments in San Francisco at a meeting of the Western Automotive Journalists association.
