Updated: 6:19 a.m. PT Jan 7, 2007
Jan. 7, 2007 - Last month, Bob Lutz, General
Motors' renowned car czar, stood before a room
full of reporters and offered a stunning mea
culpa. "A few years ago," he said, "we made a bad
decision." That decision: GM failed to green
light a hybrid car, even though it had the
know-how and the technology left over from its
failed EV1 electric car. Toyota, of course, made
the opposite decision and today its Prius hybrid
is the envy of the automotive world. "The value
Toyota got out of the Prius, in terms of
positioning themselves as the world technology
leader, was incredible," bemoans Lutz. "Now we're
in a position to play catch-up."
This week at the Detroit Auto Show, GM hopes to
shock the car-buying public by unveiling its
catch-up vehicle: The Chevy Volt, a plug-in
hybrid that GM says can go 150mpg or more.
There's been plenty of buzz about plug-in hybrids
over the last year. But so far there are no
hybrids on the market that you can recharge by
plugging into a wall outlet. Instead, today's
hybrids recharge their batteries by capturing
energy from braking. But the Volt is a different
kind of hybrid. Unlike those on the market that
are primarily powered by a small gasoline engine,
this sexy little four-seater runs on pure
electricity. The tiny three-cylinder gasoline
engine under its hood is only used to recharge
the batteries, never to turn the wheels. You can
also recharge the Volt by plugging it into a
standard socket for about six hours. By contrast,
the 60mpg Prius can't be plugged in and only runs
on pure electric power until it hits about 15mph.
Then its small gasoline engine kicks in to
supplement the electric motor. Other hybrids,
like the Honda Civic, never run on pure electric
power, but are driven by a blend of gasoline and
kilowatts. Now, though, the race is on to have
the first plug-in hybrid on the market.
While GM works on the Volt, the company has
promised to have a plug-in version of its new
Saturn Vue hybrid on the market by next year,
though some technical experts are skeptical about
that aggressive timing. The Vue hybrid now on the
road isn't even as advanced as the Prius. The Vue
is a "mild hybrid" that never runs on electric
power, but gains most of its 25 percent fuel
economy improvement from having a special system
that shuts the engine off at stop lights and in
stop-and-go traffic. The next-generation Vue
will, like the Prius, be capable of running on
electric power at low speeds. And GM says you'll
be able to drive longer under electric power
because you'll be able to recharge the batteries
by plugging into your wall socket. Toyota and
Ford are also working on plug-ins, but have not
given a date for when they'll be available.
Experts say plug-ins could take five years to develop, despite GM's promise.
When will the Volt arrive? GM won't say. It all
depends on breakthroughs in battery technology.
To power the Volt, GM wants to use lithium-ion
batteries, which go farther on a charge than the
nickel-metal hydride batteries now used in
hybrids. But for now, lithium-ion batteries are
mostly used in small applications, like your cell
phone. Developing the 400-pound lithium-ion
battery required to run the Volt could take five
years, GM acknowledges. The roadblocks include
making it affordable and safe. "Thermal runaway
can be a problem," admits Volt chief engineer
Nick Zielinski. Huh? That means lithium-ion
batteries can overheat and set your car on fire.
Despite that, GM insists the Volt isn't just a PR
ploy to show up Toyota at the hometown auto show.
"This is no science-fair project," says GM vice
president Jon Lauckner. "We're deadly serious about this."
If the Volt does hits the streets, here's how it
will work: You'd plug your car into a regular
110-volt outlet in your garage every night. When
you head off for work in the morning, you could
go for 40 miles on pure electricity, without that
little engine kicking in to recharge the
batteries. So if your daily commute is under 40
miles, as is the case for most Americans, you'd never burn a drop of gas.
If you have a longer commute, the Volt then
becomes the ultimate gas miser. Let's say you
live 30 miles from your job, so your daily
round-trip is 60 miles. That means the Volt will
run 40 miles on pure electricity and 20 miles on
kilowatts generated by its little gasoline
engine. The net mileage: 150mpg. That is, unless
you have some place to plug in while you're at
work. That lithium-ion battery gets fully powered
up in about six hours. So if you recharge while
you work, you'll never burn any gas.
Sound too good to be true? It does to the Sierra
Club, a persistent critic of GM's gas guzzlers,
like the Hummer. "You'll pardon me if I'm
slightly dubious," says Dan Becker, director of
the Sierra Club's global-warming program. "Call
me back when they actually produce the vehicle."
Still, Becker says he likes the sound of the
technology that powers the Volt. "It would be
wonderful if this means GM finally intends to
take on Toyota," he says. "But they've got to
make it. Talking about it won't save the company or the environment."
GM was stung—and spurred on—by the drubbing it
took in last summer's documentary "Who Killed the
Electric Car?" The film laid the blame at GM's
doorstep, saying it never supported its fledgling
EV1 that became a darling of Left Coast enviros
in the '90s. But the tiny two-seater never caught
on with the general public because after driving
it for 60 to 90 miles, you had to stop and
recharge it for eight hours. By contrast, even if
you forgot to plug-in the Volt, you could go 640
miles between fill-ups and get 50mpg with the
engine charging the batteries, GM says. This
technology sounds so tantalizing, GM's biggest
risk is not delivering on it. Says Becker, "Then
the sequel to the movie is 'Who Didn't Build the Volt?'"
No comments:
Post a Comment