Hybrid cars that you can recharge from mains electricity are going to change the world. Andrew English gets a sneak preview of General Motors' plug-in Volt and reports on recent American legislation changes that will affect us all
There should have been maroons over Michigan two weeks ago when California's Air Resources Board (Carb) plumped for plug-in hybrids over battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cells in its latest legislation. California is the world's largest and most influential car market - the state's inhabitants buy more than two million new cars each year. Carb's anti-pollution rules are highly influential across the globe and are mandated by another 13 states in the USA. Hybrid petrol-electric and diesel-electric cars, along with bioethanol from crops, are America's big ideas for saving fuel and the planet, as well as reducing dependency on imported oil. Even presidency contender Barack Obama has sponsored a bill, "Health Care For Hybrids", on Capitol Hill, to encourage US car makers to speed development of these vehicles in return for government help in alleviating the burden of healthcare for retired workers.
Plug-in hybrids are the acme of this hybrid thinking and you might have thought that General Motors, with just such a world-first, mass-production car at an advanced state of development, would be blowing its trumpet to the world news agencies. But no. Instead of celebrating, GM maintained an inscrutable silence as it revealed the inner secrets of its plug-in petrol-electric hybrid car, the Volt, which is slated for launch in 2010 or 2011.
Actually GM doesn't refer to the Volt as a plug-in hybrid, preferring to maintain a lofty distance between it and lesser machines by using the term "extended-range electric vehicle" (E-Rev). It does have a point, for while the Volt shares its petrol engine/generator/battery pack with independently produced rival plug-in hybrids, it is also designed to run 40 miles solely on its lithium-ion batteries before its engine will start, which betters rivals by a considerable margin.
"This is not about the vehicle so much as the propulsion technology," says Volt project head Frank Weber. "Other plug-ins will all switch on the engine within five minutes of you leaving home."
The Volt's 40-mile electric range means that almost 70 per cent of American commuters will not need to start the engine during their daily drive, which brings its own set of problems. As Volt powertrain chief Alex Cattelan says: "For the customer who is doing less than 30 miles a day, the engine will never run and the fuel never gets used, so how do we keep its fuel and oil fresh?"
Equally, some lazy customers are never going to plug this vehicle into the mains, which means the conventional internal combustion engine will have to run virtually all the time. The development problems have been novel and in some cases unique for this amazing car.
Amazing? Well, sort of. The Volt first appeared at last year's Detroit auto show as a snazzy four-seat coupé (above), but that's not the Volt that will go on sale in two years in the US (European sales should start a year later). Instead the Volt will be a five-door hatchback, based on the pressed steel underbody architecture of the replacement for the Vauxhall Astra, or "Delta" platform as GM calls it.
A five-door Astra? Whichever way GM spins it, the Volt will be a long way from the visionary picture outlined by talented GM design engineer and Briton, Christopher Borroni-Bird, back in 2002: "Electric power means a new sort of car, built in modern factories, supplied by high-tech, low-cost suppliers. GM is creating a new world order of personal transport." So is GM killing the electric car once again?
The answers are complicated, not least because under the skin the Volt is revolutionary and the effects of what GM's CEO Rick Wagoner calls "the electrification of the automobile" might have unforeseen effects far beyond mere transportation…
Under the skin
There should have been maroons over Michigan two weeks ago when California's Air Resources Board (Carb) plumped for plug-in hybrids over battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cells in its latest legislation. California is the world's largest and most influential car market - the state's inhabitants buy more than two million new cars each year. Carb's anti-pollution rules are highly influential across the globe and are mandated by another 13 states in the USA. Hybrid petrol-electric and diesel-electric cars, along with bioethanol from crops, are America's big ideas for saving fuel and the planet, as well as reducing dependency on imported oil. Even presidency contender Barack Obama has sponsored a bill, "Health Care For Hybrids", on Capitol Hill, to encourage US car makers to speed development of these vehicles in return for government help in alleviating the burden of healthcare for retired workers.
Plug-in hybrids are the acme of this hybrid thinking and you might have thought that General Motors, with just such a world-first, mass-production car at an advanced state of development, would be blowing its trumpet to the world news agencies. But no. Instead of celebrating, GM maintained an inscrutable silence as it revealed the inner secrets of its plug-in petrol-electric hybrid car, the Volt, which is slated for launch in 2010 or 2011.
Actually GM doesn't refer to the Volt as a plug-in hybrid, preferring to maintain a lofty distance between it and lesser machines by using the term "extended-range electric vehicle" (E-Rev). It does have a point, for while the Volt shares its petrol engine/generator/battery pack with independently produced rival plug-in hybrids, it is also designed to run 40 miles solely on its lithium-ion batteries before its engine will start, which betters rivals by a considerable margin.
"This is not about the vehicle so much as the propulsion technology," says Volt project head Frank Weber. "Other plug-ins will all switch on the engine within five minutes of you leaving home."
The Volt's 40-mile electric range means that almost 70 per cent of American commuters will not need to start the engine during their daily drive, which brings its own set of problems. As Volt powertrain chief Alex Cattelan says: "For the customer who is doing less than 30 miles a day, the engine will never run and the fuel never gets used, so how do we keep its fuel and oil fresh?"
Equally, some lazy customers are never going to plug this vehicle into the mains, which means the conventional internal combustion engine will have to run virtually all the time. The development problems have been novel and in some cases unique for this amazing car.
Amazing? Well, sort of. The Volt first appeared at last year's Detroit auto show as a snazzy four-seat coupé (above), but that's not the Volt that will go on sale in two years in the US (European sales should start a year later). Instead the Volt will be a five-door hatchback, based on the pressed steel underbody architecture of the replacement for the Vauxhall Astra, or "Delta" platform as GM calls it.
A five-door Astra? Whichever way GM spins it, the Volt will be a long way from the visionary picture outlined by talented GM design engineer and Briton, Christopher Borroni-Bird, back in 2002: "Electric power means a new sort of car, built in modern factories, supplied by high-tech, low-cost suppliers. GM is creating a new world order of personal transport." So is GM killing the electric car once again?
The answers are complicated, not least because under the skin the Volt is revolutionary and the effects of what GM's CEO Rick Wagoner calls "the electrification of the automobile" might have unforeseen effects far beyond mere transportation…
Under the skin
The heart of the Volt is a 16kWh, 160hp/ 273lb ft, 375lb (170kg) T-shaped, liquid-cooled battery pack that takes three hours to charge using 220v, 3.3kW mains electricity - in the US, with its 110v supply, it will take six hours. Since the pack charges faster when it is empty, one hour's charge will give Europeans about half a charge, or 20 miles of electric-only running.
The two competing suppliers, Compact Power Inc/LG Chem and Continental/A123Systems, have already delivered cell packs to GM for advanced heat, cold, vibration and charge/discharge testing for their target 10-year, 150,000-mile life.
You might boggle at the thought of GM returning to battery technology after the debacle of the EV-1, a lead-acid battery-powered car produced between 1996 and 1999. These sleek, 80mph coupés were the subject of Chris Paine's 2006 documentary Who Killed The Electric Car? GM leased out more than 800 EV-1s in the US, but if you took away the government subsidies, each one would have cost GM just under $1 million to produce. Eventually the company recalled all 1,100 EV-1s and crushed most of them, although it retains two at its technology centre in Michigan in the same low-roofed workshop where their batteries underwent development - ironically, it's also where the Volt's battery pack is being developed.
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