GM Shifts Engineers to Speed Creation of Electric Car

[serges]

gm shifts engineers to speed creation of electric car (update3)

by jeff green

june 15 (bloomberg) -- general motors corp. is reassigning 500 engineers to speed up the creation of the chevrolet volt, an electric car designed to close the automaker's technology gap with toyota motor corp.

the engineers will transfer from research and development to production engineering and other areas aimed at preparing the volt for sale, said larry burns, vice president of r&d at the detroit automaker. the volt and its fuel-cell powerplant are moving from ``theory'' to ``reality,'' he said in an interview.

the moves accelerate chief executive officer rick wagoner's multibillion-dollar gamble to power more vehicles with unproven technologies that use less gasoline. gm is trying to catch toyota, which has a decadelong lead in gasoline-electric cars and whose hybrids outsold gm's 100-to-1 in the u.s. last year.

``this would leapfrog the current hybrid technology,'' said kim hill, an associate director at the center for automotive research in ann arbor, michigan. ``right now, you still have to go to a gas station to drive your hybrid. with the volt, you can avoid that.''

gm's initial goal of selling 1,000 volts by the end of the decade hinges on developing a reliable, long-lasting battery. if that target is met, the largest u.s. automaker expects to sell 1 million within five years to make the model profitable.

not your father's hybrid

the volt differs from a traditional hybrid because it is initially charged at an electric outlet and then uses an onboard engine to recharge the batteries after the primary charge from the outlet is exhausted.

the vehicle would travel 40 miles before tapping the engine, which could be powered by gasoline or diesel fuel or hydrogen fuel cells. toyota's prius, the world's best-selling hybrid, uses friction from braking and the gasoline engine to recharge its battery and travels only short distances on battery power alone.

u.s. hybrid sales last year rose 23 percent to 253,652. toyota, led by its prius model, accounted for about three of every four hybrids delivered. gm sold 1,788 hybrids -- all of them saturn sport-utility vehicles.

gm's initiative faces skepticism because the company scrapped an earlier electric-car program and resisted gasoline- electric hybrid technology, said dan becker, director of the global warming program at the sierra club in washington.

follow through?

``it would be nice of gm to keep its word and actually produce a large number of clean vehicles,'' said becker, who drives a prius. ``if they do, people will probably buy them. the question is whether they have the will to follow this through.''

transferring fuel-cell engineers to the production side of the company means gm can focus all efforts, from all different propulsion types, toward getting the volt to the market, burns said.

gm also said today it would shift 100 engineers to its global product development organization to work on integrating fuel cells into other future vehicles. the automaker said 150 scientists and program support staff will remain at gm's research and development center to research hydrogen storage and ``program commercialization.''

the biggest obstacle for the volt's plug-in technology is building a lithium ion battery that can last at least a decade and have the reliability carmakers expect from current gasoline models, vice chairman bob lutz and other executives have said.

``we've run the fuel-cell program as a skunk works up until now,'' burns said. ``now we need to tap in to the production and marketing expertise of the company to get this developed as quickly as possible. we have our a team on this.''

an advisory board including burns, lutz and other key executives for the volt is meeting every two weeks, burns said.

sign of progress

signaling progress on the volt, wagoner said last week gm awarded battery-research contracts to michigan-based compact power inc., a subsidiary of south korea's lg chem ltd. and another to continental automotive systems, a continental ag unit. burns said 13 companies bid for the two contracts.

the volt would be superior to gm's last electric car, the ev-1, because the onboard engine can be tapped for long trips, giving it a maximum range of about 640 miles, lutz said earlier this year. the ev-1 traveled about 60 miles to 90 miles before it needed to be plugged in and recharged.

gm invested more than $1 billion on the ev-1 a decade ago. it abandoned the technology because of the car's expense and need for frequent recharging. gm has already invested $1 billion on fuel cells and plans to invest another $1 billion.

demonstration fleet

gm will build more than 100 chevy equinox fuel-cell models starting this year as part of a demonstration fleet of the technology, which converts hydrogen into electricity with only water as a byproduct. in addition, gm is developing a plug-in hybrid-electric version of the saturn vue.

those two models are interim steps before the volt goes on sale, burns said. the sequel prototype, which gm has used to demonstrate fuel-cell technology, will be supplanted by the volt, he said.

shares of gm gained $1.09, or 3.2 percent, to $34.69 at 4 p.m. in new york stock exchange composite trading. they have climbed 13 percent this year.

gm's 8.375 percent note due july 2033 rose 0.56 cent to 91.56 cents on the dollar, yielding 9.24 percent, according to trace, the nasd's bond-price reporting service.



to contact the reporter on this story: jeff green in southfield, michigan, at [email protected]
last updated: june 15, 2007 16:10 edt

[serges]

hum vamos ver se é desta depois de o "dito" buraco ev1, buraco diziam os senhores da gm, vamos ver como vai ser este novo modelo!

aparencia tem ele!





sperar para ver, quase todos os principais fabricantes estão a por como meta 2010! mitsubishi-miev, colt-miev, evolution miev... subaru er1, etc etc

[EnergiaDiesel]

mazda rx8 a hidrogénio.

[senator]

o mazda rx-8 é + 1 adaptacao mas n é solucao... tudo bem, da... mas n é o ideal!!! tem economia reduzidissima, queima o hidrogenio (muito menos eficiente do que as celulas de combustivel de outros, como o honda) e ainda tem problemas tecnicos. ah e 1 redução enorme em termos de potencia!!!

qto ao carro da gm, presumo q todos ja tenham visto o filme who killed the electric car (vi ha pouco tempo pelo q inda tou extremamente revoltado), pelo que não tenho grandes expectativas em relacao a ele... infelizmente... têm o know-how e a experiencia mas fazem-no pelas razoes erradas!!! so aceleram a producao do carro porque os japoneses os obrigam!!!

outra coisa q m enerva é o facto de o bush tar a criar cada vez mais dificuldades em relacao a carros "verdes"... e n sei sinceramente o q é q ele vai fazer em relacao a este!! ta certo q inda usa gasosa, q é o qle gosta! mas usa muito menos... e isso n é bom...

tirando os contras, axo espectacular o conceito do carro, o facto d n termos limitações em termos d autonomia nem nada disso, mas mmo assim o carro funcionar d graca pelo menos alguns kms!!! n sei s vai ter plug-in, mas s tiver, é perfeito!!!

qm n viu o "who killed the electric car", veja! é 1 filme essencial para todos... pos-m c uma raiva em relacao à gm, ao governo americano, etc...

abraços

ah e permitam-m q ria da frase " o ev-1 foi eliminado devido aos custos elevados...".

1º, o ev-1 tava em fase final de testes e so ai é q descobriram q é caro?! q raio de empresa cria 1 produto para chegar a fase de comercializacao (apos milhoes investidos) e dizer "ah... é caro... esquecam..." n brinquem connosco...

2º, podia ate custar 70 000 euros (e pelo que entendi n custava nem metade disso) q após meia duzia de aninhos abatia o preço. o carro era barato, andava de graça... realmente, axo q eles têm razao!! n ha mercado para 1 carro assim!!! ninguem ker 1 carro destes!!!! n brinquemos...

3º porque raio é q a texaco (petroleo) ker a patente das baterias do ev-1, q nem consome derivados d pertoleo?! enfim


p.s. - fugi ao topico, pus-m a divagar e peço desculpa por isso, mas 1 coisa leva à outra...

[serges]

pois, não fugiste, é a triste realidade!

esperemos que essa realidade não volte a acontecer, vamos precionar já que é o nosso poder de escolha que obriga as marcas a procurar novos modelos e tecnologias!