Video walk through of the Volt. (she says "intuitive" a lot. A visual tour of the GM Volt, electric cars | Green Tech - CNET News There is a bit of other EV news. Interesting that it has a 400 lb battery but only goes 40 miles compared to a 900 lb Roadster bat goes 200 miles.
It's almost worth having a 200lb battery, taking the greater DoD and swapping it after 5 years to not drag around all that dead weight...
"Interesting that it has a 400 lb battery but only goes 40 miles compared to a 900 lb Roadster bat goes 200 miles." That's because the Volt only uses half of its capacity. Also, since the pack is small, it will have to sustain high discharge rates. That means it has to be optimized for power density (which trades off with energy density)
Well, and also the Roadster does not have to carry around the extra weight of an engine and a back seat. Does anyone know the weight of the Volt? I bet it is more than 2700 lbs.
Oh yeah, I read this figure earlier today. It is interesting since the figure reported previous to this week has been $2 billion. (as opposed to the EV1's $1 billion). Even so $750 million to make a car still looks like a lot compared with Telsa's $140 million. I wonder if the price they are reporting now as opposed to earlier is because it is true, or because they needed to look better to try and receive the loans?
I was wondering the same thing. Is it that they have more capacity elsewhere with the slowdown, or this is more "give us money, or we will shoot ourselves in the head" tactic?
From the AP wire - I can understand not wanting to ship the engines from Austria, but you can ship a hell of a lot of engines for $350,000,000. There's probably capacity issues as well. But I really can't understand why GM would build a new engine plant for a vehicle they expect to lose money on when they are bleeding $52,000 a minute.
Very fluffy piece, but it is nice that they did not end up hating it. I look forward to more in depth scrutiny in the future.
Spoilt for choice with GM threads now, but here goes: Detroit 2009: GM will build Volt battery packs with LG Chem in Michigan - Autoblog Detroit 2009: GM to build world's largest battery lab
First Chevy Volt engines will come from Aspern, Austria - AutoblogGreen http://www.autobloggreen.com/photos/gm-flint-powertrain-1-4l-engine/1056674/ Hmm that picture seems to have grown between ABG and here...
After a long wait, a post that really should go here: CMU study indicates the Chevy Volt may be too expensive to be effective - AutoblogGreen