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The Story of the Volt


After having had the levitra woman chance to talk with executives, engineers and link for you generic cialis from canada designers at GM, I feel like I understand where the Volt came from, why we didn't see it sooner, and where the concept might soon be headed.

Bob Lutz pointed out that this is not really a new idea. Concept electric cars who's batteries were charged by an onboard generator existed as early as 1968. What has changed is battery technology.

In a short interview with Bob Lutz, he told me, and a group of other bloggers, that he honestly never believed battery technology would take off the way it did. He says, and I can't say whether or not he's being entirely truthful, that GM thought, after the EV1, that all-electric cars could never work. So, instead of investing heavily in battery technology, they invested in fuel cell technology.
More after the Jump 
This was a mistake. The craziest thing is, I think GM realizes it. There isn't a sense of regret that they spent so much money on fuel cells. But there is mail order propecia regret that they ignored battery technology. Even Bob Lutz seemed to recognize this, though he certainly didn't use the word "regret."

As battery technology advanced, some very high people at GM, possibly Lutz himself, asked engineers to come up with ways to create low-emissions vehicles using new lithium ion technology. They put their heads together, and the concept that stood out most among the field was the E-Flex system. That was about one year ago. The engineering team was put together a short time after that, and then the design team was given specifications just six months ago. By all accounts, they're moving quickly, at least on the get pharmacy concept.

But the overwhelming sense from everyone I talked to is that they're continuing to move quickly. Lutz expects other car companies to move forward with E-Flex like systems, but says it will take them a while to catch up where GM is (a complete reverse from general hybrid technologies.) The designers of the car don't know what they're going to work on next, or weren't allowed to say, while the lead engineer on the project didn't say whether he was continuing to work on the E-Flex system, but did say that he wasn't immediately moving to another project.

Lutz, in the blogger interview,  said that GM is 90% sure that this car would become reality. His point was that GM, just five years ago, would never do anything that it wasn't 100% sure would succeed. But it's too bad that they aren't 100% sure, I myself am 100% sure that it would sell, but we'll see how the percentages add up in the next few years.
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Don't be distracted - GM has a long way
written by Matt, January 09, 2007


We all know increasing fuel efficiency is the direction automakers need to levitra tab in indian head – so let’s get past the hype of a handful of viagra professional 100 mg concept vehicles and look at what they are doing with the rest of their fleet. Overall average fuel economy from the Big 6 is worse today that it was 10 years ago and tramadol online pharmacy GM is still heavily dependent on its gas guzzling truck lines. In addition to that they are still fighting tooth-and-nail against increasing fuel economy regulations, suing states that try to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and in December argued before the Supreme Court that carbon from tailpipe emissions was not even a pollutant. GM is still planning to expand their Hummer line to become 25% of their overall sales. Consumers still have limited options to find fuel-efficient cars that are affordable, well-built, and fun to drive. There are plenty of things automakers can do today to tramadol online online increase fuel economy – and I'm tired of being shown distracting concept cars that we won't see for 3-4 years if ever.

The power of the dollar
written by Celia, March 08, 2007
To keep the industry moving in this direction, we, as consumers, must buy vehicles with this technology. I like the cheap propecia 5mg fact that alternatives are multiplying.
First car was electric, but cannot compete the internal combustion engine yet.
written by Engineer, February 21, 2012
Using Chevy Volt, in the Electric Mode Only, Charging and Discharging the battery pack every day, is going to cost you $1000 in electricity, plus $3000 in the battery amortization, with a TOTAL of $4000 per year.

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