Devolted:
Secret memo indicates Chevy Volt won't happen
Wednesday, January 8, 2008
Shock:
The Chevy Volt was just a marketing ploy?!
I was just forwarded a copy of a secret GM memo between
Bob Lutz and Rick Wagoner regarding GM's plans to slowly
pull the plug on the Chevy
Volt, which I'll post after I check into some
legalities.
It turns out that computer models just before the Volt
debut at NAIAS demonstrated that GM's plan to achieve 40
miles of pure electricity with the Chevy Volt simply isn't
possible without significant advances in lithium
technology. Nevertheless, GM went forward with the Volt
debut because it was too late to do anything else.
However, with all the Volt buzz at the show, GM saw an
opportunity to capitalize on the hype created by the Volt
that GM car tsar, Bob Lutz, convinced CEO, Rick Wagoner,
to pretend that the Volt was a real program as cover to
further develop fuel cell vehicles. Additionally, the
delay would give GM more time to convince Americans that
ethanol would solve America's energy problems until fuel
cell vehicles.
Unfortunately, the hype around the Volt has now grown so
great that Wagoner now believes the Volt has become a huge
mistake that threatens to backfire and destroy the
company, especially when just the announcement that the
Volt might not be ready by 2010 can almost instantly cause
GM's stock to drop (more).
O.K., I'm kidding. I have no such memo. There is no such
memo, I hope. Yet, I'm amazed at how many believe that the
Volt is vaporware, as it was called on MotorTrend's Forums
today, for example.
Just last month I talked to Bob Lutz, as well as numerous
lead engineers working on the Volt project, such Tony
Posawatz, Volt Vehicle Line Engineer and Denise Gray,
Director of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems (Stay tuned. I
think I might make these interviews available - at least
as PodCasts), and I have no doubts that GM is dead serious
about producing the Volt.
These people aren't liars. Bob Lutz is a man that doesn't
lie. He doesn't have to lie. He just says what he thinks.
If you don't believe or like what he says, that's your
problem. Today, Bob Lutz works at GM because he wants
to, and I truly believe that if it wasn't for the Volt,
Bob would now be retired. The Volt is the defining moment
of Bob Lutz's amazing career. Would he really risk it all
on a Volt lie? What's the gain?
It's all about the battery
The Volt battery team just took delivery of the first
battery pack on Halloween. It would seem silly to put that
one battery pack in a prototype Volt just to meet a
prediction made in March when Bob Lutz suggested a full
prototype could be available at the end of 2007 - the
first major benchmark of the Volt program. With one
battery so much more testing could be done in the labs
than in one prototype.
So, yeah, the Volt missed its first benchmark, which was
really just an estimate in the first place. So what?
Both Volt engineers I interviewed, Tony and Denise,
confirmed that the first Volt prototype is scheduled for
the first quarter of this year. While Denise admitted
achieving this date would be tough, she still believed it
could be met. Denise also thought the 2010 date could be
met, but that it would also be hard.
Under normal circumstances it can take 3 to 4 years to
engineer a vehicle from concept to production and somehow
GM is supposed to go from concept to production on the
most sophisticated car they will have ever produced in 2
or 3 years?
Anyway, hopefully, Wagoner's recent announcement that Volt
battery tests have been "favorable" means
that this is still the case, and I hope to find this out
this weekend when I meet with GM at NAIAS. So, if you're
interested in this subject, check back on Sunday and
Monday.
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