E
flex System versus Hybrid Synergy Drive: First Thoughts
Thursday,
January 11, 2007
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GM
steps up E-Flex plans
Several
years ago I thought that automakers should do everything
possible to develop hydrogen powered vehicles, especially
fuel cell vehicles. Eventually, however, it became obvious
that there were many, many technological hurdles - in
addition to massive costs - to overcome and to make this
hydrogen future a reality.
Moreover, it seemed obvious,
especially after 9/11, that America couldn't just wait for
the hydrogen highway to deliver a road to energy security.
Fortunately, Honda launched the Insight
hybrid and Toyota quickly followed with the Prius.
For Honda, hybrid technology was a niche a technology, an
experiment in fuel efficiency. By the second generation of
the Prius, however, not only was the Prius a hit with
consumers, it was the beginning of a foundation, an
element of Toyota's kaizen.
The Prius had become a path to fuel cell vehicles.
Essentially, one can buy a Prius today and know that their
purchase is not only an investment in clean and fuel
efficient hybrid technology, but it is also an investment
in fuel cell technology. For Toyota the Hybrid Synergy
Drive is an adaptable foundation that will one day evolve
into a fuel-cell electric vehicle.
Why, I've often wondered, isn't any other automaker taking
this path? If one models the evolution of the automobile
after the evolution of life, one has to realize that
evolution doesn't typically occur in one big boom, it
happens in small adaptations. Sure, there might be a
small boom here and there - typically the after-affect of
a small adaptation - but constant flexibility,
adaptability will eventually result in evolutionary
changes.
It seems Toyota's belief in kaizen, or incremental change,
has evolved Toyota's manufacturing process to the next
level. Hybrid
vehicles are not an interim
technology to fuel cell vehicles, hybrids are an integral
step to fuel cell vehicles, the Australopithecus of
fuel cell evolution if you will.
Again, I wondered, why isn't any other automaker taking
such a natural, evolutionary path to the automotive
revolution?
Then I started to hear rumors of GM's plug-in hybrid
program, and a possible line of series hybrids. Then both
Rick Wagoner and Bob Lutz started announcing that the
future was electric. Soon after, GM announced that the Saturn
Vue hybrid would eventually be converted into a
plug-in hybrid vehicle.
Suddenly, I began to realize GM might have accepted
evolution.
On Sunday,
January 7 it all came together. I sat for two hours
waiting to see the most important moment in GM's modern
history, the debut of the Volt
electric concept vehicle and the launch of the E-flex
system - a platform of varying electrical vehicle
propulsion systems built on a common chassis - an
adaptable, evolutionary path to fuel cell vehicles.
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