GM exec claims Volt propulsion system “too expensive”

Maybe a Briggs and Stratton two cylinder garden tractor engine and a pile of black and Decker Li cordless drill batterys will solve there woes.... ;)

Ford had the right idea in there edge prototype hybrid. a fuel cell.

bob

And at $10k for a battery pack that will deteriorate in 3 years this pushes cost per mile right up there with a Ferari. Bet it doesn't drive nor ride like one.

Ferdinand, Hitlers friend just like GM, gets good epitaph for his inventions and mastery, while they who they stole from got into loads of trouble and are forgotten.

Then we are talking about Volkswagen and Tatra, Ferdinand Porsche and Hans Ledwinka. Hans had designed one new brand of Tatra cars before the war, me=F0 loftk=E6ldum boxer, magnesium gearshift, suspensions back, all kinds of new inventions for the bodyparts that can be described in detail and set into production in Wolfsburg.

The case came to a court after the war, Ferdinand was convicted for stealing ideas (Hitler banned continued production of Tatra 97) but Ledwinka, one of the masterminds of the carworld was kept in prison for making cars for Hitler, and Ferdinand got the honour and riches to the end of his life.

The new Volt is based on the same ideas and is an interesting Hybrid even if it is not expressing any new ideas.

Hybrids may have some use but true electrics is what we need.

GM is as usual stealing ideas but not implementing it right and it is way too expensive.

If they were to have any possibility of survival they should be making a true electric car and make it with quality and make it inexpensive.

Would you believe anything like that ever happen?

They are sure to make it expensive and of low quality so who cares really about this new Vold bastardo.

expensive?

Unfortunately others will build a real electric-as GM could have done with the EV-1. That old mindset is still there and it will do them ill.

Guys, the EV-1 was never a practical commercial product. You can blame GM for a lot of things but not selling the EV-1 outright is not one of them, that was a good business decision. Give them props for doing the R&D to develop it to the point that it was, then move on.

nate

An electrical car is much simpler than the rest.

You need a a) box b) generator c) batteries d) BMS to control the batteries.

a) is very easy and everyone and his grandmother can make one. b) a hell of a lot of variety and know technology available c) these are available but mostly still a bit expensive d) these are a bit varied in quality but there are good options available

For pretty much anyone it is possible to make one in the home garage. You can take an old car and make the change.

There is no rocket science needed to put together an electric car.

For a company needing to make the box 10 to 100 times more expensive to pay for fat cat management it is a dead end.

Making one Volt costs X the cost to the customer is 100X

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Make one in you garage will cost you from 3X to 10X depending on your skill.

you would only be able to drive it on your own property it still needs to pass all safety and other regs. drive it hit someone and they own you forever. golf carts already exist try driving it on the highway. Every thing is always simple in the mind of simple people.

I know several people who have taken ordinary cars and changed them into electrical cars.

Take out the old motor, fuel tank, remove exhaust system put in batteries and generator and they can and do drive on the highway.

Very simple.

It works and more and more people do this and the driving costs more or less disappear.

The strange thing is the old registration remains the same.

The BS bells went off. personally know several people. how far did they go. how did they drive etc. you probably don't even have a drivers license. a home made car is worthless. and probably unsafe, show me proof, not internet stuff, the several you saw. Not likey troll

Not legally unless they are subjected to a complete inspection to make sure they are legal and road worthy.

B.S. They still need to buy all the parts, then what does it cost to charge the vehicle? Also if they are doing this legally they would need to do MUCH more than just drop in the motor and controller.

It better not. NONE of the power plant is the same and insurance companies do NOT like home brewed vehicles.

Believe it or not but the cars are registered and insured as if they were still the old type of car.

I guess it basically means the system has not set rules for this situation yet.

Home built Electrical cars are more or less considered bicycles and treated as such so you can use them anywhere.

Strangely enough then ordinary bicycles are taxed and treated as toys.

Electrical bicycles are treated as something else and do not get any tax and do not need to be registered but can be driven anywhere as bicycles.

The wave of electrical vehicles is huge but comes slowly like a glacier very slowly but very heavy and they are everywhere.

Big car companies are not yet fully aware of this big change and do not know what is hitting them and are falling down like wounded elephants all over the place.

GM was one of the first and biggest offer.

The fact that a completely new type of chassis costs a lot of money, is nothing new to the industry. When Ford introduced the Escort it was sold to dealers BELOW the build cost for over a year. The economies of scale eventually turned that around. Ford needed the smaller car to meet CAFE because Ford, unlike GM and Chrysler, did not intend to replace all of its models over to the more expensive to build FWD, because of the huge costs. Ford expected to capture the market, that was still out there, for those buyers that still needed the larger RWD platform vehicles that were less expensive to build than FWD vehicles. Ford did not offer it higher volume FWD mid-size car until the Taurus, years after GM and Chrysler made the change. Changing assembly plants from RWD to FWD cost billions of dollars. A prime example of the higher build cost was evident at Chrysler, who continued to offer the RWD V8 New Yorker for nearly $1,000 less than the smaller 4cy FWD New Yorker.

"Bjorn" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@o4g2000vbo.googlegroups.com... On 29 Maj, 01:27, Jim_Higgins wrote:

expensive?

GM was never allowed to "sell" the EV-1. The EV-1 was built under exception to federal regulation at the time, as an "Experimental Vehicle," that could only be leased, to run on the public highways. ALL EV-1 had to be destroyed after the test period expired.

The limited range of the batteries and small total sales potential at the time, is what doomed production of the EV-1. One thing that did stand out, to GM bean counters for the future, was the much lower build costs of electric vehicles

Pipe dreams, eclectic vehicle may some day replace some or even most of the conventionally powered vehicles, as battery technology catch up, but that is far down the road. The fact is the world will depend on crude for at least the next 50 to 75 years or more. We get far more things from crude than fuel. The fact is the world runs on oil, period.

If we stop using gasoline to power our cars they will simply have to burn of the gasoline at the refineries, like they must burn off the NG at the well heads and at the refineries today, that can not be distribute and sold.

If we stop drilling in the Gulf the six or more countries that drill there will continue to drill in the Gulf. If we import more oil there will be MORE tankers in our harbors because we NEED the crude and it many derivatives.

The current spill may be the largest in US history but is certainly not the largest in the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico had a spell in the eighties that lasted for nine months before it was stopped and the ecosystem survived.

Perhaps where you live, but not in any US state of which I am aware. EVER "Motor Vehicle" driven on the public high ways must be licensed, insured and inspected and the operator must be licensed. If it uses a "fuel" the owner must pay the federal and state motor fuels taxes, as well

Electrical bicycles are treated as something else and do not get any tax and do not need to be registered but can be driven anywhere as bicycles.