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Thursday, October 14, 2010
Lithium Drive: Your own "Home Gas Station" - Charging the GM Volt GM TNR.v, RM.v, LMR.v, ALK.ax, LIT, WLC.v, CLQ.v, LI.v, ORE.ax, GXY.ax, SQM, FMC, ROC, TSLA, HEV, AONE, VLNC, RNO.pa, NSANY, BYDDF, DAI, F
at 10:32 AM "We can mark the GM Volt roll out controversy as the start of Nissan Leaf roll out campaign. It will be interesting to see the next chapters in this ongoing web and mass media drama. Sometimes stupid things could be viewed as a genius marketing moves later. GM Volt dance comes to mind in this sense as well.
Nissan Leaf is rumping up its promo campaign now:
We still think that even this amount of corporate stupidity - on part of PR at GM - will not kill the idea about an electric car from GM second time. GM Volt has a lot of unique features and can not be called in the end just an "overcharged Prius." We are very pleased, personally, to confirm - that GM Volt will be able to drive in a pure electric mode: at least with fully charged battery until it will be depleted and the generator will kick in, which can have a mechanical connection to transmission in that mode at different speed ranges, contrary to everything we have heard before.
We will refer you to the "The EVcast episode" this week discussing this issue at depth.
The most important message is in the headline - you can have now your own "Home Gas Station" while you have electricity bills paid. We have the technology to survive the Oil Shock and it will be soon on our roads in numbers.
Could it be done better - no questions, particularly, on PR part. Nissan Leaf will keep GM on its toes and coming competition from all EV automakers will be the most important for establishing mass market for EVs.
More important, than the question of EV purity, will be in the end the efficiency and cost structure of the total ownership of EV.
Here we think we will be up to the new surprises. We like REV idea as a transition point between CEV, or "Thermal" as they call it in Europe, and EV space - you will not have any Range Anxiety and can have only one car in your household to meet all your family transportation needs.
Here we think we will be up to the new surprises. We like REV idea as a transition point between CEV, or "Thermal" as they call it in Europe, and EV space - you will not have any Range Anxiety and can have only one car in your household to meet all your family transportation needs.
But this convenience will come at a price: higher sticker one to start with - 41k for GM Volt before rebates - and higher servicing costs: basically you have even in GM Volt - plug in hybrid scheme - EV architecture plus generator and transmission as per GM Volt powertrain architecture. It will add in servicing cost (generator is the CE with oil, filters and bands) and in weight, which can reduce efficiency.
Here we will see, whether we will be up to the surprise from Nissan Leaf later. GM Volt has announced now revised EV range 35 - 50 miles per full charge and that they will use more than half of the battery pack capacity - something more like 10kWh out of total 16kWh lithium battery. It means that with range 40 miles (which is already debated to be more closer to 30 miles in actual driving conditions) GM Volt will use 0.25kWh per mile. In Nissan Leaf case we have announced 100 mile range (we will see reports about actual driving conditions here as well) with 24kWh lithium battery - 0.24kWh per mile. Please note, that here we have assumed that Nissan Leaf will use 100% of its battery capacity. Either Nissan Leaf will be more conservative in the end on its efficiency vs GM Volt in a pure electric mode or GM Volt is not that efficient compare to Nissan Leaf.
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