GM uses Volt to lobby for lower fuel economy standards
No game changer until well after 2015The Chevy Volt will be an amazing piece of technology when it hits the road in late 2010, but it won't be a game changer until well after 2015. According to the DetroitNews, GM is currently lobbying the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to lower the increase in fleet fuel economy required between 2011 and 2015 because such a requirement could slow the rollout of the Volt.
"GM's game-changing (extended range electric vehicle) technology should be treated as a low-volume application" through the 2015 model year, GM said in its filing, adding that it "strongly discouraged" NHTSA from assuming large numbers of vehicles would be built before then. It urged NHTSA to drop its yearly increase to 3 percent per year.
Back in April, Hybridcarblog reported that GM might use the Volt as an SUV fuel economy bargaining chip, and it now appears that prediction has come true. Sources within GM have claimed that less than 200,000 Chevy Volts would be built before 2015, therefore, the Volt will have little impact on GM's fleet fuel economy.
Should the Volt be an excuse for lower fuel economy standards? What if some unforeseen problem slows the Volt and E-Flex? Too many eggs in one basket?
Labels: CAFE, Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, fuel economy
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:03 AM
13 Comments:
So, are you still as big of a fan of the Volt as you have been? Or, have you finally accepted the truth about GM?
I don't know what 'truth' you refer to, but I'm still a big fan of the Volt. Actually, it's not the Volt that I'm such a fan of, but the E Flex Drive powering the Volt.
Still, this move doesn't surprise me, I was blogging about it back in April. I've also blogged regularly about how I thought GM was making a huge mistake by not first focusing its hybrid efforts on coming up with Prius-contender - not one that contends with the Prius in 2015 - in terms of production numbers - but one that contends with the Prius today.
I argued this point to Bob Lutz once over dinner many months ago and he reaffirmed to me that he wasn't a believer in small hybrids. I disagreed with him then and now, but I still believe the Volt and the E Flex are worth pursuing, but not at the expense of better fleet fuel economy in the interim.
Go out of business then. Your employees can move to MS and work at the new Toyota plant or for Phoenix or Tesla or Zap or someone that can grow because they don't have a money whoring CEO at the helm with so many hands in his pockets. You have a giant market cap, and a massive work force, and I'd presume some pretty intelligent engineers that are being shackled by the Big Wig's Hedge Fund. Just my opinion. Thanks!
all opinions welcome. not an angle i've really contemplated, so i don't have much of a response to your point, but i do believe that gm's problems began long before rick wagoner took over GM's helm. perhaps rick does deserve a good chunk of blame, but i think decades of uaw inflexibility were also a huge part of the problem, for example. i also think gm's board deserves a huge chunk of blame - they've been in denial for decades regarding fuel economy. they had to know this day would come and yet they kept waiting and waiting and waiting.
This is incredibly bad news for Volt fans (myself included). Basically, what GM is saying is that they have no intentions of selling any significant quantities of this vehicle before 2015, and then if ever! Wow, this is truly devastating. I guess Bob Lutz is full of hot air and I guess there will not be a Chevy Volt at a dealer near me anytime soon.
Doesn't anyone realize that a fleet that includes cars like the Volt will cause GM's overall average fuel economy to skyrocket? Even using electrical gasoline gallon equivalents, wouldn't the Volt be rated somewhere between 60 and 80 mpg? Throw in the Saturn Vue and some smaller cars like the Aveo and whatever replaces the Cobalt and you can easily exceed 31 mpg fleet averages....
that's what NHTSA was assuming to some extent and GM told them not to make that assumption. by 2015, according to unconfirmed sources, gm would be lucky if it had produced and sold 200,000 vehicles.
gm had stated that by 2012 they wanted to be selling 60,000 vehicles. that has been a pretty solid number, but you figure if they can sell 60,000 by 2012 and they've bet the farm on the Volt, why can't production at least double every year so that maybe you could be selling at least a few hundred thousand by 2015.
to be honest, however, these numbers don't really surprise me. it's the fact that gm didn't really think they would have to much else until they developed the volt that particularly bothers me.
i'm starting to sound like a broken record, but i've always believed that GM needed to challenge the prius - yesterday - as it developed the Volt.
that's always been the beauty of the Hybrid Synergy Drive, in my opinion, it's so scalable and adaptable - e flex started very high up the technological chain.
GM is only putting out the dual mode hybrid system it seems. Is that right? They also have put a lot their eggs into the FlexFuel ethanol basket, which is also puzzling. I wonder if the plug in Saturn Vue is still on schedule, because I may have a better chance of getting that vehicle now that GM is admitting low production numbers for the Volt.
Having said all that, I found a company near me in Ohio that will convert a Prius to the plug in variety and I can buy the car and the conversion kit installed. What's more, it looks like I can get a converted car for around 20K which is a very reasonable price for me. These conversion kits now allow the Prius to travel up to 52 mph in EV mode, which obviously makes city travel doable!
Finally, the auto makers are going to screw around as long as possible until governments and agencies such as CARB force their hand, don't you think? I may end up buying a 25K Honda Civic CNG and eschew the EV/PHEV route altogether.
Last I heard the Vue plug-in was on schedule, however, there are no plans to produce a significant number of these vehicles initially either. In fact, GM is almost assuredly going to produce more Volts than Vue plug-ins.
And, to be honest, I'm not even sure how committed GM is to the dual mode hybrid powertrain. They seem more interested in their redesigned mild hybrid powertrain that will use lithium and is to debut 2010/2011 - there's your favorite date again, and ethanol as you stated.
The plug-in conversion route is still a tough call, and I've talked to a few people driving natural gas vehicles - they rave about them.
Despite what Boone Pickens says about natural gas, I don't really see it as a comprehensive answer to oil dependence, even just foreign oil dependence, but its an interesting interim solution, so I won't hold that non-hybrid purchase against you.
If GM can't cut it, it needs to go out of business.
We, as a species, are facing some of the toughest issues we will ever face. We don't have to for GM to dick around while we are all paying the price and facing hell.
This is just ridiculous.
Make way GM for a real car company that can cut it.
GM needs money ASAP. Battery production today isn't anywhere it needs to be for hybrid vehicles, but things are in the works to make that better. I think GM is making the right move here - make the volt now to get people excited about your hybrids. You can charge a nice premium on them because people will buy them anyway (Toyota could be making more on its Prius', too, it would seem), while the battery industry catches up with the game and prices start to come down while supply increases.
Then in a few years you get your economical vehicles on the road, when you are better in a position to do that. The unfortunate reality here is that GM is struggling much more than Toyota right now, and quite simply doesn't have the ability to play on Toyota's turf. While this is, of course, their own fault and they are sowing what they reaped, it's also the reality that they're faced with right now. That said, the next few years are going to be all about rebounding for the American auto makers, but ultimately I think GM will be ok.
Uh, yeah, that would be reaping what they sowed.
I don't disagree that GM is making a lot of the right moves now, but does that justify any pity for them not making the right moves just a couple of years ago?
More important, does the future potential of the Volt justify lower fuel economy standards?
It wasn't that long ago that GM and the Big 3 lobbied against fuel economy standards because of fuel cell vehicles.
re: dahcredyns 8:51 am comment-
There was a recent magazine article about the Volt. It said even if the technical problems are solved, GM will lose money on every Volt it sells. Not a winning business model.
re: jabroni's 12:45 pm comment- you need to review your 7th grade arithmetic. Assume, to be real generous, a hybrid gets 30% more miles to the gallon. Assume that in "X" years hybrids reach 5% of GM's annual production. Assume that the average fuel economy of the other 95% goes up 6% from the current 21 mpg to 22.26 mpg. Then get the fleet average of this new breakdown. 95% X 22.26mpg = 21.15mpg plus 5%(.05)X 28.94mpg(22.26+30%)= 1.45mpg. Then
21.15 + 1.45 =22.60mpg for a huge increase in the fleet average of 0.34mpg (22.60 - 22.26) There is no Santa Claus, Virginia. There wont be any hydrogen fuel cell cars or affordable plug-in electric hybrids in your Christmas stockings America-ever.
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