When is the Volt a game changer?
GM's lithium battery pack continues to pass benchmarksFor all intents and purposes, GM's Chevy Volt is on schedule for its originally promised 2010 launch, according to the latest reports coming out of the AP. Issues are still being resolved, but everything is following expected timelines. So, does that legitimate the Volt as a game changer?
If everything goes perfectly well, GM could be producing 100,000 Volts per year by 2012 or 2013. Would that make that Volt a game changer?
When does GM's Chevy Volt become a legitimate game changer, or is it already a game changer?
Labels: Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, plug-in hybrid vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
7:32 AM
8 Comments:
Indigo Incarnates
The day you can buy a Volt for $35k or less and not have to wait more than 2-3 weeks to get it will be the day the Volt becomes a game changer.
I do hope that happens soon!
That's fair. Unfortunately, finding one in 2 to 3 weeks might be many years after launch.
The Volt becomes a game changer when GM is able to dramatically improve their supply chain and the speed with which they learn about and incorporate customer preferences. I think it is the how of the Volt, more than the what of the Volt, that could be a game changer.
If between now and 2010 there is a battery breakthrough, the Volt is a game changer if GM's Volt group is able to change their design and supply chain to incorporate the new batteries for the roll out, or shortly after without waiting for the new model year. Just like Tesla is doing with their drive train 1.5, GM needs to be able to continually improve the Volt and not wait before rolling out improvements.
The other game changing move, although this isn't Volt specific, is that GM and the other Detroit car makers need to sell cars directly. Dealerships, like we've seen with the Prius markups, are a distortion of customer relationships in the car industry.
The common factor between these two game changing moves is improving GMs speed of information. Learn directly from customers about what matters to them by owning the point of sale experience and align your operations to incorporate that information into car designs as quickly as possible. How much of Detroit's SUV disaster this year was caused by the inefficiency of dealers and the car makers not knowing customer trends quickly, directly, and deeply enough?
alcatholic-
i really think that your dealership analysis is spot on. and the prius markups are probably the main reason i concur. do you think consumers are ready for such a change in auto shopping?
in terms of the Volt's adaptability to new battery technology, gm is already prepared, at least according to the Volt's engineers. gm already believes that new batteries from their own suppliers will be developed even before the Volt launches. in fact they are expecting this to happen.
likewise, they are building Volt prototypes with batteries from multiple suppliers to also help address this issue.
still even if the volt is ready, how long will it take suppliers to match demand?
I think young people don't care if GM owns their own dealerships, and we probably don't care about haggling, either. And I don't think GM owned dealerships mean fixed pricing or monopoly pricing, so I'm not sure what the customer concern would be.
I don't really care if Penske likes the idea, either. Seems to me car dealerships are among the most politically connected businesses in City Halls, so I'm sure a main reason GM doesn't already own their own dealerships is because politicians are protecting their dealership owning donors.
A good test would be for GM to be allowed to launch single Flagship dealerships in some metropolitan areas. If customers flock to them, there's the proof about customer reactions.
About suppliers being able to meet demand, I wonder if the current lethargic automaker supply chains are part of the reason suppliers aren't investing like crazy in battery plants. Detroit takes years to design cars and then there is no expectations of quick changes once the car is launched. Maybe that made sense when cars were simpler and very mature technologies, but hybrids and EVs are not anywhere close to mature. A Volt will change more in 5 years than ICE cars have changed 20 years, is my guess.
Maybe, IF battery suppliers knew that GM was willing to quickly incorporate new batteries, might they not move faster themselves? As it is, most suppliers probably figure, from past experience, that they'll never have a chance or won't have a chance for years to get into the Volt. Just a thought.
I believe it's possible that PHEVs and EVs are bringing something like Moore's law to cars soon, and that brings massive and quick technological changes. That has to change the speed with which GM is going to be ABLE to improve the Volt. Are we all underestimating the ability for battery makers to meet demand if the car design process, or at least the Hybrid Drive train design process, is opened up? I don't care if the Volt has the same suspension and look for 10 years if the batteries and drive train stuff is dramatically improving. I will upgrade much quicker for dramatic battery and electric motor improvements.
Very interesting comments, alcatholic.
Another problem with the battery supplies, is the supplies for the batteries. This is bigger than just automakers and battery makers. Most lithium is coming from just a couple of places in the world. How fast can it be mined? How willing are the foreign countries to mine it? How secure are the relationships?
Additionally, no battery maker has yet successfully mass produced the kind of lithium batteries that the Volt will use, not even in a small run.
Toyota had prepared to mass produce lithium batteries with cobalt chemistry, but there was evidence that mass-production of such batteries would lead to too much of a break down in cell integrity. Some have already claimed cobalt-based lithium is dead - at least for the auto industry.
Others are now using other chemistries, but these are still new technologies. I doubt very much that there is a battery maker ready to bet the farm on their battery technology just yet. So, I don't think its just about waiting for GM.
Sadly, capitalism is also having an effect. I've talked with a few battery guys, such as the CEO of A123Systems, and I very much get the feeling that a significant focus is on patenting 'the' technology? But will there really be a 'the' technology? Is this competition for patents healthy, or is it an impediment?
Still, your Moore's law analogy is already happening. Toyota has been making this claim for almost a decade now.
Everything is changing fast, and is only going to faster. Some automakers are already looking beyond lithium, for example. Everything is fluid and dynamic right now, and as you point out, neither automakers nor suppliers are used to dealing with this kind of speed.
Can they adapt? They have no choice. Change is coming and they know this.
Toyota was first to understand this with the Hybrid Synergy Drive which is the same drive that Toyota is developing regular hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell hybrids. It's all about adaptability, and GM has replicated this to a large extent with the E Flex drive.
As in evolution, the automotive industry is primed to adapt and evolve into a whole new animal and it will result in one of the greatest, if not the greatest, convergences of technologies yet witnessed by humans.
It'll probably take longer than we expect, but at least we'll live in interesting times and witness this revolution.
We will one day tell our grandkids "I remember when we used to fill our cars with gas made from oil" and they will look at you like you were from the stone ages.
I would love to read more posts about batteries. Your comment is really insightful and helpful.
But I hope the dynamics changes once the first Lithium vehicles are out there in 2010. If the Moore's Law thing is correct, I hope that once the clock starts in 2010, and GM unleashes the dynamics of a new supply chain in an IMMATURE market, coupled with quicker revs, more open sourcing, GM will have the opportunity to blow through the toughest Hybrid drive train issues.
For example, after 2010, I think those players who are holding back battery progress in the interest of patents would quickly see they have more to lose by holding out than producing.
Going back to the how of the Volt rather than the what of the Volt, one notion I have about GM and the Volt is that GM should replicate the Volt "skunkworks" type design team for EVERY new car design. Everyone in the room together, designers/engineers/marketers.
Why are designers wanking off in their studios making concept cars that will never get built? They need to sit in the same room with engineers from day one. So, you form your self-contained A-team and some B-teams and you don't pull your talent away until they're done. Management sets the product vision and doesn't take no for an answer.
What I'm thinking about here is the kind of integrated systems design that Apple does. In fact, Steve Jobs illustrates Apple's process by talking about the car industry and their wrongheaded approach with concept cars in this 2005 Time article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1118384,00.html
"Ask Apple CEO Steve Jobs about it, and he’ll tell you an instructive little story. Call it the Parable of the Concept Car. “Here’s what you find at a lot of companies,” he says, kicking back in a conference room at Apple’s gleaming white Silicon Valley headquarters, which looks something like a cross between an Ivy League university and an iPod. 'You know how you see a show car, and it’s really cool, and then four years later you see the production car, and it sucks? And you go, What happened? They had it! They had it in the palm of their hands! They grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory!
'What happened was, the designers came up with this really great idea. Then they take it to the engineers, and the engineers go, ‘Nah, we can’t do that. That’s impossible.’ And so it gets a lot worse. Then they take it to the manufacturing people, and they go, ‘We can’t build that!’ And it gets a lot worse.'"
you and i are in complete agreement.
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