(Credit:
General Motors)
Updated: CNET video added.
The Chevrolet Volt hasn't even hit the sales floor yet and there's already an app for that. On Tuesday evening, Chevrolet and its OnStar telematics system announced working smartphone apps for the Motorola Droid, Apple iPhone, and BlackBerry Storm that will allow Volt owners to connect to their vehicles wirelessly to access remote features via smartphone.
The Chevrolet Volt OnStar smartphone app will let users know if the Volt is plugged in or not and whether it's charging on 120V or 240V. Users can also schedule charging times to get the lowest off-peak rates and "Charge Now" if they need a quick boost. Users can even remotely start the Volt to preheat or cool the cabin while plugged in to preserve a bit of EV range. Of course, battery charge level and gasoline and electric ranges will also be accessible using the app, as well as displays of ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog
DETROIT--What do the modern family, young people, truck lovers, performance enthusiasts, and the "eco-culture" have in common?
They're all part of Chevrolet's target audience, says the brand's new chief, James Campbell. Launching a marketing plan that reaches each tops his to-do list. Campbell, 45, a marketer by trade, takes over as Chevrolet works on a marketing theme to replace the five-year-old "American Revolution." The new ads will launch in the first half of 2010, Campbell said last week after his appointment. He declined to give more details.
Campbell's predecessor, Brent Dewar, left to pursue personal interests and spend more time with his family, General Motors said.
Through November, Chevrolet's U.S. sales dropped 27 percent, more than the industry's 24 percent decline but less than GM's 32 percent slide. GM will lean on the brand as the market recovers and as the company makes up for departing brands Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saab.
"No question, Chevrolet has got to carry the volume, so I definitely feel the responsibility of that," Campbell said. "So goes Chevrolet, so goes General Motors." Campbell, a GM lifer, worked in field sales and customer relationship management before joining Chevrolet in 1998. There he helped launch products such as the Cobalt, HHR, Colorado, and several Corvette models. He eventually directed GM's retail planning before becoming head of GM's Fleet and Commercial Operations in February.
New GM marketing executive develops plan to sell the Volt.
(Credit: GM)Campbell said his work on the Corvette in particular taught him to understand customers and meet their needs.
In the coming year, Campbell will launch the Cruze small car, the re-engineered Silverado heavy-duty pickups, and the Volt plug-in hybrid. The Cruze is a high-volume vehicle, but because it will get up to 40 mpg on the highway, it will join the Volt in appealing to the "eco-enthusiast," he said.
Campbell is the first major appointee of Susan Docherty, GM's U.S. sales and marketing chief. She announced his new job a few hours before GM said Campbell's Buick-GMC counterpart, former Ford Motor marketer Michael Richards, had quit after eight days with the company. GM spokesman Chris Preuss said the company probably will seek an outside replacement.
(Source: Automotive News)
LOS ANGELES--General Motors Co. will roll out the Chevrolet Volt slowly, starting in California, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said here.
GM will provide 100 Volts to California utility companies in early 2011, Lutz said last week at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
Production will reach 8,000 to 10,000 in the first full year, ultimately ramping up to 50,000 to 60,000 annually. The Volt, a plug-in hybrid, can travel 40 miles on its battery before a gasoline engine provides electricity.
Last week, Chevrolet chief Brent Dewar said GM would roll out the Volt in selected U.S. markets before launching it nationwide, choosing the markets by their infrastructure for recharging batteries and tax credit offerings.
GM designed the Volt to comply with regulations for all overseas markets, Lutz said. He expects GM ultimately to sell 100,000 to 150,000 a year.
Lutz said he drove a prototype Volt on public roads over the Thanksgiving weekend. GM, he said, is designing the battery to have a 10-year or 100,000-mile life. If the battery fails after that, the owner would need to have a dealer replace it. The cost should be no more than an engine overhaul on a traditional vehicle, Lutz said.
He said he is confident that "there will be a secondary-use market for spent battery packs" that still store energy. For instance, hospitals and homes may use the batteries for emergencies.
(Source: Automotive News)
This catchy tune reminds me of one of the pop songs from the soundtrack of the hit movie "Juno." The two-minute jingle praises the Chevy Volt singing: "Volt could change the world someday." The video features pictures of various General Motors executives and President Barack Obama to push a "hope for the future" message.
The battery-powered Volt travels 40 miles on a single charge. After that, a range extending gas generator kicks in, letting the car travel hundreds of miles on a single tank of gas.
California will be the "lead market" for the Chevy Volt when the electrically driven car is available at the end of next year, General Motors said Wednesday.
California was chosen because the state has the largest U.S. car market, and Californians are "known to be leaders in adopting groundbreaking new technologies," GM's vice president of global Chevrolet brand, Brent Deware, said in a statement pegged to this week's Los Angeles International Auto Show.
Production of the Volt is scheduled to start in late 2010. GM has not announced pricing for the 2011 model, though newly dethroned CEO Fritz Henderson acknowledged earlier this fall that the price would be about $40,000. (GM's board on Tuesday asked Henderson to resign, effective immediately.)
California, here we come.
(Credit: General Motors)As part of the California rollout, GM plans to make 100 Volts available to three utilities for testing. The cars will be used as fleet vehicles, and performance data will be collected via GM's OnStar in-car communications for a Department of Energy-run research program.
Financially strapped GM has a lot riding on the Chevy Volt. The car is designed to run for 40 miles on its lithium ion batteries and then use an engine-generator combination for longer rides. GM expects that most customers will do the majority of their driving on electric charge only, making the cost per mile cheaper than gas-only cars.
Even with the public excitement over electric cars, automakers are still not totally sure how consumers will adjust to the new technology and how electric components will operate in real-world conditions.
GM, as well as other automakers, plans to offer electric vehicles in certain regions that will invest in the infrastructure to support them. The California research program calls for the installation of 500 charging stations at people's homes, at businesses, and in public places.
One year before starting production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors engineers say they are confident in the performance and safety of the electric car's batteries.
GM executives gave an update on the car's plans on Tuesday, saying engineers are making some tweaks to the design but that they are on schedule.
The Volt's chief engineer, Andrew Farah, also implied that GM is close to moving ahead with a project to make a Cadillac that uses the same gas-electric power train that the Volt uses. Last week, there were reports that the Converj concept had been given the green light internally, with expected car delivery in 2013.
For the Volt, GM is preparing the battery and auto manufacturing, which will happen in its home state of Michigan, with the process and product validation scheduled to begin early next year, executives said.
In the meantime, GM engineers are testing the Volt's battery pack, called the Voltec, and putting 80 prototype vehicles through the paces. In addition to crash tests for safety, they are testing the car's performance on a range of conditions, including very hot and cold temperatures, and steep hills.
This crash test shows that the orange T-shape battery pack of the Volt is not impacted during frontal collision, says GM.
(Credit: General Motors)The Volt is a gas-electric hybrid, but unlike the Toyota Prius and other hybrids on the road now, the Volt moves only from electric motors. The gasoline engine is used to supply energy to the batteries through a generator.
Because it's a new car, GM still is trying to project what sort of performance to expect. Overall, engineers are happy, but they also know that climate conditions and driving style will affect the battery's performance, they said.
"Ten years is the target life (for the battery). Depending on how you use it and where you live, you could see significantly longer time," said David Wallace, engineering group manager for Voltec Battery Systems.
The biggest challenge is battery durability in very hot weather, he said. People who live in more temperate areas and do a lot of city driving will have more forgiving conditions, Wallace added.
"But even if you live in Phoenix, as long as you charge at night, and you run during the day, your battery will remain happy," he said.
During its testing, GM has to tune the chemistry of individual batteries, which will be supplied by LG Chem. Various tests, including crash tests, have indicated that battery safety is good, executives said.
For the car itself, auto engineers are now making adjustments to reduce the overall noise during times when the gas engine kicks on for longer rides.
Farah declined to say how big the gas tank will be, which will indicate what the overall driving range is, saying that decision will be made as late as possible.
Separately, Farah said GM's plan to produce an Opel in Europe that uses the Voltec powertrain is still on target, with a schedule roughly one year behind the Volt.
DETROIT--As General Motors Co. expands its lineup of rechargeable vehicles beyond the Volt, it will not brand them to be identified with the plug-in Chevrolet launching next year, a senior GM executive says.
That approach sets GM apart from Toyota Motor Corp., which is considering a range of hybrids identified with the Prius.
"Our thought is to take the Volt technology to other products," Brent Dewar, chief of global operations for Chevrolet, told the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit this month. "The Volt was the original vehicle that we started, but I wouldn't see that as a brand marketing direction for us."
The Prius, introduced in the late 1990s, commands about three-fourths of the hybrid market.
Dewar said the Volt would pave the way for more vehicles based on the same technology--combining a rechargeable battery pack for all-electric driving with a gasoline-powered generator for longer trips.
But Dewar said the Volt name would not be identified with GM's future electric vehicles.
By contrast, Toyota's brand chief has said the automaker was considering a plan to put the Prius name behind a broad family of high-mileage hybrids.
Bob Carter, group vice president of Toyota's U.S. sales arm, told the Reuters Autos Summit that he thought the Prius had become synonymous with hybrid cars.
The Volt is on track to become the first mass-market plug-in hybrid in the United States. It is designed to run for 40 miles on a battery charge and can be recharged at a standard electric outlet.
When the battery is partly depleted, a small gasoline engine kicks in to recharge it and power the vehicle. That will allow the Volt to make longer trips without what Dewar called "range anxiety."
Separately, the Detroit News reported last week that GM will produce the Cadillac Converj plug-in concept car it introduced last January at the Detroit auto show. The vehicle uses the same technology as the Volt.
A Cadillac spokeswoman declined comment.
The Volt will be sold in North America and Europe before it goes on sale in Asia, Dewar said. The introduction in Europe is to be in 2011.
Dewar said Opel will sell its extended-range Ampera, derived from the Volt, in Europe alongside the Volt.
(Source: Automotive News)
Chevy built the Volt for a smooth ride, but now engineers are putting the electric car to the test at General Motors' Milford Proving Grounds. Watch the Volt tackle potholes and a long stretch of cobblestones called Belgian Blocks.
The PowerFuze keeps your USB devices juiced in the car and at home.
(Credit: Scosche)You should see the mess of cables, chargers, and charging cables that clutter my backpack every day. Moving from car to car and home to work while testing a variety of devices means that iPod sync cables, USB cables, Mini- and Micro-USB cables for mobile phones and GPS devices, 12-volt car chargers, and 110-volt wall chargers eat up a good deal of my bag space. For me, this is why Scosche's PowerFuze charger system looks interesting. This charging solution should let you replace a number of cables and chargers for an all-in-one approach. It's a car charger and a wall charger. Ideally, it's the best of both worlds.
The PowerFuze system crams a few different charging configurations into one package. When you're at home, it is a two-port "Made for iPod" and "Works with iPhone" certified USB AC charger that plugs into a 110-volt wall outlet. When you're on the road, a 12-volt USB charger pulls out to take advantage of your vehicle's DC power port. If you have 12-volt DC car accessories that you want to use indoors, the vacant 12-volt port will work as a power inverter to accommodate them. With 1 amp of current split between the two channels, you shouldn't expect to power a 12-volt air compressor on the PowerFuze, but there's more than enough overhead for most portable devices.
Then again, most users only have one car, so they won't really see the point of carrying around the 12-volt charger. That little bugger will probably find itself perma-lodged into your car's DC power port after the first week--when you get sick of bringing it into the house every day. That being said, I still think it's nice to be able to pick up both chargers for one reasonable price and have the flexibility to use them together if you should decide to do so.
The PowerFuze and the PowerFuze Pro (with an included iPod sync cable) sell for $34.99 and $44.99 respectively. If you only need a car charger, look for the PowerPlug and PowerPlug Pro with sync cable for $19.99 and $29.99, respectively. Check out Scosche.com for more details on this cool little stocking stuffer.
DETROIT -- General Motors Co. will spend $202 million to renovate its Flint Engine South factory to build 1.4-liter four-cylinder engines for the highly anticipated Chevrolet Volt--and for a small car that likely will be even more crucial to Chevy's future success, the Cruze.
The automaker also will spend about $28 million on three other plants in the Flint, Mich., area to help build the 2011 Cruze compact and the Volt.
A 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine will power a generator to create electricity for the motor that propels the Chevrolet Volt, above, and will drive the Chevy Cruze.
(Credit: Automotive News)GM is scheduled to launch the Cruze next spring. Production of the Volt, a plug-in hybrid sedan, is scheduled to start in November 2010.
The Flint engine plant will produce 40 engines per day when production starts late next year. Output will rise to 800 engines a day by fall 2011, GM officials said.
The engine for the Cruze will be turbocharged. The Volt's engine, which will power a generator to create electricity for the motor that propels the car, will not be turbocharged.
The initial batch of engines for the Chevy Volt will be imported from a GM plant in Aspern, Austria, until the revamped Flint plant begins production.
The other GM plants that will be updated and retooled are the Flint Metal Center, Flint Tool and Die and Grand Blanc Weld Tool Center.
GM says the key functions at the plants will include development of automated equipment and tooling for the Cruze and Volt assembly plants. The Cruze will be assembled at Lordstown, Ohio, and the Volt at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant.
The operations will develop dies and stamp body panels and components for Lordstown and Detroit-Hamtramck.
GM is spending about $30 million on the Grand Blanc plant to build robotic weld tool cells that will assemble the Volt body at Detroit-Hamtramck.
(Source: Automotive News)
