Dr Automotive Design and Tools

General Motors today said that thanks to strong public interest in the Chevrolet Volt, the 340-mile extended range electric vehicle, it will increase U.S. production capacity of the groundbreaking new car by 50 percent, from 30,000 units to 45,000 units, in 2012.

The announcement came as U.S. President Barack Obama toured the Detroit-Hamtramck facility, where the Volt is being produced now for sale later this year.

“The Chevrolet Volt provides drivers with the latest technology, outstanding innovation, and something no other electric vehicle can provide – peace of mind,” said Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., GM Chairman and CEO. “We are very proud to host the President of the United States at this plant, where the future of the American automobile industry is being built today by the men and women of General Motors.”

The expanded U.S. production capacity is the latest in a series of positive developments for the Chevrolet Volt. This week, participating Chevrolet dealers in launch markets began taking customer orders for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, following the release of retail and lease pricing. The brand also recently announced unprecedented battery and vehicle limited warranties to bring value and peace of mind to Volt customers. And the number of U.S. launch markets for the vehicle recently was raised from three to seven.

GM has said it expects demand for the Volt to exceed the 10,000 units it will build between its launch and the end of 2011. In the past few weeks, more than 25,000 people have joined the Chevrolet Volt enthusiast list. More than 73,000 people have registered to receive product information from GM's Chevrolet Volt site, spokesman David Darovitz said.

On Tuesday, the day GM released the Volt's pricing, the site saw a 700 percent increase in visits and a 1,200 percent increase in registrations compared with the site's daily average, Darovitz said.

The Volt offers a total driving range of about 340 miles and is powered by electricity at all times. For up to the first 40 miles, the vehicle drives gas- and tailpipe-emissions-free using electricity stored in its 16-kWh lithium-ion battery. When the Volt’s battery runs low, a gas-powered, engine/generator seamlessly operates to extend the driving range another 300 miles on a full tank.

The Detroit-Hamtramck plant received $336 million in new investment to prepare for production of the Volt, part of more than $700 million GM has invested in eight Michigan facilities to support Volt production since 2008. This includes a 33,000 square-foot battery systems lab in Warren; a battery assembly facility in Brownstown Township; and supporting engine and stamping operations in Grand Blanc, Bay City, and three plants in Flint.

Besides direct GM jobs, the Volt has helped spur additional supplier employment and investment. Earlier this month, battery cell supplier LG Chem/Compact Power Inc. broke ground on a $300 million, 650,000 square-foot plant in Holland, Mich., to support Volt production, creating 400 jobs. In addition, the Volt helped start an electrification trend. Since its debut in January 2007, other automakers have announced 30 plug-in hybrid or electric vehicles.

A family in Aurora Colorado have installed a 5.59 kW photovoltaic solar system on the roof of their residential garage and are reporting that in it's first month the system has generated 650 kWh worth of electricity, equivalent to 2,600 miles (@ 250 wh/mi) of driving in a plug-in electric car.

Calculating PV costs against utility power savings results in fair long pay-back periods. This particular system cost $8,500 and generates 650 kWh per month. At a standard utility rate of $0.10 kWh the pay back is approx 10 years.

However, when using a roof top PV system to recharge an EV it's a different order of magnitude. The Colorado family estimate $390 worth of gas cost savings (assuming $3 per gallon and 20 m.p.g) per month. The pay-back on the purchase price of the same PV system becomes less than 2 years or 1/5th the time compared to standard utility rates. If you live in a country with higher petrol prices than the US, or a feed-in tariff, the pay-back time is even shorter.

Fundamentally the purchase of a PV system is equal to paying up front for several decades worth of free motoring. A photovoltaic solar system will last 30 years + providing free energy that literally falls out of the sky. Tesla Motors estimate 20% of customers who buy a Roadster also have a roof-top PV system.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster will hasten the adoption of electric vehicles, a leading car executive says.

Nissan’s senior vice-president of product planning, Andy Palmer, says the spill highlights the potential pitfalls of oil dependency.

“Any kind of crisis can move the needle, whether it’s price hikes or regrettably, terrorism,” he says.

“Every time you see a degree of instability it tends to help us on EV, no doubt,” he says.

“I think no one thing is going to change consumer behaviour overnight but it draws attention to the difficulties of carbon-based fuel,” he says.

He says the interest in Nissan’s upcoming Leaf electric car has been “astonishing”, with the vehicle essentially sold out until well into the second half of next year.

“We have 23,500 orders in the bank and we haven’t announced the pricing in Europe, so that’s just the US, Japan and some blind orders from Europe,” he says.

And he says that the Australian government, which has shown little interest in EVs to date, is beginning to come around.

Mr Palmer visited Australia earlier this year to speak with the federal and state governments and was encouraged by the reception he received. “We are getting a response from the federal government… we do have a level of interest and I do see some signs that Australia will be one of the next serious countries that we are looking at,” he says.

“From a demographic point of view, Australia’s perfect [for EVs]. Most of the houses have got garages, most of you have got two cars and most of the second car’s range is relatively low mileage – you’ve just written the spec for an EV, frankly,” he says.

He says that while the main advantage to Australia from EVs would be CO2 reduction, they would also play a major role in improving air quality in big cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.

“The car doesn’t emit CO2, which means you’re not emitting CO2 in a city, where most people live; moreover you’re not emitting any other noxious gases either. You’re cleaning up the environments where people live,” he says.

In April the Qatari royal family spent $2.3 Billion to buy Harrods, the high end UK department store. Now they'll have to fork over $800 in fines to remove wheel clamps from supercars worth $2.3 Million that two family members parked illegally out front of the store.

The story about these two cars alerted us to the fact that central London has become a weekly supercar show during the summer months with literally hundreds of exotics ranging from the pictured Koenigsegg CCXR “Special One” to a half dozen Bugatti Veyron, including the ultra exclusive '15-of' Sang Noir through to a dozen or so garden variety Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce, all wearing Qatar number plates.

Not bad for a country that was a former pearl-fishing center, was one of the poorest Gulf states and has less than half the population of New Zealand. They are now one of the richest Gulf countries, in a region full of rich countries, thanks to the exportation of oil.

The London supercar parade is a graphic illustration of what the Washington Post calls “The biggest transfer of wealth in history”.

Because we are all limited to using an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) for propulsion, we are forced to consume 6x more energy than is needed to move a car down the road. Good if you're in the business of selling oil, not so good if you just want to drive to work.

Each time you fill your car's fuel tank remind yourself that every ICE powered car consuming all this Arab oil is only 15% energy efficient. The direct result is that $0.85 cents out of every dollar you spend at the fuel bowser gets converted into waste heat as an unavoidable side effect of the extremely inefficient internal combustion process.

On first appearances it 'looks' like Volkswagen (owners of Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Audi etc) are doing fairly well out of this transfer of wealth too, until you learn that Qatar Holdings, the same company that bought Harrods, also own 12.3% of the VW group.

The Qatari royal family members seem to be keeping it in-house, mostly buying and promoting their family owned brands. We can be fairly certain none of them would be caught dead parading around London in something like a Tesla Roadster, especially one with 'LOL OIL' number plates.

Sergio Marchionne "sta facendo un grande lavoro". Lo ha detto Barack Obama parlando davanti a circa 1.500 operai dell'impianto Chrysler di Jefferson North a Detroit. Il capo della Casa Bianca ha sottolineato come un anno fa due delle tre 'big' dell'auto americana fossero "sull'orlo della liquidazione" e ha riaffermato il valore dell'accordo tra Chrysler e Fiat. Dal canto suo, Sergio Marchionne, amministratore delegato delle due case automobilistiche, ha elogiato il presidente degli Stati Uniti: "Siamo onorati dall'avere il Presidente con noi oggi. E' stato grazie al coraggio delle sue decisione che Chrysler è stata in grado sopravvivere e crescere a poco più di un anno dalla bancarotta". E ha aggiunto di prevedere che tra il 2010 e il 2011 le vendite di Chrysler in Europa e in Sud America raddoppieranno fino a raggiungere le 200.000 unità, facendo leva sulla rete di distribuzione internazionale di Fiat, soprattutto in questi mercati. Proprio in concomitanza con la visita di Obama, l'azienda U.S.A. ha annunciato che l'impianto di Sterling Heights non chiuderà nel 2012, come previsto finora, e che sarà introdotta una seconda linea produttiva con la creazione di 900 posti di lavoro. Nel corso del giro degli impianti, Obama si è rivolto ai dipendenti: "E' stato bello vedere il lavoro che state facendo e le macchine che costruite, pensando anche che solo un anno fa qui il futuro sembrava oscuro". Quindi ha ricordato, tra gli applausi dei lavoratori, che la sua "prima auto nuova è stata una Cherokee". "Salvare l'industria automobilistica americana è stato difficile. Non volevo che il governo entrasse nel settore. Molta gente a Washington era scettica sul salvataggio di Chrysler e diceva che era stupido aiutare questa azienda, ma il governo non poteva rimanere impassibile. Il fatto che siamo qui, che siete qui è la prova che chi criticava gli aiuti a GM e Chrysler sbagliava". Nel bilancio positivo tracciato da Obama, spiccano alcuni dati: l'industria automobilistica è più forte, dalla metà del 2009 sono stati creati nel settore 55.000 posti di lavoro e per la prima volta dal 2004 le tre sorelle di Detroit hanno archiviato il primo trimestre con un utile operativo. La strada per l'industria automobilistica è in ogni caso "ancora lunga", ma le "difficili decisioni prese stanno pagando". "Grazie Sergio per quello che hai fatto", ha detto il capo della Casa Bianca a conclusione del suo intervento riferendosi ancora una volta a Marchionne. Tra i circa 1.500 dipendenti che hanno accolto il presidente, tutti aderenti al sindacato UAW (United Auto Worker) e tutti soddisfatti del "salvataggio" operato da Fiat, molti indossavano magliette celebrative di Obama, altri t-shirt dedicate al 'World Class Manufacturing', il programma introdotto dalla Fiat contro gli sprechi. Altri ancora portavano indumenti con la scritta 'From out of many 1' e in basso il simbolo Noch a significare dedizione in qualsiasi ambito, come la famiglia. In questo caso - hanno spiegato gli interessati - sta a significare dedizione al lavoro.
(Fonte: www.repubblica.it - 30/7/2010)