Pricing For The Chevrolet Volt Is Becoming GM's Worst Nightmare. Why Would Anyone Buy A 40 - 50 Thouand Dollar Volt Rather Than A Hybrid Toyota Or Honda For Between 23 and 30 Thousand Dollars?

Implications: Is GM planning to introduce and sell the Chevrolet Volt in November, 2010, at a loss? Probably. Even 'Maximum' Bob Lutz admits that the car might sell at a loss 'for many years.' The irreducible costs are not in the raw materials for a lithium ion battery. Lithium is actually rather cheap. They are instead in the manufacturing costs for the battery and in the cost of re-engineering the car's electrical accessories so that they don't drain the battery to where the vehicles' performance is compromised.

Analysis: The Chevrolet Volt seems to be designed to be nothing more than a 'positional good.' This is an item that I have and you don't, which therefore makes me superior to you in the childish contest for 'who has the most toys' that has come to symbolize America's popular culture's measure of success.

The problem is that the Volt will solve no problem, and in fact is a step backwards.

All of today's mass produced hybrids use a combination of a nickel metal hydride battery and an internal combustion engine. The most efficient of these, the Toyota Prius can carry 825 pounds of cargo-4 adult human beings-at up to 95 miles per hour for 500 miles on 10.1 US gallons of gasoline.

The Chevrolet Volt it is said by GM will be able to carry an unknown weight of cargo for 40 miles on a full charge and after that will fire up an onboard internal combustion engine to charge the battery and run a directly coupled generator which will provide power to electric motor(s) actually driving the wheels. The Volt it is claimed will be able to be plugged in to an 'ordinary' outlet [in the US this will mean a 120 VAC outlet] and after a charging time period to be announced will run another 40 miles before needing a recharge.

The Volt will have lower emissions, it is claimed, than the Prius, but other than that its range and performance is no better and may well be worse than the Prius. It is not at all clear that if the Volt is run at its top speed, whatever that may be, it will have a full 40 mile range. It is also unknown how the volt will react to icy road conditions (low traction0 or steep inclines (higher load on the power train).

Better numbers than the Volt's as a purely electric car were claimed for the EV1, the lead acid battery powered car of the 1990s built by GM to meet California's zero emissions standard, since rescinded.

Maximum Bob makes me incredulous when he disses the EV1 as old technology which could be built today with lead-acid batteries from Panasonic, he says, as it was then. I find this insincere statement to be suspicious on two accounts: 1. Panasonic devotes its auto battery research to its long time partner, Toyota, and 2. If Panasonic was GM's supplier of lead acid batteries for the EV1 then the Matsushita Corporation [the parent of Panasonic] must have been laughing at GM while at the exact same time it was making the original nickel metal hydride batteries for the first Toyota Prius based on a license from Energy Conversion devices, Inc, the developer of that battery, which has its offices and laboratories just a few miles from GM's Technical Center.

No one knows today whether or not the lithium technology based battery will ever be able to be made in a safe, reliable, long lived version capable of powering a Volt for 40 miles on a charge or a Tesla for 300 miles. The batteries are today hand assembled as groups of smaller cells in series to up the voltage and then in parallel to up the current output. Each battery, not each type of battery, must then be tested to see how long it can function without a failure. The problem is that those that pass such testing are the only actual ones that can be used with any hope of maintaining their properties. No one has yet mass produced such a battery, so everything today about their long term performance, safety, and reliability is a guess.

Toyota and Honda have a system that works, the nickel metal hydride battery mated now with a Wankel 3 cylinder gasoline powered engine. The 2009 Prius is advertised to have a 71 miles to the gallon capability.

Why do we need the Chevrolet Volt? We don't. It is GM that desperately needs not just the Volt but a successful leap into the high tech green sweepstakes. unfortunately for GM they plan on having the Volt carry a 16KWH lithium battery. At the current cost projected for such a battery it will cost $16,000.00. Add to that the need to re-engineer a low production electrical system as well as the electrical accessories for the Volt such as the lights, the radio, CD, DVD, air conditioning, power windows, and power seats and you get a $40,000 + car today.

No one needs a high cost, short range, electric car. The ideal electric car would be a long range good performance one like an EV1 with an onboard generator powered by a lightweight gasoline engine to charge American made lead acid batteries and run a direct drive generator when the batteries were low.

But wouldn't such a car be an example of the 'proven' technology that GM claims to be its goal?

if you ask me 70,000 Volts ( the number Bob says the company will produce in total between 2010 and 2011) could be enough to kill GM.