Click to this link
http://www.charlierose.com/home/
to look at the Last Monday and Tuestay (8/19 and 8/20) shows. Interviews with GM CEO on Monday and Chief Designer on Tuesday. Interesting by it self, but for this groupo the references to the Volt are important. In the Tuesday show, at the end, they go into the design studio and battery lab. You see the battery pack, and for comparison the EV1 pack, and a little bit of the body.
Charlie Rose interviews GM
Wed, 08/20/2008 - 12:49
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Charlie Rose interviews GM
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Yeah, I was just going to post that I saw the show with Charlie interviewing Bob Lutz running the program for the Volt. They showed the Lithium battery pack for the volt and the lead acid pack for the EV1. They were all set up to do a lot of testing of the battery pack. That was their main concern at first, now they have very high confidence in the Lithium. Bob mentioned that they could not sell the EV1. Yeah, who would want a car with very limited range and a super long recharge time. The Volt addresses both those issues and the Prius shows that the public is starting to accept electric in the mix.
Too bad GM made the decision to go with all electric with the EV1 in 1996. If they would have done a Hybrid back then, who knows where we would be at with the technology now, ten years ahead of where we are now?
Deron.
Wonder how the EV1 would perform with the lighter Volt pack. Apparently they have about the same power storage but at about 1/3 the weight.
Also wonder what th EV1 would have been had Lutz had a hand in it, I think he had left GM by that time.
The weight savings would add a little to the distance a EV1 could go, but what they could of done was went with a larger pack with the Lithium's. The best batteries they had at the time were the nickel-metal hydride, those were good for a max of 150 miles.
I read a review of the EV1 by a guy that had show up to a airport and picked up the car there. When he got into the car it was showing less then a full charge, proceeded to drive to his destination and was sweating bullets all the way. The change indicator said it was really close to running out before he got there. I do not remember if he made it or not, but his experience pointed out a huge flaw in the car, no place to fill up.
Deron.