GM hopes to give Chevy Volt battery 10 year/150,000 mile warranty
In an interview with Design News, GM Vice President for R&D and Strategic Planning Larry Burns reiterated the company's intention to have the lithium ion battery pack last essentially the life of the car. Since early on the program, GM officials have set the target lifespan of the battery pack as 10 years and 150,000 miles. Since the battery is such an integral part of making the car work, the company needs to ensure its durability. In his response Burns indicated that the battery would be covered under warranty for that time frame although at this point it far too early to know what the details of such a warranty might be. Regular 12V car batteries typically have pro-rated warranties that that cover less as the age of the battery increases. With only a three year development time for the Volt GM will have a tough time validating the durability of the battery although a lot of accelerated testing is happening. The pack itself will have 200-300 cells inside and will have to be carefully manufactured so that all the connections are robust. Beyond the Volt, Burns expects all of GM's cars to eventually be electrically driven either with batteries or fuel cells. He indicated that a commercial fuel cell market should be going by about 2012-14 although that depends on the expansion of fuel availability.
[Source: Design News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ron 4:15PM (8/05/2008)
Who is the proofreader around here? You need to remove either "to give" or "will get" from the title.
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GoodCheer 4:46PM (8/05/2008)
Just what I was going to say.
Serge 5:09PM (8/05/2008)
Here is another one ;)
"Beyond the Volt Burns expect ..."
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BillySharps 5:38PM (8/05/2008)
"Beyond the Volt Burns expect all of GM's cars to eventually be electrically driven either with batteries..."
This sounds great. This architecture could be used in various flavors across all GM brands.
"... or fuel cells. He indicated that a commercial fuel cell market should be going by about 2012-14 although that depends on the expansion of fuel availability."
It also depends on the price of fuel cells dropping by orders of magnitude and finding an efficient way to store enough hydrogen in a compact package. None of these three things is likely or necessary.
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Peter 6:33PM (8/05/2008)
And I'm sure this design goal has nothing to do with CARB's warranty requirement of 15 years and 150,000 miles needed for ZEV and PZEV credits.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/factsheets/2008zevfacts.pdf
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Ryan 6:59PM (12/13/2008)
9 sentences and you can't proofread? Good god this was a pain in the ass to read.
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Joce03 8:00PM (8/05/2008)
"We also have important projects in other areas focused on vehicle-to-vehicle communications and autonomous driving technologies"
In my opinion, projects like these are a waste of engineering time and effort. If you are too lazy to drive your own car, take the bus.
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Chris M 8:22PM (9/12/2008)
"He indicated that a commercial fuel cell market should be going by about 2012-14 although that depends on the expansion of fuel availability."
The arrival of the "hydrogen economy" keeps getting pushed further and further into the future. Far more important fuel availability is the high price of fuel cells and H2 storage, both would need several major breakthroughs to get price down from "impossible" to merely "expensive". I don't think that will happen by 2014.
For similar reasons, I don't expect to see much expansion of H2 fuel availability, unless the Oil Companies persuade Congress to pay all the costs.
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TX CHL Instructor 8:27AM (8/06/2008)
GM is so far in debt that it cannot recover just by the sale of cars even under the most optimistic scenario. The only thing that will save GM is a massive taxpayer-funded bailout. Don't count on them for any significant innovations -- especially if they continue to pour money down the "hydrogen economy" black hole.
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oldraven 9:13AM (8/08/2008)
Again, you guys need an editor of some sort. Please don't tell me you have someone on payroll who supposedly already does this. If so, he takes the day off far too often.
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Mike 12:32PM (8/06/2008)
They could give this piece of garbage a 100 year, million mile warranty now. The stinking car can't even leave the testing ground stage. I still say, in the end GM is going to drop a gas engine in and then get it to the dealers.
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MattKelly 1:13PM (8/06/2008)
GM will unveil it's production version of the Volt at it's centenniel celebration in September. I'm looking forward to seeing it! As to 10 yrs, 150k mile warranty, I hope they acheive it--I'm still driving a 17 yr old two-seater and am getting itchy to trade it in, but am waiting for the plug.
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