New York 2009: Chrysler shows off its battery packs
Lou Rhodes and the Dodge Circuit battery pack
I've heard of carrying extra batteries for a laptop but this is a bit ridiculous. Actually, that's the president of Chrysler electric vehicle ENVI division Lou Rhodes with his laptop sitting on top of the battery pack case for the Dodge Circuit. When I spoke with Rhodes and Doug Quigley a couple of weeks ago they promised that Chrysler would make several announcements regarding its electric vehicle program before Earth Day (April 22). The first of those came a few weeks ago with the revelation that A123 Systems would be the lead supplier for the first production program coming in 2010.
At the New York Auto Show, Rhodes reaffirmed that more announcements were coming within the next two weeks but declined to elaborate further. Unfortunately, the Chrysler display gave no hints because four different battery packs were on display including the Chrysler Town and Country and 200C, as well the Jeep Wrangler. The latter two have a T-shaped configuration similar to the Chevy Volt pack while the minivan pack is a flat rectangular layout that fits nicely under the floor of the people carrier.
Photos Copyright ©2009 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Woodenbee 9:20AM (4/09/2009)
Chrysler currently make the ugliest most irrelevant cars on the planet, the only thing they've achieved is to make all their cars look as ugly as the next one, so at least they're consistent, I do love the jeeps, and as they have everywhere else, they should of course offer them with the diesel engines here. Their concept cars look great however unfortunately, as is the norm, the US car makers are deliberately 10-15 years behind the rest of the world as far as styling, efficiency and practicality, and they will never make anything that actually looks as cool as the one or two concepts they have that dont suck, with the American style of management which is a leftover from when they had a captive market and no competition its no surprise that every sector of the established American economy is crumbling under the weight of management incompetence and inability to change. A management culture where narrow mindedness, greed and self interest are considered admirable traits failure is inevitable to anyone that has observed dysfunction and its inherent lack of sustainability, of course that is mirrored by the Bush Administration and the Republican parties hopefully continued failure. If everyone above a certain pay grade is there only to consume enough unearned wealth that they can safely leave then what hope does the company ever have!!??
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Alex 9:33AM (4/09/2009)
Somewhat related, but does anyone know if there are any potential health impacts of driving around/sitting next to a giant battery? I'm not a huge fan of leaving my laptop on my lap and I wondered if these batteries might be risky or entirely benign? Thanks.
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Evie 10:46AM (4/09/2009)
Now Chrysler is on a full court press of hype and smoke and mirrors. Put the price tag on that battery and see how many people want to pay it to drive a giant dinosaur.
Not too many will write those checks, maybe they can smoke Congress but they hopefully run into harder questions with the task force. What do the vehicles cost and when and in what numbers do they really come available. It may be too far out and at too much expense to have any material effect on profits or viability.
You can bet the hard nosed private equity people within Cerberus don't spend a lot of time getting incluenced by a picture of a giant battery. The smoke is the picture like it is just there ready to go and everything is fine, the reality, Billions have been poured in and they want billions more and they still don't have products that can win in the market.
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Luke 11:21AM (4/09/2009)
Woodenbee,
I'm not so sure -- I rented a Dodge Avenger over Christmas for a 10-hour drive from the Midwest to Atlanta. It seemed to me that the car was very well engineered and handled well. It seems that the engineers were told to put a modern car of average efficiency into sort-of classic muscle-car clothing. And they went and built the car. As a person with an engineering background, I respect that. Too bad I don't want a modern car of average efficiency into sort-of classic muscle-car clothing.
I also test-drove a Jeep Liberty diesel once in 2006. The vehicle also struck as me as well-built, but misguided. The sales guy proudly told me that the vehicle weighed 5000lbs (it's empty was actually in the low 4000s), which floored me -- I was looking for an efficient diesel replacement for my 1998 2.5L Ford Ranger, which weighs 3300lbs. My Ranger also got the same mileage as the Liberty diesel, except on less-energetic but easier-burning gasoline. I guess they were going for the scardy-mom market, and I'm an engineer with hippy parents and an overweight vehicle isn't of interest to me. Also, the sales literature indicated that I would be joining a happy jeep cult -- and I just wanted a biodiesel-compatible car. I still own the Ranger.
So, transmission issues aside, I wouldn't say the Chrysler vehicles are crap -- they seem to be are exactly what they are supposed to be. They just aren't a good match the world that I live in.
The first company that makes a compact electric station wagon with the cargo-carrying options provided by a Subaru Outback Sport gets my my money!
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mel 3:43PM (4/09/2009)
It sounds to me like your reinforcing Woodenbee's point. Corporate american management is so busy sucking up to each other that they lost complete track of what they are supposed to do. Who ever decides to put a modern car of average efficiency into a muscle car outfit should be fired. As far as the Jeep goes, it looks great but it drives like crap, we had one leased for the last three years and after a month nobody in the family wanted to drive it any more, so it just ended up sitting in the garage until the lease was up. Everybody rather drove the 12 year old benz than a 2005 Jeep. Everybody can engineer and build a car these days, its not rocket science. But the art is to keep engineering, brand image and product coherent and this is where all american car makers seem to fail. This is the responsibility of management, and this is where corporate american management fails. As far as the chrysler ev's are concerned, it will be the same failure again. People interested in ev's are probably people interested in seeing cutting edge technology used to better our planet or/and have more fun (see tesla roadster). A big battery plunked into a last century inefficient car design won't do.
Evie 1:26PM (4/09/2009)
Luke,
GM in Europe is showing a car that does exactly what you are describing, Here they show the volt, there they were showing a little bit more aggressive styling but basically an electric high hatch estate with systems similar to the volt.
GM US kind of dominates the activity but I would have chosen the European vehicle over the Volt for practical use.
Or you could buy a hybrid Versa from Toyota when that becomes available, large storage but more edgy styling regarding the form factor.
The Mitsubishi is excelent but small, the bmw mini in electric is small, the Bollore is small. In all electric you can't get what you want affordibly, have to go hybrid.
Keep watching VW and Audi, for efficient estates they know what they are doing. It is for good reason that VW got green car of the year and that they are up in a global down market. Best approach, get an electric scooter and a diesel VW estate. Then you have huge milesage, efficient transportation when you need it, great hauling capabilities when you want them.
If you have to pay for the Volt or any fully electric equivalent then you will see it is unaffordable, and offers little practicality
Woodenbee 12:53PM (4/09/2009)
I was trying to differentiate from the Dodge and Jeep brands, they produced some nice cars but all the cars with the Chrysler logo on them are uniformly large ugly and outdated, I did just read they are coming out with 8 new models and to make up for their stupefying reluctance to make small practical cars are working with Fiat who have been making cars for intelligent people with taste for decades, so actually I'm a bit mortified, I'm worried associating with Chrysler and its corrupt mismanagement & dysfunction will infect Fiat, lets hope not.
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