GM's Britta Gross promotes both sides of the hydrogen, EV fence
2011 Chevy Volt - Click above for high-res gallery
We've heard Britta Gross, GM's manager of Hydrogen and Electrical Infrastructure Development, speak on various occasions about the Volt and other advanced technology projects, so we're familiar with some of what she has to say. We wanted to point out two items from her recent interview with the Orlando Sentinel, though, since they pretty much define GM's green messaging today.
First, on the Volt as a "halo car" to change people's perception of GM (something the company is going to need if it keeps doing stuff like this), Gross said:
Second, on GM's continuation of hydrogen vehicle research, she said:No program alone can change a company, but what [the Volt] does is draw your eyes to a company that is really, really working hard to capture leadership again. It will make people take a fresh look at General Motors and make them realize that this is a great car company, that can do an awful lot of great things. That kind of symbol, representing a major change in a company, is a really big deal.
There you have it: GM's green efforts in a nutshell.We have a very aggressive development program for the fuel cell. [...] The only way we can reach a lot of the targets we have set as a society - for, as an example, greenhouse gas emissions - is to have a very broad approach to bringing in alternative fuel programs. And hydrogen gets you certain performance benefits that you don't get from other alternative fuels. The advantages are too big to discard. We can't just assume batteries are going to solve all our problems.
Gallery: 2011 Chevy Volt
[Source: Orlando Sentinel]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ray 1:25PM (8/31/2009)
No program alone can change a company? The EV-1 program did. It could have been a positive impression if fallowed through but instead gave a negative image of GM that I for one can not get over. No more GM products for me unless they come out with a EV. I still own three GM V8s and they are not bad products but the company refuses to get with the green program. You can say we are trying realy, realy hard but one look at your product line tells a different story.
Change has come to Nissan as far as I am concerned and to me it is only because of their bold commitment to mass produce the Leaf program.
GM refuses to become a leader and is destine to always be a day late and a dollar short.
Make a bold decision and stick with it GM this middle of the road stuff is going to bankrupt you again.
Reply
BillySharps 2:17PM (8/31/2009)
I think you're missing the point of the Volt. It will probably cost the same as the Leaf, but it will be a much more capable electric car. In this case, "middle of the road" is less expensive and better at the same time. The Volt has more potential to reduce our dependence on foreign oil than any other normal electric car does, simply because more people will be able to afford them and they won't have to compromise with range and fueling time and so forth. I'd much rather have a Volt than a Leaf.
lne937s 2:40PM (8/31/2009)
The Volt is like a "horseless carriage" carrying around a horse with it just in case the gasoline motor ran out of fuel. Automobiles would have gone nowhere if people did that. There are too may compromises involved with trying to fit two complete drivetrains in one car.
And the Volt costs much more to produce than the LEAF. Nissan developed in-house a complete unique powertrain, batteries, and platform for the LEAF. Nissan plans to sell it for a Versa-worth less then the Volt... and make a profit.
GM will lose significant money on every Volt they assemble from Korean parts (Daewoo platform, LG batteries, etc.). I sincerely doubt that the PR they will end up generating will justify this expensive program.
Joe 2:57PM (8/31/2009)
@lne937s:
"The Volt is like a "horseless carriage" carrying around a horse with it just in case the gasoline motor ran out of fuel. Automobiles would have gone nowhere if people did that. There are too may compromises involved with trying to fit two complete drivetrains in one car."
Except that the gas engine was an improvement over the horse in almost every way. The electric motor is still a step backwards. So having an on-board ICE generator is easy, and makes sense.
meme 3:35PM (8/31/2009)
That's not really true. Horses could be fed almost anywhere. Gasoline was initially hard to come by, and you could never be sure that what you were buying would work in your particular engine. The analogy is apt except for the size of and maintenance of the horse. It's probably more equivalent to carrying around a bicycle and sidecar.
nrb 4:03PM (8/31/2009)
"Nissan plans to sell it for a Versa-worth less then the Volt."
Without the battery!
The world and technology isn't ready for an EV. The world may not (or may) be ready for a transition vehicle like the Volt.
gorr 2:39PM (8/31/2009)
Gm is only a high financial money compagny, they are anti car-guys compagny with the worst engines ever made from the beginning, they even race today with carburated v8 engines that pollute a lot. They are there to promote suffocating petrol while lying to everyone all day, each day,all year abouth better cars while cashing money from taxpayers and selling patents to chevron, this is the badest joke to car guys and green folks. Stop any car expenditure toward them and toyota, mazda, chrysler, ford, freightliner, caterpillar, boeing, airbus, brigg and stratton, detroit diesel, volkz, mercedes, audi, bmw, scion, saturn, bentley, evinrude, mercury marines, kawasaki, suzuki, yamaha, bmw motorcycles, triump, ducati, bennelli, vespa, tata, daihashu, jaguar, mini, tucker, deloreen, ferrari, porsche, mclaren, frank william, force india, indy, nascar, formula 1, 2, 3 , 0, john deere, tony karts, bic lighters, stp, castrol, penzoil, valvoline, etc.
Reply
ufgrat 10:14PM (8/31/2009)
Ordinarily, I read gorr's posts, chuckle, and move on, but c'mon... You're posting this garbage the same day that Autobloggreen acknowledges that once again, Corvette racing has been recognized for it's *lack* of emissions?
"The cellulosic E85-fueled Corvette C6.R had the best combination well-to-wheel emissions and the best tank-to-wheel efficiency of any of the GT cars."
And it's fuel-injected, not carburetors. Get with the program.
gorr 11:42AM (9/02/2009)
UFGRAT, Gm don't have a turbo car nor a dohc high-rev pentroof head with titanium valves with generous squish area combustion chamber with a sequential double clutch transmission in a full aluminium body like any kawasaki have since 20 years. They stop commercializing their beloved v8 station wagon of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s for terrorising the u.s.a population to make a war in irak instead of just updating the propultion system, etc, etc. They took money from the state to patent a battery then sold the patents to chevron ( a high financial and subsidies compagny) and destructed the cars, etc.
No green car to sell, even natural gas cars.
jtak 2:42PM (8/31/2009)
I agree with @BillSharps - GM has come forward with quite a few new hybrid models and has put a lot of innovation into the GM Volt and into batteries. I also recognize the benefits of the Nissan battery-electric Leaf as well as their fuel cell electric vehicle.
As for GM's EV-1. They took a bold step, too early, of trying to sell a battery electric vehicle. Don't forget Toyota did too. These vehicles were simply too expensive, too inefficient, and lacked government policy supporting the deployment of a charging infrastructure beyond the home-charge option. Both GM and Toyota now have a more prudent, and sensible, electric vehicle approach that includes hybrids, batteries, and fuel cells.
Reply
wardialer 3:21PM (8/31/2009)
the EV-1 and RAV4-EV program were NOT too expensive, even in low quantities the vehicles were a lot cheaper to produce than the Volt is expected to be due in large part to its less expensive EV-95 NiMH batteries which are still going strong in some RAV4-EV's today, exceeding 100,000 miles and still retaining 100 miles/charge... if that's inefficient, i don't know what is. the programs were a drop in the bucket compared to the hydrogen hummer and other wasteful initiatives.
please do your homework
Matt
meme 3:39PM (8/31/2009)
That's not accurate. GM estimated that it cost them over $80k each to produce the EV1. The leases were subsidized. Now, there are easily arguments to make about scale....
GM is probably paying less per kWh on their li-ion packs to what they'd have to pay on NiMH (they're paying $500/kWh), and they're only going to get cheaper over time.
Sean 6:43PM (8/31/2009)
GM could have sold every EV-1 they made for well over $80k, instead of paying to have them crushed. If they had continued the program at break even, selling low quantities for a high price, they would have been able to get the price down quite a bit. While the EV-1 was nowhere near being a significant profit source for GM, they could have gotten the down and sold quite a few of them giving GM the "Halo effect" Toyota gets from the Prius. It was a major missed opportunity due to a bad management decision.
That said, I think the Volt is great, maybe the best car from a major automaker in the near future.
doug korthof 1:34AM (9/01/2009)
GM's hybrids are dog s***. None of them is worth a poop. We call them "joke hybrids", far down the scale from "mild hybrids", "weak hybrids", "weak parallel hybrids", and ALL are still gas-guzzling internal combustion cars, they get ALL of their energy, ultimately, from the gas pump. So they are no challenge to BIG OIL.
As for GM, they sabotaged the EV1 with bad batteries in Nov., 1996; just as they are planning to sabotage the VOLT-hoax in Nov., 2010.
I laugh at some GM goofballs who bragged about their "work" on the EV1 battery!! In fact, the Delco batteries were DESIGNED TO FAIL, and GM replaced them with Panasonic lead batteries (after they were forced to, by the Toyota and Honda successful EVs).
The GM version of NiMH was crap, they didn't spend any money fixing the original recipe; only Toyota solved the 90 degree problem, and made NiMH that would last far beyond 100,000 miles.
NiMH remains the ONLY EV battery proven successful; NO Lithium EV has gone more than 50K miles on the same pack -- and when Lithium fails, they are just discarded, no recycle value as Nickel and Lead.
GM -- remains a joke, a liar, a bankrupt, and an intellectual FRAUD.
skierpage 6:49PM (8/31/2009)
Aww, ABG, you're trying to rile us up. She prefaced the quoted remarks with "We are very focused on where the country needs to be in 2030, 2050"
So hybrids/RE-EVs with ever-improving batteries to drive the first 5-10-40-... miles for the next decade at least.
"And hydrogen gets you certain performance benefits that you don't get from other alternative fuels."
But she doesn't say what they are. Is GM envisioning a world powered by renewable energy so abundant that H2's undeniable inefficiencies don't matter? Does GM worry fossil fuel will run out and bio-ethanol won't work, so the massive H2 investment will be the only refueling option left?
Reply
Tony Belding 7:44AM (9/01/2009)
The "performance benefit" of hydrogen is being able to stop at a hydrogen fueling station (if any existed) and tank up in five minutes, and then keep driving. This is the model that the public -- and car companies, and oil companies -- are familiar with.
"Is GM envisioning a world powered by renewable energy so abundant that H2's undeniable inefficiencies don't matter?"
It could happen, if some breakthrough came out of left field. For example, if the Polywell nuclear fusion reactor is a success, it could usher in an age of cheap and plentiful electrical power.
DasBoese 12:19AM (9/02/2009)
Polywell fusion power would be cheap, but by no means free.
Best-case scenario is a price per kWh about half that of a fission plant, which is still enough that we can't afford wasting it on an inefficient energy carrier like H2.
The largest potential benefits of the polywell are practically unlimited fuel, no environmental or safety concerns and far lower cost than other fusion processes.
Funny enough, the Polywell itself runs on hydrogen XD
(and boron-11, though initial models are much more likely to run on deuterium -which is of course an isotope of hydrogen)
In any case it remains to be seen if the damn thing works at all. We could've known 10 years ago if it wasn't for the political hassles between the US Navy and DOE, but at least it looks like a definite answer to that question is possible within the next decade.
skierpage 6:47AM (9/02/2009)
@Tony Belding
Indeed, fast refueling is an H2 advantage of high-pressure high-tech H2 stations over battery recharging, but re-read what Ms. Gross said. You also get fast refueling from many "other alternative fuels" like bioethanol, methanol fuel cell, etc. Obviously they have their disadvantages. I really wish GM would share their detailed analysis of various alternative fuels instead of making vague plausible statements.
RG 9:57AM (9/01/2009)
I'd have thought this would have made people happy. A company that acknowledges that the Volt isn't a solution on it's own. They acknoledge that hydrogen and electrics each have their place. This is all true. Why are some people so pissy about it. You can't make some people happy I guess. It's always the Volt haters that speak up first. That car is important. It's very important. It's as important for cars today as the diesel/electric locomotive was compared to the steam engine.
As far as the ongoing EV1 comments, that car wasn't all that. It was ugly too. The more time that passes, the greater and greater that car gets in the people's minds. People that have never even see one no less. Take an objective look back at it for a minute and grasp reality. The reason it wasn't made had nothing to do with big bad oil shutting it down. They don't do that. That's a myth. That car just wasn't what people think it was. It's battery technology was crap. It's performance wasn't all that, and it's range while more than 40 miles, still wasn't what most people wanted or needed. Let that car die already. It wasn't the be all end all that people make it out to be and by todays standards it's just plain garbage. Good riddance to that ugly piece of junk.
Reply
DasBoese 1:01AM (9/02/2009)
Saying that hydrogen is a similarly viable solution as battery-electric or biofuels is false neutrality, plain and simple. It really isn't.
It's not a matter of fairness or political correctness, it's just science.
Besides, a discussion in which fringe opinions are presented as equally viable as rational arguments is hardly fair. See the discussion about US health care reform, what's happening over there right now can only be described as insanity from an European perspective.
Reply