{"id":2390,"date":"2007-03-20T02:04:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-20T02:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2007\/03\/20\/will-gm-revive-the-electric-car-part-2\/"},"modified":"2007-03-20T02:04:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-20T02:04:00","slug":"will-gm-revive-the-electric-car-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/will-gm-revive-the-electric-car-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Will GM Revive the Electric Car? Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As I noted last week<\/a>, General Motors new Chevy Volt concept vehicle has received quite a bit of fanfare around the green blogosphere; as we also saw from some of the comments<\/a> that post [at Green Options] received, the company’s claim that it must develop an automotive lithium-ion battery<\/a> to move the Volt to production has met with its share of skepticism. The media event I attended last Monday was aimed, in part, at skeptics — the company wanted to make its case for choosing this particular path, including the reasons for developing new battery technology instead of taking advantage of current nickel metal hydride batteries<\/a> common to most hybrid vehicles.<\/p>\n

While our breakfast meeting with Larry Burns was small and relatively casual, GM had a thorough formal presentation planned for the larger group of reporters and writers that gathered later in the morning. Joining Beth Lowery, GM’s VP of Energy and Environment, were Denise Gray, Director of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems for GM, and Joe LoGrasso, the Engineering Group Manager in that same division. Also present were representatives of the companies GM has contracted with in developing li-ion batteries for its “E-Flex” concept: Mary Ann Wright, CEO of Johnson Controls-Saft<\/a>, Ed Bednarcik, VP and General Manager of A123Systems<\/a>, and Scott Lindholm, VP of Systems Engineering for Cobasys<\/a>. The presentations by all of these executives came together around two common themes: 1) the li-ion automotive battery is necessary for the E-Flex concept; 2) the combination of talent and experience GM had brought together can make it happen.<\/p>\n

LoGrasso and Wright tackled the main question on everyone’s mind: why lithium-ion when nickel metal hydride is a battery technology that, according to LoGrasso, is “nearing maturity in cost and performance.” According to LoGrasso, GM had decided upon the following needs for a battery for the Volt:<\/p>\n