Revenge Of The Electric Car
A New Electric Car Film, Information & Technical Updates
EV1 at the Henry Ford Museum
Much is happening on the electric car front. The Chevy Volt final design has been finalized and GM is moving to have the car in dealerships in 2010. Chevrolet has permitted a few journalists to drive the Volt and the reviews are all very positive. There will be much more hype over this car as it comes to production. However, the good thing is that this car appears to be carefully engineered and provides good driving and performance characteristics as addressed in Chelsea Sextons Road Test. Much depends on the success of the Volt for mainstream electric cars. It is clear that GM Current Product Engineering will be very involved with the Volt.
Revenge Of The Electric Car
Chris Payne and P.G. Morgan were Director and Producer of Who Killed The Electric Car? and have teamed up for a new film Revenge Of The Electric Car which will debut in 2010. A web site and blog have been setup to chronicle developments associated with the film and related technologies. An intertesting and informative road test article on the Chevy Volt has been prepared by Chelsea Sexton.
2010 GM Volt Update
LG Chem of Korea got the contract to provide lithium-ion batteries for the Volt. GM will incorporate the batteries into their proprietary battery pack design and software control so that they will be able to manage continued battery development and provide the battery packs to other customers.
Nano Engineered Batteries
Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to see a presentation about nano-engineered battery developments. To say that nano engineering is a hot topic is an understatement. In a fundamental way a base definition for nano engineering a battery would be to increase the energy density of the battery.
Asking an automotive battery pack quesitons went like this: if an electric car battery pack weighing 1,000 lb were to be replaced by a nano-engineered battery what would the weight of the nano-engineered battery be? Answer — 10 lb.
One thing is for sure, if the nano-engineered battery is anywhere close on performance and packaging then the entirety of the electric car will be light weight and spectacular. Basically the car would represent a rolling chassis with minimum weight for the powertrain. Such a real-world vehicle could have a curb weight of around 2,000 lb.
