October: 1,439 Volts sold in up month for GM

General Motors posted a number of records for its vehicle sales in October, but the Volt is just cruising along with 1,439 units delivered.

This is consistent with September’s 1,394 sales, but compared to October 2013’s sales, the Volt was down 28.8 percent.

Calendar year to date GM has delivered 15,979 Volts compared to 18,782 CYTD in 2013.

So what carried the day for GM? Bread and butter vehicles, including the Cruze with 24,289 sold, and up 51 percent over the 16,087 unts in October 2013. And then you have SUVs and trucks led by the Silverado, which topped every model by far with 46,966 units delivered, a 10.1 percent increase over 2013’s 42,660.

Beyond these, Buick had its best October since 2003, GMC Sierra had its best October since 2001, and as a company, GM had its best October since 2007.

“The U.S. economy has steadily improved all year and now we are poised for a stronger expansion backed by an improved job market, higher consumer confidence and lower fuel prices,” said Kurt McNeil, U.S. vice president of Sales Operations. “We have a strong hand to play, with the industry’s newest and most complete line-up of pickups and SUVs, class-leading crossovers like the Buick Encore and a wealth of new products in the pipeline.”

Plug-ins

One of those new products in the pipeline is the 2016 Volt, due for deliveries second half of 2015. Given that the existing Volt is not advertised well if at all, and folks still do not know how it works, and it may be in lame duck status somewhat now, it may be considered doing alright.

By comparison the Nissan Leaf reported its 21st straight month of sales records of one form or another. October witnessed 2,589 units sold, and with 24,411 units delivered calendar year to date, and Nissan’s EV achieved the most U.S. sales in a year by an electric car, and this is with two months to go.

Other plug-in sales of note include Cadillac ELR, 152; Spark EV, 58; BMW i3, 1,159; i8, 204 – up from 58 September and 9 in August when it was launched.

Then you have Tesla, guesstimated at 1,650 by Autodata. By the way, Tesla’s earnings will be reported tomorrow where we get to see who wins the PR spat between Elon and the WSJ which said Tesla sales are down for the last nine months.

Ford’s Energi cars are on par with the month prior with 644 for C-Max, and 686 for Fusion.

The Ford Focus Electric still has not risen higher in sales though it is a 50-state car now, and just had its entry price clipped a second time, to $29,995 in line with the Leaf. It delivered 186 October, and that’s close to the 176 from September, and less than 254 in August.

Want more plug-in sales? Fiat 500e, 140; Accord PHEV, 34; Fit EV, 23; new M-B B-Class Electric Drive, 98 – up from 65 in Sept., 51 in August. Mitsu i-MiEV, 17; Panamera S E-Hybrid, 97 (NOt BMW i8 eclipsed it); Smart ForTwo 150; RAV4 EV, 97, e-Golf, 1.

And Toyota PiP sold 479.

Miscellaneous Commentary

As readers here know, average consumer memories seem short, and buying decisions appear rather reactive. Americans like larger vehicles, and gas just last week crested below a national average of $3 per gallon, making feeding less-efficient vehicles comparatively less painful.

Nissan knows consumers care about gas prices, and even if the stuff is cheaper than Perrier, it gave gas for free to consumers for its latest ad to hammer home the point that EVs can be cheaper still.

Speaking of Nissan also, it has escaped as much of a lame duck status even if it will eventually be replaced and is as long in the tooth as the Volt – assuming either really are, actually, they both remain relatively stellar.

But Nissan’s 84-mle range EV has had no official next-gen announcements as the Chevy has. It by contrast is being advertised, and Nissan puts out special press releases touting its latest records in the nascent industry.

GM’s effective Volt advertising is the Volt is on its way out, and a new one is around the corner. That message is hitting the national media more than the existing Volt’s still-valid advantages, which GM gave up on trying to push as hard.

Here’s hoping Gen 2 is as super duper as everyone suspects, and then some. We may see some serious catching up at that point – assuming GM can properly support it and this is not just a bone thrown to the fan club it has developed.

Where is that Voltec CUV? If Americans love trucks and SUVs, could a plug-in sell, or not? VIA seems to think so, but with sales growth of the existing 17-20 mpg Silverado, who needs a plug, in perhaps?

What Americans bought most last month.

What ever the case, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and progress is on its way.

Every plug-in car out there is potentially advertisement for the others. Once people’s eyes are opened to any plug-in car, they may think to cross-shop. If GM is fortunate, it might get a few inadvertent conquest sales from people for whom the light bulb goes off after hearing about Tesla or Nissan, then look for alternatives.

Of course the best alternative will be Gen 2 Volt which will come soon enough – or, which is it? Maybe it can’t come soon enough?

Our vote is the former, and note the due-to-be-replaced old Volt was the third-best selling out of 20 cars.

Source: GM-Volt

My Vision of Gen 2.0 Volt

By George S. Bower

Let’s start by addressing the two biggest problems with the current Volt design:

1) Price is too high
2) Interior room is too low

Price

We simply go after the two most expensive parts of the current car:

1) The battery
2) the 4ET50 transmission

The battery cost problem will solve itself. Time and higher production rates will bring the cost down. Volt AER is already ideally suited to cover over 80 percent of the driving public. That is the one beauty of the current Volt design philosophy: Don’t make the battery any larger than required. Keep the cost down.

The Volt’s 4ET50 transmission is a complicated device. It contains a planetary gear set, three clutches and a final gear reduction set as shown below.

 

The advantage of the 4ET50 transmission is that it allows the Volt to operate in two modes during extended range mode: pure series and power link. The advantage of power link is that it increases mpg in extended-range mode by mechanically connecting the internal combustion engine (ICE) to the wheels. This mechanical link increases mpg in extended-range (ER) mode on the order of 7-10 percent as described in the analysis presented here http://gm-volt.com/2012/08/24/pure-series-e-rev-in-search-of-the-holy-grail/ .

The brilliance of the Voltec design is that it has a battery just big enough to cover the average daily driving distance of most drivers (40 miles). Keeping the pack as small as possible keeps the electric vehicle cost down.

We have data from the Volt fleet at Voltstats http://www.voltstats.net/ that shows that the median fleet MPG is 171 MPG and that the median %EV is 80%. Some drivers never even use the range extender.

So why have tons of money tied up in a complicated transmission?

Answer is: There is no reason.

The effect of going to pure series should be much less than 7-10% on a fleet basis. Since 80% of fleet driving is in electric mode, the 7-10% penalty on fuel consumption for going pure series would be reduced by at least half. A 3.5% penalty on fleet MPG would only reduce fleet MPG from 171 MPG to 165 MPG….a negligible amount and not worth the extra expense of the 4ET50 transmission.

The Key is the Spark EV Coaxial gearbox

The beauty of the Spark EV’s gearbox is in its simplicity.

 

GM pulled a very special trick when they designed the Spark EVs gearbox. They reduced the amount of gear reduction needed in the transmission by going to a higher torque motor. Gear reduction is only approximately 3/1 in the Spark coaxial unit versus 6/1 in the Volt. This eliminates the extra reduction downstream of the PG set shown in figure 2.

Going to the Sparks coaxial gearbox instead of the current 4ET50 transmission would significantly reduce the cost of Gen 2.0 Volt.
But what of the ICE? Simple solution is to go to an aluminum block 3-cylinder non-turbocharged unit reducing cost and weight and size of the ICE.
In order to integrate the coaxial gearbox and the 3 cylinder ICE with generator GM would need to redesign the transaxle case.

How do we fix the problem with too little interior room?

Simple … put the batteries in the floor like all the other serious EV manufacturers do, namely Tesla (Model S), Nissan (Leaf), and BMW (i3). This issue was addressed in a previous article presented here so I will not go into detail on that subject.

Conclusion

In order to lower cost and increase interior room GM should make the following changes in Gen 2.0:

1) Put the batteries in the floor.
2) Go to a pure series configuration: eliminate the 4ET50 transmission and go with the Spark EV coaxial unit married to an aluminum block 3 cylinder ICE driving a generator.

This approach opens the door to a CUV design which is always being requested by Volt fans here.

Source: GM-Volt.com