These are dark days for General Motors, which is wallowing in the mire of the global economic implosion. Shares recently hit their lowest price since 1951, reserves are running on empty and there's no guarantee a merger with Chrysler or a government bailout will save the day. GM's only ray of light is the Chevrolet Volt, its all-in bet on the golden retriever going in for the injured point guard with five minutes left to play, the home team down by 15 and all of Motor City's cheerleaders out waxing their bikini lines.
The odds are good the gamble will pay off.
The world's largest automaker is expected on Friday to announce billions of dollars in third-quarter losses, and all but stands on the brink of bankruptcy. The revolutuonary Volt is without question its best chance for survival. It isn't just a 100-mpg electric car, it is GM's declaration that it will no longer play it safe cranking out uninspired and irrelevant cars. GM wants to seize the green mantle from Toyota and prove Japan doesn't have a stranglehold on innovation.
"We've had a gradual cultural revolution here at GM," Bob Lutz, vice chairman of product development and the guy cracking the whip to get the Volt in showrooms by the end of 2010, recently told us. "The Volt is a very good sign for the company. It shows a willingness to take great risks."
It would be easy to dismiss Maximum Bob's comments as more hyperbole from a guy who knows how to give good quote. But the Volt is a great risk. It's also the vehicle most likely to generate the momentum GM needs to carry it through these bleak economic times.
The Volt is no johnny-come-lately following the path blazed by the first-gen Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius. It’s a technological step forward.
The Prius, like the Honda Civic and forthcoming Honda Insight, is a parallel hybrid that uses both an electric motor and a gasoline engine to drive the wheels. The Volt, on the other hand, is a series hybrid. Like the Prius, it's got an electric motor and a four-cylinder gasoline engine, but the engine merely charges the 16 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery as it approaches depletion. Electricity alone turns the wheels. The Volt is designed to travel 40 miles on a single charge, meaning most drivers will never burn a drop of gasoline. GM is still butting heads with the Environmental Protection Agency over the Volt's official fuel economy rating, but GM execs tell us the Volt is good for 100 mpg or more. That's enough to put the fear of God into the oil companies.
Everything about the Volt is designed to maximize fuel economy, from its sleek grille to the windswept mirrors to the spoiler on the hatchback. GM's designers spent more than 1,000 hours in the wind tunnel, and they say the Volt is more aerodynamic than the Prius or the Civic Hybrid.
"We spent three times longer on this car than any other car [in GM’s history]," Nina Tortosa, the engineer who oversaw wind tunnel testing, told us shortly before the car was unveiled in September. "It will be one of the most aerodynamic cars out there." The result is a car that makes the Prius look about as exciting as Grandma's muu-muu.
GM went to about as much trouble with the interior. Sitting in the Volt is sitting in an iPod. Swathed in shiny white plastic, the dash features touch sensitive controls and customizable LCD screens. The Volt is making a statement. Hybrids are no longer about saving gas or going green. Suddenly they have style.
That style won't come cheap. The Volt's price has climbed steadily since it was unveiled almost two years ago at the Detroit auto show, and GM will be lucky to keep it under $40,000. The car will qualify for a $7,500 tax credit, but it'll still cost several thousand more than a Prius and almost twice what the next-gen Insight is expected to go for. GM doesn't think that will be a problem.
"This isn't going to be a budget vehicle," Bob Boniface, the Volt's lead designer, recently told BusinessWeek, "and this helped us win some important arguments. Take a look at your iPhone. That's the kind of finishing that distinguishes a product." Boniface's point is the Volt, like the iPhone, will be a killer app, a must-have product. He may be right. More than 34,000 people in 60 countries and all 50 states have signed an unofficial waiting list to buy one.
All of this depends, of course, on the technology behind the car actually working. GM is literally making this stuff up as it goes, and it remains to be seen whether the batteries will deliver on their range and endure the rigors of life on the road. But make no mistake -
General Motors is throwing everything it has at the Volt and sparing no expense to put it in showrooms by the end of 2010. Every industry analyst and EV advocate we've talked to says GM will almost certainly meet that deadline. GM is so confident that it'll have the technology sorted out that Jon Lauckner, VP of global development, tells us, "some of us are thinking about the follow-up vehicle."
Critics argue, correctly, that GM will lose money on the Volt – Lutz has said so, and GM is OK with that – and they note that with initial production volume in the tens of thousands, the Volt will be a niche vehicle along the lines of the Chevrolet Corvette. That prompted Alex Taylor III of Fortune magazine to say, "the Volt is about as relevant to the survival of GM ... as Paris Hilton is to the future of Western civilization."
Taylor miss the point entirely. This isn't about sales volume. It's about creating a signature vehicle that will define GM's image, prove that Detroit can innovate and convince consumers to give GM a fresh look. For those reasons and more, the Volt is not only relevant to GM's survival, it is essential.
See Also:
- The Volt Isn't a Prius. It Might Even Be Better.
- Exclusive: Inside the Design Process of the Volt
- 34,520 People and Counting Want a Volt
- Bob Lutz: Volt Is the U.S. Car Industry's Moon Shot
Images and video by General Motors.
