GM wants us to believe that they have been to the mountain top. Either that, or Madame Tussard’s has a new display on the horrors of the forthcoming climate changes from global heating.
Well, the Chevrolet Volt may well be a public relations ploy and they are doing some of the right things to answer criticism.
In this case, it is criticism about failing to improve mileage by using methods other than a more efficient electric drive. Besides providing General Electric a photo opportunity for moving into new energy markets, General Motors is responding to suggestions made by Amory Lovins and others at the Rocky Mountain Institute regarding greater use of lightweight composites.
The Energy Blog reports that Volt designers are using Ecomagination™ (see previous mention). According to a press release, General Motors is using “differentiated technologies” from GE Plastics. Fuel saving technologies that showcased GE Plastics on the Chevy Volt include:
- Roof made with Lexan™ GLX resins and Exatec™ Coating Technology
- Rear Deck Lid and Fixed Side Glazing made with Lexan™ GLX resins and Exatec™ Coating Technology
- Doors and Hood made with Xenoy™ iQ High Performance ThermoPlastic Composites (HPPC)
- Global energy absorber and hybrid rear energy absorbers with Xenoy iQ resins
- Steering Wheel and Instrument Panel with integrated airbag chute made with Lexan™ EXL resins
- Front Fenders made with Noryl GTX™ resins
- Wire Coating made with Flexible Noryl™ resins
These plastic materials allow for less fuel consumption, fewer carbon dioxide emissions, and improved overall performance.“ GM’s commitment to improving fuel economy, reducing vehicle emissions, and developing electrically-driven vehicles is facilitated with GE Plastics’ weight-reduction technologies on the Chevrolet Volt concept car. We were able to take mass out of the Volt in order to optimize its overall efficiency,” said General Motors’ vice president of Global Program Management, Jon Lauckner. “Through the independent auditor, GreenOrder, we were also able to see clear positive environmental results from working with GE Plastics,” said Lauckner.
Yet, at the same time the news from Oman reads, “Cut in Gasoline Use Is Decades Away, Say Automakers” (TinyURL). Which is more to the truth of the most recent publicity blitz.
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Felix Kramer’s 02:00 AM review (Feb, 12, 2007 ) of the Wired article, “Detroit’s Coupe de Grace” by John Gartner is concise, diplomatic and still scathing.
According to GM spokesman Brian Corbett, General Motors is aggressively pursuing plug-in hybrids “because of the tremendous potential to significantly increase fuel economy,” Sounds good, eh?
Yet, note that the optimism is cast sometime in the future: “When the advanced batteries are ready for production, our plug-in vehicles should be ready, too — which means we’ll be ahead of the curve.”
Kramer, like other founders of Plug-in Partners wants GM and Toyota “to get demonstration fleet cars on the road for drivers to use and respond to, with everything else done but using today’s ‘good enough’ batteries.” Without such full-scale testing of plug-in, there is the potential for further delay when mass production of advanced batteries change the industry.
Cynics says that this is the same delaying tactics that the Big Oil – Big SUV Complex have been using since the last energy crisis in the 1970s. People continue to accept or pretend to believe such talk because they want to and are too uncomfortable with anticipating the environmental consequences of business as usual.
In continuation of the “typical for Detroit”, image over substance approach, GM wants us to believe that they want to offer more fuel efficient vehicles. Plus Ford played catch-up to the Chevrolet Volt blarney with announcements of fuel-cell plug-in concept vehicle.
This blog cited a Oman news article more to the truth. Now Sebastian Blanco writing for Autoblog Green follows up on a joint study done by 40mpg and Civil Society Institute.
Dane Muldoon, writing for Autoblog Green, gives us more of the story on the super-lightweight construction that General Motors featured when announcing a new concept car at NAIAS.
Drawing from an industry publication, he particularly informs about the hood and door panels. The panels feature two parts 1) a core of Azdel Superlite, which is a low-density glass mat thermoplastic with 2) a matrix of Noryl PPX, which is a thermoplastic olefin developed by GE Plastics.
Derek Buckmaster, market director for body panels at GE Plastics, claims that Noryl PPX has a 30 to 50 percent higher modulus than other thermoplastic polyolefins (TPOs) currently in use. The Autoblog Green reporter explains for those of us without a degree in chemical engineering or materials science that Young’s modulus is a measure of stiffness.
The article focuses upon continuous glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene. Such panel facesheets give the exterior body parts sufficient elongation, stiffness and high-temperature resistance.
Composites World staff learned that the challenge is the cycle time needed to create a resin with PPE (polyphenylene ether) and PP (polypropylene). “The best time clocked so far,” Buckmaster told them, “is just under four minutes, using RocTool’s (Le Bourget du Lac, France) Cage System inductive mold-heating technology.” Yet cost requirements require production of the compression-molded composites within a two-minute cycle.
Development continues since both resins used in production of the parts is derived from 85 percent post-consumer waste. The hood and doors would be made from reclaimed 20-oz bottles made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate).
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