It would be a stretch for the US auto industry to meet the Obama administration’s stated goal of having one million plug-in hybrid cars within six years, but General Motors was prepared to do its part if key hurdles could be overcome, a senior official has said.
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The automaker’s director of global energy systems and infrastructure commercialisation, Britta Gross, told Reuters GM would do the “heavy lifting” to help meet the ambitious goal set by president Barack Obama of having 1m plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on US roads by 2015.
“I can tell you we can definitely do the heavy lifting part of that,” Gross said in an interview. “We definitely will lift up our end of that.”
GM would launch the rechargeable Chevy Volt plug-in ‘range extender’ hybrid by the end of 2010 and planned to have 14 hybrid models in production by 2012.
“The capacity of General Motors or any large automaker to deploy plug-in vehicles depends on the capacity of suppliers,” Gross said. “Among them are battery suppliers. We need more capacity.”
Gross told the news agency it would take five or more battery manufacturers to make enough batteries to power 1m plug-in hybrid vehicles.
GM has designed the Volt to carry a lithium-ion battery with an all-electric driving range of 40 miles (64 km). A small petrol engine will recharge the battery during longer trips.
Gross would not tell Reuters how many Volts GM hoped to sell in its first year but executives have cautioned that the car’s price and availability would limit initial sales.
The Volt was expected to cost around $40,000 tough government tax incentives could bring the cost to consumers closer to $32,500 in the US, the report said.
The most expensive component in the Volt will be its 400lb (181 kg) battery pack.
GM will import lithium-ion battery cells from LG Chem in Korea and assemble the finished battery packs in Michigan, where the car will be assembled.
Gross also declined to say how much the automaker expected to be granted in US energy department loans under a programme intended to help the cash-strapped auto industry prepare for sharply higher U.S. fuel economy standards. The company will not be eligible for funds – $5.9bn was allocated to rival Ford yesterday – until it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection which is expected by the end of summer.
GM hoped for financial support from the federal government’s economic stimulus package, Gross told Reuters.
“There are larger stimulus opportunities that look very promising. There is a lot of support politically for our advanced technology programmes.”
GM and other automakers would have to have the support of things largely out of their control if there were to be 1m plug-in hybrids by 2015.
“The price of gasoline is one of the factors,” Gross said, referring the fact that low petrol prices may keep consumers from buying plug-ins. “The economy is one of the factors.”
Two years ago, consumers were probably more likely to embrace electric cars that cost more than conventional petrol-powered vehicles, Gross said. But the economy had changed that.
“These are new times with new challenges,” she said.
