Volt Birth Watch 43: Death of the Fuel Cell? An EV is Born!

by Frank Williams

April 28th, 2008 9:55 AM

volt birth watch 43 death of the fuel cell an ev is born

Is GM abandoning hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle [s]hype[/s] development in favor of battery-powered electrics? Newly enriched Car Czar "Maximum" Bob Lutz seems to be hinting in that direction. In an interview with PetroZero.org, the Volt's godfather indicated The General is considering building a Volt. No seriously. Building a Volt "without engine and all the plumbing" to meet California's new Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandate. The engineers responsible for the test fleet of hydrogen-powered Equinox will be delighted to learn that Max Bob "agreed" that "pure EV was the most sensible route [to meet the ZEV requirements] compared to expensive hydrogen powered fuel cells." But MB didn't stop there. (As if.) He concluded if GM builds an EV Volt, they'd have "a pure electric with more range." More range than what? The EV1? And does this indicate that GM's already working on an all-electric Volt, or is Bob just putting his bid in for next year's Bob Lutz Award? Or both? But definitely not neither.

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4 of 17 comments

Seabrjim on Apr 28, 2008

Altoids, you forgot 1 thing. The prius is also made by toyota. Tips the scale even further. Well maybe the volt will be dependable. However, If the past history of GM tells us anything...

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Juniper on Apr 28, 2008

Altoids The A123 system is NOT available at this time. But they will take your $1000 deposit for installation "some time this summer". It will be interesting to see if this comes true.

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Jthorner on Apr 28, 2008

"Yes, and we all know that every GOOD exectuive in a large corporation has intimate knowledge of the - in this case literal - nuts and bolts of the operation…" Actually if you look at the vast majority of the growth companies of the past 20 years you will find that the answer is that yes, the CEO does have intimate knowledge of the product.

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David C. Holzman on Apr 28, 2008
Juniper : lprocter1982 GM won the first race of the world solar challenge with a car called Sunraycer. That car set the standard for future cars in the race. Most of the credit should really go to Paul MacCready and his company, Aerovironment. MacCReady was also responsible in large part for EV1, the Gossamer Albatross (first human powered flight over the English Channel), and numerous other engineering marvels.

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