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Twitter: michiganwllzDETROIT — Add David Cole to the list of automotive experts who think a modern amphibious car is going to be a tough sell.
Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, said he’s not sure the market for amphibious cars that Gibbs Technologies is counting on is going to be very big.
Date: October 23, 2009
Categories: Amphibious cars, Amphibious vehicles, Automotive trends, CAR (Center for Automotive Research), Uncategorized
Sastry
TRAVERSE CITY — The technology that will power the Chevrolet Volt when it is expected to launch late next year is well known, but General Motors is betting that an Ann Arbor company is developing the battery that will power the car’s next generation.
Sakti3, an Ann Arbor startup company, is developing solid-state lithium-ion battery technology, which CEO Ann Marie Sastry says she hopes will replace the wet slurry lithium ion technology that will go into the Volt’s high-tech battery.
Sastry was part of the Advanced Powertrain panel at Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminar autos conference in Traverse City. Sakti3 is a spinoff business from the University of Michigan, where Sastry is professor of material sciences.
The Volt will use a lithium-ion battery to power the vehicle for up to 40 miles before a gasoline engine generator starts to power the vehicle through the electric motors. Owners will be able to recharge the car from an electrical outlet. GM believes that most owners will not have to use the gasoline engine for their daily commute. When longer trips are necessary, the gasoline engine will provide range similar to other gasoline-powered vehicles.
TRAVERSE CITY — Future vehicles will be connected in ways some people never thought possible, but it’s a treacherous road those in the industry are traveling.
Panelists speaking at the Center for Automotive Research’s annual Management Briefing Seminars autos conference agreed that liability and driver distraction issues need to be resolved as the technology moves forward.
But there are no concrete answers now, said Tim Johnson, who works on in-vehicle connectivity and telematics for Sprint Nextel.
“It’s an enormously important question right now,” Johnson said. “We need to find a way that (information) can be ingested sensibly and safely inside the vehicle.”
