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2011 Chevrolet Volt
FLINT — Cynics all over the Web wonder if the Chevy Volt will be able to deliver on the incredible promises General Motors has made about the technology.
But company officials believe they are creating the technology that will power the vehicles of the future.
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Date: October 13, 2009
Categories: Detroit Three, General Motors, Technology, Volt, green
The first decade of the new millennium has given us some fantastic new vehicle technologies. Here’s a few of my favorites. Feel free to add your own.
If Lotus Cars is known for one thing, it is the company’s family of small yet soul-stirring sports cars. But in fact, parent company Lotus Group also contains an important—and profitable—division called Lotus Engineering that lends the company’s considerable engineering expertise to many of the world’s automakers as they develop powertrain and suspension technology for new models.
While most of Lotus Engineering’s ventures are consummated far away from the public, the group is taking to the Frankfurt Auto Show to woo corporate suitors with an all-new three-cylinder engine designed specifically for use as a dedicated range-extending electricity generator in plug-in hybrids.
In keeping with its “smaller and lighter is better” engineering ethic, the aluminum 1.2-liter SOHC engine integrates the cylinder block, cylinder head, and exhaust manifold in a single casting. As such, the engine is very compact and, at just 150 pounds, it is so low in mass that it won’t really matter where in a given hybrid it is situated. Furthermore, as a purpose-built range extender (versus an adaptation of an existing engine like the 1.4-liter Ecotec used by the upcoming Chevy Volt) the Lotus engine gets by without fancy direct injection, turbochargers, and such. Redline is kept to just 3500—hard to believe from a company whose other products rev to 9000 rpm—at which point the engine is churning out its 47-hp max; peak torque of 79 lb-ft arrives at 2500 rpm.
While Lotus’s new engine is not likely to turn plug-ins into Evo-eaters, Lotus claims that its diminutive weight will allow plug-ins to run with fewer batteries, further reducing cost and weight. The motor’s real-world fuel consumption and emissions will depend, of course, on the vehicle in which it is installed, among many other factors. But suffice to say that it will be a sipper. No word on potential takers for the engine, though Lotus says Jaguar was involved with the project as part of a collaboration sponsored by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board.
Source: Car and Driver
The 2010 Fisker Karma may be the first extended-range electric vehicle to hit the market when it goes on sale this year.
While General Motors is crowing loudly about its upcoming Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle (EREV), it looks like it will not be the first automaker to market the technology in a car.
California-based Fisker Automotive says it will begin delivering its Fisker Karma this year. Fisker’s research and development center, which employs about 200 workers, is located in Pontiac. Fisker has contracted with Valmet Automotive in Finland, which already builds the Porsche Boxster and Cayman, to build the 2010 Karma.
Like the Volt, the Karma will be an electric-drive car with a gasoline engine to serve as a generator once the battery is exhuasted. Fisker is promising a 50-mile range for electric-only operation before the gasoline engine is needed.
