Potential Energy

GM Backs Volt Battery with Eight-Year Warranty

Lifetime is key because of the high cost of battery packs.

Kevin Bullis 07/14/2010

  • 20 Comments

When a battery company unveils new technology and brags about its long lifetime, the best industry analysts aren't necessarily impressed by charts showing voltage-current curves over hundreds or thousands of discharge cycles. "Show me the warranty," they say. That's a good indication of how long the company really thinks the battery will last.

GM executives have said they expect the battery for its upcoming Volt electric vehicle (actually, a type of plug-in hybrid) will last the life of the car. Now GM has backed up those claims (sort of) by announcing a 8-year, 100,000 mile battery warranty. That's not quite as long as I'd like a car to last--and not as good as a 10-year warranty some had expected--but it's a good amount of time compared to the 3-year warranty offered by some other manufacturers. Nissan, which is coming out with the electric Leaf this year, hasn't yet announced warranty details.

The battery warranty is key, since replacing a full battery pack could cost more than $10,000 by some estimates.

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Shootist

39 Comments

  • 579 Days Ago
  • 07/14/2010

"GM Backs Volt Battery with Eight-Year Warranty" . . . Backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America, Inc.

Reply

nopcbs

12 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re:

Be afraid...be very afraid.

Reply

otherdoug66

9 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re:

That is one of the most foolish comments I've encountered in a TR comments section.  Why don't you try to speak to the topic at hand, not ineptly attempt to score political points?

Does this kind of garbage infect every level of discourse in this country?  You can't even discuss technical topics without running straight into mindless parroting of faux-libertarian talking points!

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duane.s.hawkins@hotmail.com

1 Comment

  • 296 Days Ago
  • 04/23/2011

Re:

If you are opposed to buying government subsidized cars, you should not buy a Toyota or Nissan, either, as both were heavily incentivized by the federal and state governments to bring manufacturing to the U.S.  Anyone with a grain of sense should be able to see that the federal government shared some culpability in the condition of domestic auto manufacturers by encouraging unsafe banking practices to the point where the system nearly collapsed and the money supply shrank to nothing.  I love it when lemmings who know absolutely nothing about cars, economics, or politics shoot their mouths off on forums like this one.

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nopcbs

12 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Uh, excuse me...

...but Toyota backs the batteries in the RX400h for 8 years and, according to a Lexus parts counter person who has only heard of company testing "mule" packs having been replaced, the pack is something like $2400. I think that the Prius and Camry hybrid have similar warranties. If a Volt battery pack fails at 8.1 years and a new one costs much more than that, GM will have basically created an 8-year lifetime disposable car. Further, at 6-8 years of age, the car will have essentially no resale value (would you pay ANYTHING for a used car that is likely to need a $10,000 part in less than two years - plus labor?) Our 19 year old Lexus LS400 (that Obama wanted to give me lots of money to destroy last year in an obscenely wasteful governement program) is going just fine, on the other hand, on it's 3rd $80 battery and original powerplant.

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dfingles

2 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: Uh, excuse me...

So, you've never sold an older car?  I can easily sell my 2003 Suburban with 156K miles on it and it is long out of warranty on everything.   I would hazard that most used vehicles are bought with engines and transmissions out of warranty.  Exceeding the warranty limits doesn't mean the item will fail in the next (x) miles or months, it might be years or another hundred thousand miles before needing major repairs/replacement.  So LOTS of people will still buy used Volts even if the battery is no longer under warranty.

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Tomblvd

3 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: Uh, excuse me...

It's a completely different issue entirely.

I just bought a 2003 Suburban, an I have a reasonable expectation that, given its track record, the major parts of the truck, such as the drivetrain, will give me no problems for many years if taken care of properly.

Now compare that with trying to sell an eight year old Volt. The person looking to purchase that car knows that it will definitely need at least $10,000 worth of work after he buys it, no matter how well looked after it is.

Who would want to buy a used Volt?

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Bob Wallace

71 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: Uh, excuse me...

"Now compare that with trying to sell an eight year old Volt. The person looking to purchase that car knows that it will definitely need at least $10,000 worth of work after he buys it, no matter how well looked after it is.

Who would want to buy a used Volt?"

1.  At the end of the eight year battery life that battery will should have an 80% capacity rating.  Utility companies are already preparing to purchase used EV/PHEV batteries to use for grid storage/smoothing. 

2.  Eight years from now batteries are almost certainly going to be both better and cheaper.  It won't be a $10k "repair", but more likely a $2k "enhancement".  The price of a new battery pack minus the sale price for the old.  And probably an electric range increase and charge time decrease.

I don't think there will be any problem selling used EVs and PHEVs.  The likely problem will be selling gas cars if there are adequate numbers of used electrics.

Remember, those industrial quality electric motors should be good for 300,000+ miles and then need only new bearings, not a new engine.  And the body won't have suffered years of stress from ICE vibration and heat. Even the transmissions should be in better shape.

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Tomblvd

3 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: Uh, excuse me...

All of your points are assumptions. All we know right now for sure is that sometime after 8 years, the batteries that are the heart of the Volt will need to be replaced at a hefty cost. Some or all of your "almosts", "should haves", and "I thinks" may or may not come to pass, but until they do, the Volt is not an economical idea. And it is usually a good idea to make sure your idea is economical before proclaiming it the future of cars.

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Bob Wallace

71 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

OK...

You might want to look at what essentially all car manufacturers are saying - that the future of cars is electric.

And we just provided funds to help a new battery manufacturing plant start up in Michigan.  When it gets into full production it is expected that battery prices will drop 70% of what they are today.

My other "assumptions" such as the long life of industrial electric motors, that utility companies are getting ready to purchase used EV batteries, that batteries will still have 80% when they are "used up" for EV use.  Those are facts.

I'm pretty comfortable with my assumptions....

Reply

Tomblvd

3 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: OK...

I'm glad, 'cause the engineers sound a bit more equivocal.

<i>"Ten years is the target life (for the battery). Depending on how you use it and where you live, you could see significantly longer time," said David Wallace, engineering group manager for Voltec Battery Systems.</i>


http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10399861-54.html

And I don't doubt that electric vehicles can be the future of certain areas of personal transportation. I'm just skeptical of predictions of performance, esp. those coming from automakers.  Of course, I hope everybody buying electric cars realize there's most likely a coal or gas powered plant is supplying them with their electricity.

Me, build all the electric cars (that work economically) you want, just let the utilities build the nukes to power them.

THAT is green technology.

Reply

Bob Wallace

71 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Nukes are great...

If you want to pay more for your electricity.

Up to you....

Reply

otherdoug66

9 Comments

  • 574 Days Ago
  • 07/19/2010

Re: Nukes are great...

There's a couple of reasons for that, one good and one bad.

1. Far more of the costs of nuclear power are represented in the price people pay for that power than for fossil power; coal transfers a very large portion of its costs to people other than the producer or consumer of the power; point in nuclear power's favor.

2. The scale and complexity of conventional nuclear power facilities carry a large price tag that increases the cost for the consumer; this may be alleviated by newer reactor designs, but that's uncertain; it may very well be alleviated by smaller, modular reactor designs, but those are in an approval catch-22; point against nuclear power.

I'd prefer to pay the higher cost of nuclear knowing that it is a dependable, safe and low emission source of baseload power.  I'd be much happier if we were looking further into advanced reactor designs, smaller scale modular reactors and a thorium based fuel cycle to deal with proliferation issues.

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Bob Wallace

71 Comments

  • 577 Days Ago
  • 07/16/2010

Let's look at this bit...

"'cause the engineers sound a bit more equivocal.

<i>"Ten years is the target life (for the battery). Depending on how you use it and where you live, you could see significantly longer time," said David Wallace, engineering group manager for Voltec Battery Systems.</i>"

"Target life" in the case of EV batteries is the point where their capacity drops to 80%.  That means for a 100 mile range EV such as the LEAF the range would now be 80 miles.  For the PHEV Volt the electric-only range would be down from 40 to 32.

OK, now let's return to selling an eight year old Volt.  Assume the range is down to 32 miles.  There are people who would be well served by a PHEV which got only 20 miles of electric range.  They could do their daily commutes/driving the kids to school and activities, do their shopping, and then rely on the gas engine for the occasional longer trip.

They wouldn't even have to replace the battery.  They could drive the Volt into the ground.  (Average US car life is 13.3 years.)

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ms

190 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: Uh, excuse me..., point 2

Currently planned EVs seem to have custom battery packs. They aren't interchangeable with those of other EVs or hybrids. Only if there is sufficient volume for replacement packs (for a particular model) will there be inexpensive replacements available.
We can look for some guidance to the Prius, which of course has a much smaller pack than that for an EV. The earlier models have a different pack from later models. Replacement of the pack for the earlier models is currently $2300; for the later models, somewhat more. And these cars sold in volumes probably much larger than we should expect for the first round of EVs.

Reply

Bob Wallace

71 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

The price of batteries...

will go down.  For a long time battery makers have been saying that the price will drop to roughly 50% of what they have been based on nothing but economy of scale.  Plants need to produce about 100,000 units a year to reduce prices.

If enough Volts/whatever are sold there will be aftermarket replacement batteries. 

Reply

otherdoug66

9 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Re: Uh, excuse me...

I was following closely until you got to the Obama-bashing parenthetical comment.  That injection of off-topic invective kind of derailed the post.

Are you saying that you think the warranty equals an expiration date for the battery pack?  Or that the pack will simply cease working at 8 years plus one day?  I know that there are real concerns about lifespan, but I don't think a working battery becomes useless because it is a day past the warranty expiration.

Reply

El Zato

5 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Try this

How about a car that runs on home natural gas? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_GX (Honda Civic GX) dubbed "the greenest car in the USA"

Reply

mkogrady

423 Comments

  • 577 Days Ago
  • 07/16/2010

Re: Try this

The Honda GX looks like a great CNG vehicle, but the home based CNG filling unit is no longer available. The company went bust.

Still - given the choice between an expensive All Electric or a $27,000 CNG vehicle, I'll take the CNG - mainly because the Internal Combustion Engine technology is well understood, and the natural gas is a domestic energy source that we control (even though we get TON's of the stuff from non domestic sources)

Now if the Volt can be converted to use CNG for powering that 4 cylinder engine that powers the car after the batteries run out, then GM may have something.

Reply

Bob Wallace

71 Comments

  • 578 Days Ago
  • 07/15/2010

Battery life...

Range Rover has stated that their 4WD SUV Liberty's batteries will be good for 300,000 miles/13 years.

I haven't seen their guarantee yet, but I would expect it to match their claims.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7879096/Electric-4x4-to-go-into-production.html


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Kevin Bullis is Technology Review’s energy editor.

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