Criticism of the Obama Administration’s Volt Report
A couple of weeks ago a report from President Obama’s Auto Task Force roundly criticized GM’s Volt plug-in hybrid–an electric car designed to travel 40 miles on battery power alone and hundreds of miles using a gasoline or ethanol-powered generator. Now some are claiming that the task force’s assessment of the Volt may have been based on some erroneous figures supplied by a consulting firm.
A company reportedly hired to help the Auto Task Force, Boston Consulting Group, has recently published a report that includes estimates of battery costs that are far higher than GM’s own cost estimates, as well as those from other analysts, according to Felix Kramer, the founder of CalCars, an organization that promotes plug-in hybrids. He writes:
The report reaches questionable conclusions about costs for plug-in vehicles based on elevated battery costs, which it sees currently at $2,000 per kilowatt-hour now, declining to $500-$700 by 2020. This assumption is the heart of its analysis – and it’s one that automakers, especially GM, have strongly criticized. While not getting specific, GM has made clear that its battery costs (for packs, not cells) will be “hundreds less” than $1,000 for the first generation Volt and still lower in the second and third generations of the Volt, on which it is already at work. GM isn’t waiting for the “breakthroughs in technology” BCG sees as necessary.
Read the rest of Kramer’s analysis here.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?
Robot vacuum companies say your images are safe, but a sprawling global supply chain for data from our devices creates risk.
A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023
These exclusive satellite images show that Saudi Arabia’s sci-fi megacity is well underway
Weirdly, any recent work on The Line doesn’t show up on Google Maps. But we got the images anyway.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.