Truemors
Last night miamipress was invited to an exclusive event at
Cocowalk featuring the Chevrolet Volt concept car. We met and had
dinner with Senior Creative Designer From the GM Advanced Technology
Studio Team Mathieu Boimare. We made our own Video with some original music from our recording studio.
.
Mathieu’s three European university degrees
in science, fine arts, and industrial design provide him with a broad
international vision. In his Master’s program, he designed a wide
variety of products including packaging and furniture for Ligne Roset
and Addform, interning at the time for Thibault Desombre Design in
Montpelier, France. In 2002 Mathieu graduated from the famous French
design school called ENSAD or “Arts Deco”, in Paris.His first full-time professional experiences were in China where
he designed the interior of a restaurant/nightclub. He was also
involved in getting his design for a Personal Submarine into
production, and learned a more than a little about Chinese
manufacturing challenges.
- What most impressed us at this showing was the detail GM Techs
devoted into making a car that would appeal to the Luxury Sports Car
Market. Until now the average driver is not happy with the performance
or look of the Hybrids on the market.
‘First and foremost,
this is an advanced technology vehicle that uses little to no fuel at
all. But we didn’t see any reason why that should compromise its
design,’ GM Design led the design team that created the Volt concept,
with designs solicited from GM’s studios around the world. ‘We wanted a
size that connected with everyone, so we designed a small car,’In the
end, the interior design team from England inspired the final interior
execution, and the exterior is the work of the Michigan advanced design
team.
The Chevrolet Volt is a
battery-powered, four-passenger electric vehicle that uses a gas engine
to create additional electricity to extend its range. The
Volt draws from GM’s previous experience in starting the modern
electric vehicle market when it launched the EV1 in 1996, according to
GM Vice Chairman Robert A. Lutz. ‘The EV1 was the benchmark in battery
technology and was a tremendous achievement,’ Lutz said. ‘Even so,
electric vehicles, in general, had limitations.
They had limited range,
limited room for passengers or luggage, couldn’t climb a hill or run
the air conditioning without depleting the battery, and had no device
to get you home when the battery’s charge ran low.
‘The Chevrolet Volt is a
new type of electric vehicle. It addresses the range problem and has
room for passengers and their stuff. You can climb a hill or turn on
the air conditioning and not worry about it.’
- The Volt can be fully charged by plugging it into a 110-volt outlet for approximately
six hours a day. When the lithium-ion battery is fully charged, the
Volt can deliver 40 city miles of pure electric vehicle range. When the
battery is depleted, a 1L, three-cylinder turbocharged engine spins at
a constant speed, or revolutions per minute (rpm), to create
electricity and replenish the battery. According to Lutz, this
increases the fuel economy and range.
‘If you lived within 30
miles from work (60 miles round trip) and charged your vehicle every
night when you came home or during the day at work, you would get 150
miles per gallon,’ Lutz said. ‘More than half of all Americans live
within 20 miles of where they work (40 miles round trip). In that case,
you might never burn a drop of gas during the life of the car.’ In
addition, the Chevrolet Volt is designed to run on E85, a fuel blend of
85 percent ethanol and 15 percent
gasoline. Using E85, fuel economy of 150 mpg would translate into more
than 525 miles per petroleum gallon. In the event a driver forgets to
charge the vehicle or goes
on a vacation far away, the Volt would still get 50 mpg by using the
engine to convert gasoline into electricity and extending its range up
to 640 miles, more than double that of today’s conventional vehicles. A
technological breakthrough required to make this concept a reality is a
large lithium-ion battery.
This type of electric car,
which the technical community calls an ‘EV range-extender,’ would
require a battery pack that weighs nearly 400 pounds (181 kg). Some
experts predict that such a battery – or a similar battery – could be
production-ready by 2010 to 2012. Jon Lauckner, GM vice president of
Global Program Management, said the Volt is uniquely built to
accommodate a number of advanced technology propulsion solutions that
can give GM a competitive advantage.
‘Today’s vehicles were
designed around mechanical propulsion systems that use petroleum as
their primary source of fuel.’ Lauckner said. Tomorrow’s vehicles need
to be developed around a new propulsion architecture with electricity
in mind. The Volt is the first vehicle designed around GM’s E-flex
System.’That’s why we are also showing a variant of the Chevrolet Volt
with a hydrogen-powered fuel cell, instead of a gasoline engine EV
range-extender,’ said Lauckner. ‘Or, you might have a diesel engine
driving the generator to create electricity, using bio-diesel. Finally,
an engine using 100-percent ethanol might be factored into the mix. The
point is, all of these alternatives are possible with the E-Flex
System.’
While the technologically
advanced Chevrolet Volt has the capability to travel 40 miles on
electricity alone, at first glance, the concept could easily be
mistaken as simply a design statement. The Volt conveys an immediate
message of agility and sophistication, with exterior proportions more
commonly associated with classic sports cars. Twenty-one-inch wheels
and sheer, taut surface relationships reterate
the statement. The Chevrolet Volt’s athletic design challenges the
notion that an environmentally conscious vehicle can’t be beautiful and
possess an aesthetic spirit that matches its driving characteristics.
‘We’ve leveraged our resources around the globe to develop the design
aesthetic for the Volt,’ said Ed Welburn, vice president, GM Global
Design. ‘It was important that the design capture the face of Chevrolet
as it’s recognized around the world.’ Design and engineering
collaboration between GM designers and GE Plastics, using unique
material technology and design engineering support, helped achieve the
Volt’s distinctive appearance. True to the heritage of its Chevrolet
bowtie, the Volt’s exterior design suggests spirited performance and is
wrapped in a stylish package, with classic Chevrolet performance cues
that hint at both Camaro and Corvette.
We would like to thank Gloria Huang and her team for a great night.
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