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Looks like the EV market is expanding

The electric vehicle market long has been divided into two segments: Tesla, and everybody else.

This is because the Tesla Model S sedan offers a range of 265 miles and costs about $100,000. Everyone else is making EVs like the Nissan Leaf and Fiat 500e, which deliver something on the order of 70 miles and cost about $30,000. None of these cars have broken into the mainstream, in no small part because most consumers do not believe the cars offer a compelling combination of affordability and capability. We’re all waiting for the reasonably priced EV with exceptional range.

The long-awaited savior has been the Tesla Model 3, which company boss Elon Musk promises will deliver 200 miles for a price tag under $40k. He plans to have it here within a few years.

Chevrolet—yes, Chevrolet—may beat him to it.

This week, General Motors announced the Chevrolet Bolt, a car specifically meant to undercut the Model 3—perhaps before Musk’s car even arrives.

The Bolt, unveiled at the Detroit auto show, is a concept, yes, but a preview of a battery electric production car that GM CEO Mary Barra says will deliver more than 200 miles of range for a base price around $30,000 (after the obligatory $7,500 federal tax credit). While GM is keeping quiet about when this car would hit the market, The Wall Street Journal and Detroit Free Press say the company’s shooting for 2017.

That’s right around the time the Tesla Model 3 is supposed to land.

“My sense is that [Chevy] probably looked at the numbers, cost, and range Elon was claiming for the Model 3, and said, ‘You know what? We can do that,’” says Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “I think they’re gonna be able to. I don’t think they make those claims lightly.”

So how does Chevy graduate to the 200-mile club without piling on cost? Some of the answer can be seen in the design of the Bolt concept, which is loaded with lightweight materials like aluminum, magnesium, carbon fiber, and, apparently, “woven mesh.” (Hammock seats, anyone?) A lighter car requires less energy to propel, thereby increasing range. Vented rear fenders and an integrated rear spoiler help with aerodynamics, which also will boost range. Added bonus: The result is a good-looking little car.

But it takes more than design tweaks to get more than twice the range of anything that isn’t rolling out of Tesla’s factory. GM isn’t discussing specifics of the battery—it’s a concept, after all—but it’s happy to say the ambitious 200-mile figure is based on years of work in the field. That work dates to the mid-1990s, when GM introduced the battery electric EV1. The car delivered 70 to 100 miles from lead-acid batteries. GM switched to lithium-ion when it launched the Chevrolet Volt in 2011. The first version of that plug-in hybrid could go just 35 miles on electricity alone. Two years later, that figure bumped up to 38. The latest generation, introduced in Detroit on Monday, takes it to 50. Last year, Chevy launched the Spark EV, a wee EV that goes 82 miles on a charge. GM makes its own batteries, and its engineers are constantly working on improving the technology. (It’s also worth noting that these claimed ranges are usually optimistic, especially if you spend much time driving at the speed of traffic on a highway or uphill.)

“We have made tremendous strides in technologies that make it easier and more affordable for Chevrolet customers to integrate an all-electric vehicle in their daily lives,” Barra says. “The Bolt EV concept demonstrates General Motors’ commitment to electrification and the capabilities of our advanced EV technology.”

To see how those technologies have progressed in recent years, look to the Volt, says Pam Fletcher, GM’s top engineer for electric vehicles. When the plug-in electric hybrid was launched in 2010, its battery pack provided 16.1 kilowatt hours. Today that number’s up to 17.1. The battery pack in the next-gen offers 18.4 kWh, and it’s 20 pounds lighter than its 400-pound predecessor.

Those incremental increases in energy density are due to evolving chemistry, constant development, and trial and error on battery pack and cell form factor by GM scientists. Fletcher points to another big improvement Chevy shows off with the Volt: a new two-motor drive unit that’s 12 percent more efficient and a full 100 pounds lighter than the one in the first-gen car.

Small changes to things like cell design, materials, and chemistry, along with mass production, can drive down cost, within limits, says Jeremy Michalek, a professor of mechanical engineering who runs the vehicle electrification group at Carnegie Mellon University. He also points out that it’s hard to judge this kind of proposition with no information other than range and MSRP. Price is different from cost, and what the consumer pays is complicated by state and federal subsidies. Plus, some states (like California) mandate automakers sell at least some zero-emission vehicles (i.e., battery electric or hydrogen powered).

Incremental improvements to the battery back used in the 2016 Chevy Volt could make their way to a car like the Bolt. General Motors
If the Bolt is being made just to satisfy regulatory requirements, GM probably wouldn’t care as much about making a profit, so would lower the price to boost sales and take the loss. It wouldn’t be new territory: Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne publicly asked people not to buy the all-electric 500e, saying, “Every time I sell one it costs me $14,000.” Alternatively, a 200-mile range car that can be profitably sold for under $40,000 could be the first EV to expand the market beyond enthusiasts and the wealthy.

As GM learns more about the reliability, longevity, and performance of its battery cells, it can squeeze more out of them and make them cheaper. It could dial back the amount of coolant it uses for thermal management, which adds complexity. It could push cells closer to their power limit without risking an explosion, Michalek says. “If you put a bunch of those kinds of things together, they could make a significant drop in the overall price of the pack.” But if you want a major cost reduction, some bigger development would be needed, a leap rather than an incremental improvement.

But GM argues a car like the Bolt could provide the balance of range and affordability consumers have been waiting for. “Those kinds of evolutions that we’ve already demonstrated, we just have to keep going,” Fletcher says. “So I think it’s very much on the horizon.”

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/chevrolet-bolt-ev/