FEB 05

Media is confused, once again. The Volt will NOT launch in San Fran. Charging stations that would help the Volt would be located at the workplace, groceries, malls, etc. but NOT at those charging stations built for Better Place - they charge only their own battery packs, no one else's. Get some knowledge before writing crap like this.

Clearly the author is expressing their opinion that San Francisco would make an ideal launch site, not saying that it definitely will be the launch site. Given S.F.'s track record of implementing green infrastructure ahead of the rest of the country, it makes sense that the city would be a good match for the Volt.

The initial buyers of the Volt will probably never use gas, and have access to power at both ends of their destinations.

Get 250,000 Volt's on the road and 250,000+ Prius PHEV's, then you can start catering to these cars.

IOW, I find that a better use of US tax dollars should go towards subsidies towards buying PHEVs/Volts, and not highly expensive charging stations.

We need to do everything in our power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.We have so much available to use such as wind and solar as well as technologies to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. There could be no better investment in than to invest in energy independence. Create clean cheap energy,create millions of BADLY needed new green jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.The high cost of fuel this past year did serious damage to our society and economy. Record numbers of jobs and homes have been lost due to the direct impact on our economy.Oil is finite.We are using it globally at the rate of 2 X faster than new oil is being discovered. Added to the strain on our supplies foreign countries are bursting in populations and becoming modern.China and India alone are expected to add another 3 million vehicles to their highways in the next 2 decades. I just read a fantastic book called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now by Jeff Wilson.Great Book!
www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com

GM... cities plug-in friendly to help release the volt?? It's an extended range electric! The whole idea behind the car is there is no need to wait for or search for plug-in stations. GM is anti-hyping it like another EV1 that they have no real interest in the public actually getting their hands on across the country. GM knows full well of the high demand for this simple engineering concept once it gets out there. It will make the Prius trend look like a blip on the radar. they know that subsequently there goes any remaining demand for the rest of their IC cars and major cut in profits in the parts department. GM- Please just make the Volts as you are required to under your agreement w/ the Union a year ago and distribute them at ALL American cities!! Newsflash: anyone with a single family home and a driveway ALREADY is equipped for an extended range plug-in car. There is nothing at all that limits this to cities either. The idea of GM making this out to be a big deal when Edison and Ford were driving around in electric cars themselves 100 years ago is ludicrous. GM is the one that sold the good car battery technology to Chevron/Texaco which only can be for one reason- to keep it out of vehicles. Plug-in extended range and hybrids will be adopted as fast as the manufacturers put them out there. Once people get enjoy the pleasure of only having to stop at the gas station once a month (as my wife did owning a 80mpg Honda Insight) they won't be looking back. They'll also be sharing w/ their friends the joy of having a car that rarely needs any maintenance beyond tires. With regenerative braking even the pads last a long time (our Insight went 120K w/ out needing them). For that matter GM should just fire back up production of the EV1 and their nice little all electric Chevy pickup truck they manufactured around 2000 and start selling them to people all across America too. Since they already used to make and sell them they could probably get those to models out in mass faster than their special pet project Volt. For details on GM's hand in things over the last century read or listen to 'Internal Combustion' by Edwin Black. Here's wishing that GM refocuses and does the right thing to move our Country forward. It IS the 21st Century after all ;)

kerry, you rightly pointed out that better place charges no other battery except their own. However, the article is about GM allying SF to launch the volt..and that doesn't discount the possibility of GM creating a custom version that is compatible with Better Place battery pack. As far as I know, Better Place has been working actively working with several EV companies for the adoption of a common charging infrastructure. It is in the interests for both parties to have a common charging infrastructure if they are really serious about marketing EVs.

"On Oct. 10, 2000, GM sold control of GM-Ovonics, and the NiMH batteries it controlled, to Texaco. On Oct. 16, 2000, Texaco announced it was merging into Chevron (Standard Oil of California), taking control of the NiMH Electric car batteries with it.
Chevron renamed GM-Ovonics as Chevron-Ovonics BAttery SYStems ("COBASYS"). In 2001, Cobasys filed suit against Toyota and others,
claiming violations of its patent rights.

To this day, Chevron's unit Cobasys retains control of the NiMH batteries; ...For example, NiMH has a useful life of more than 10 years and over 100,000 miles, ... value of $2,400 or a net cost of about 10 cents per mile.

The Lithium batteries in the Tesla ...or a net cost of more than 25 cents per mile. ..NiMH would be as little as 4 cents per mile."

http://www.ev1.org/ http://www.ev1.org/nimhsup.htm

So you can safely say that big auto/oil kills EVs. It's what they do. Only now, some do it bankrupt.

GM's Chevy Volt/EV-1/___ to hit the streets of San Francisco/LA/___ ..as history repeats. Same firm - same result..