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Hybrids Electrics Hydrogen Cars

Batteries are keeping the next generation of ultra-efficient green cars out of your driveway. The Chevy Volt, the Cadillac Converj, an electric Ford Focus and half a dozen other electric cars are supposedly coming by 2010, or 2011. But they aren’t here yet and no one can put a final date on when they will come because of batteries.

The Holy Grail of green car engineering is a battery that can store enough energy to power all of the features people expect and still move a ton of metal and plastic, recharge quickly from a standard household outlet, and yet be small and light enough to fit in a car while leaving space for people and their stuff. A battery far more efficient than the nickel-metal hydride cells of today’s hybrids is just a theory until someone mass-produces one.

GM now says it is close.

Kicking Tires reports, “Today, GM announced it will manufacture lithium-ion battery packs in the U.S. for its Chevrolet Volt and other future electric cars. The plant will be built at an undetermined location in Michigan ‘in time for Volt production,’ GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said following an announcement at the Detroit auto show. The Volt is scheduled for production late in 2010.”

The San Jose Mercury News called the announcement “the biggest news to come out of the Detroit Auto Show.”

Edmunds Inside Line explains, “Lithium-ion batteries are widely viewed in the industry as the key to making viable electric cars.” GM’s announcement means that a major automaker, for the first time, is “serious about building battery packs for electric vehicles, which should accelerate the push to get them into your driveway.”

The Los Angeles Times characterizes GM’s announcement as the automotive industry “stepping on the accelerator as it shifts away from the piston and toward the electron.” But while some other automakers are following GM’s lead in hoping to develop batteries internally, the Times notes, one major competitor is skeptical. “Ford on Sunday said it was developing a mid-size battery-powered vehicle for sale in the U.S. in 2011, as well as a plug-in hybrid for 2012. But unlike GM or Toyota, Ford has no plans to develop the battery itself.” Ford will buy batteries from an outside supplier instead. “Alexander Edwards, head of auto analysis for consulting firm Strategic Vision Inc., believes that such a plan carries less risk. By shifting attention to batteries, he said, ‘GM and others might be locking themselves too much into one solution rather than keeping open to various solutions,’” he told the Times.

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