GM Bolt specs announced.

Above is the Bolt battery.

Here's a link to more info.

https://transportevolved.com/2016/01/11/confirmed-2017-chevrolet-bolt-has-60-kwh-battery-pack-150-kilowatt-electric-motor/

It genuinely looks like the Bolt won't have more than 50 kw charging and it's a huge shame. Lack of infrastructure isn't an excuse !!!

bk

Deleted User wrote: »

Looks aren't everything for me, I prefer functionality, interior, comfort, gadgets and how it drives.

Then it looks like you would love the Bolt, seems to have some extremely nice interior tech.

The rear view mirror is actually not a mirror, but instead a screen that displays the rear view camera and has a much wider angle of view then any mirror.

It also has both a drivers 8" info panel and 10" touch screen control panel, plus an extremely nice looking interior.

BTW Seems like the CEO of Nissan has been dropping VERY heavy hints about the Leaf 2 at the auto show on in the US at the moment and as I predicted he says that can't talk too much about their plans for the Leaf 2 in the same way as GM can about the Bolt, here is what he said:

“Obviously, the LEAF is going to go though a lot of transformation. First we announced more autonomy, more range. But there is going to be a new LEAF coming. We didn’t take the leadership of electric car to abandon it. We are going to be fighting for it, we are going to continue to develop cars. But we would like to make announcement just before the cars come and not a long time before. So you are going to see us coming with products, with technologies, with enhancements, with reduction of costs and (more range).”

Ironically he said this with pictures of the Nissan IDS Concept behind him a 200 mile, 60 kWh "concept" car which is quiet clearly the Leaf 2 disguised and then they went and gave journalists a tour of their R&D facility to show off their new "concept" car with it's new 60 kWh battery, which is all very obviously the Leaf 2.

http://insideevs.com/nissan-ids-concept-future-nissan-leaf-drag-report/

Most interestingly the new 60 kWh battery is almost the exact same size and dimensions as the current 30kWh so it is very obvious that it is ready for the Leaf 2.

BTW Mad_Lad will be delighted to hear that this "leaf 2 concept" uses 100kw DC charging.

From what we are seeing here I think we can expect to See the Leaf 2 hit in 2017 and not long after the Bolt.

Oh and BTW it seems LG Chem will be building the battery for the Leaf 2, the same company doing the Bolt battery.

BBTW Seems like the new Nissan battery is actually closer to 70 kWh, but with 60 usable, quote from a cooment in the above article:

The second generation NMC cells from LG Chem have 65 Ah. This means 288 x 65 Ah x 3,7 V = 69,3 kWh

So the 60 kWh capacity should be usable. 87 % usable capacity seems right.

bk

More battery porn, here is the current Leaf 30 kWh battery and Nissans new 60 kWh battery side by side:

I do think the lack of thermal management is a mistake. But Nissan Obviously doesn't think so.

70 Kwh, 10 Kwh buffer would seem rather odd. It would mean that battery would last practically forever.

100 Kw charging is not a surprise, Nissan have been testing much faster charging since 2011 and have hinted many times Leaf Ii will have faster charging.

100 Kw charging is fantastic, and I hope it can use the Tesla super chargers when they're installed here sometime in 2016, (supposedly)

Question is how long will it take the ESB to upgrade and where will the money come from if people are moaning of paying 30 C per min charging.

As I kept telling the people who wouldn't shut up about the 30 C/min, if you can charge at 100 Kw at 30 C a min then you get more than twice the range for the money than you get at 45 Kw. But they wouldn't stop moaning, running to the media doing far more harm than the ESB charges that the majority of the public wouldn't even have been aware of.

I still wonder what the hell GM were thinking, 50 kw DC ? come on that's sooooo 2011 !!!

More automation will be welcome and fully automated driving home 66 Kms after night shifts would be really fantastic for me.

2017 will be pretty close to Nissan's initial target, Probably at the earliest Q2 , most likely Q3 2017.

bk

Deleted User wrote: »

As I kept telling the people who wouldn't shut up about the 30 C/min, if you can charge at 100 Kw at 30 C a min then you get more than twice the range for the money than you get at 45 Kw. But they wouldn't stop moaning, running to the media doing far more harm than the ESB charges that the majority of the public wouldn't even have been aware of.

Actually a bigger issue exists for the ESB charging network. With 200 mile cars, the ESB network becomes irrelevant for most people.

You can get from Dublin to any city in Ireland in 200 miles, very few people would sign up to €17 per month subscription with 200 mile cars, I know I wouldn't. And it will only get worse as batteries get more and more range. 200 miles, 300 miles, etc.

I'm convinced that level 2 chargers will be offered free by hotels, shopping centers, cinemas, etc. for free as a convenience to the customers.

As for the level 3 network, I think it will simply have to be subsidised by the government, much in the same way as they subsidise roads, public lightning, etc. It will just be another piece of motoring infrastructure.

No subs, priced at twice the average home rate per kWh (to discourage unnecessary charging), use your credit/debit card to pay so foreign visitors can easily use.

There won't be a need for a large number of level 3 chargers, not when most EV's have 200 miles or more and most people charge at home anyway.

To be honest I think trying to make money out of EV charging doesn't make economic sense anyway.

bk

bk wrote: »

Actually a bigger issue exists for the ESB charging network. With 200 mile cars, the ESB network becomes irrelevant for most people.

You can get from Dublin to any city in Ireland in 200 miles, very few people would sign up to €17 per month subscription with 200 mile cars, I know I wouldn't. And it will only get worse as batteries get more and more range. 200 miles, 300 miles, etc.

I'm convinced that level 2 chargers will be offered free by hotels, shopping centers, cinemas, etc. for free as a convenience to the customers.

As for the level 3 network, I think it will simply have to be subsidised by the government, much in the same way as they subsidise roads, public lightning, etc. It will just be another piece of motoring infrastructure.

No subs, priced at twice the average home rate per kWh (to discourage unnecessary charging), use your credit/debit card to pay so foreign visitors can easily use.

There won't be a need for a large number of level 3 chargers, not when most EV's have 200 miles or more and most people charge at home anyway.

To be honest I think trying to make money out of EV charging doesn't make economic sense anyway.

The ESB Network will be irrelevant for most peoples trips however if there are a large number of electrics on the road the demand for the network will grow considerably because more people will be taking longer trips and need to charge.

If the ESB charge a fee that's comparable to diesel at this point of 200 mile range cars I don't see a problem because most people will rarely see a fast charger so who cares ?

I've no idea where future funding will come from, why would the ESB fund 100 Kw chargers for instance if there's to be little profit ?

bk

Deleted User wrote: »

I've no idea where future funding will come from, why would the ESB fund 100 Kw chargers for instance if there's to be little profit ?

From the government, just like how they pay for public street lighting. The ESB, Airtricity, etc. compete for the contract to run the public street lighting which is paid for by the local councils.

It would be paid for by the NRA out of their massive roads budget.

I just don't believe the economics are there for expensive paid charging.

Think about it, a petrol station works because it only takes 5 minutes to fill a tank. So potentially you can have 12 sales an hour for each pump.

That isn't possible with EV's, best case scenario you have 2 per hour, more likely just one. So in order to make as much money as petrol you need to charge the equivalent of 6 to 12 petrol fills. Even electricity priced at the equivalent of diesel isn't good enough. It would need to be 6 to 12 times the cost of diesel to equal petrol stations profits.

Given that most EV owners are very price concious, I don't see any of them willing to pay that. The economics of the whole thing is simply bust. Once the capital cost is out of the way (paid for by the government/EU anyway), the cost of electricity is simply too low, while the time it takes too high for a commercial, for profit, enterprise.

I think Tesla has looked at this and knows this very well, which is why they decided to build their own supercharger network and include the price of charging in the cost of the car.

I can see business offering free level 2 and maybe level 3 charging to their customers. Staying at a hotel, buy a meal, etc. get free charging.

Outside of that I think the government simply needs to subsidise the operation and maintenance of the Level 3 network.

And to be honest I don't see any issue with that. They already subsidise most elements of transport. No one pays the real price for Dublin Bus, Irish Rail, Luas, etc. If they didn't ticket prices would be at least 2 to 3 times more then they are.

Almost every Dublin Bus you see on the street, all actually bought and paid for by the NTA and lent to DB for their use. That is right, every year the NTA buys DB about 120 new buses at 300,000 per bus! And that is nothing compared to the roads budget.

The government is also about to subsidise 300,000 rural homes with a FTTH broadband network to the tune of half a billion!

The running of a Level 3 network in comparison is a drop in the ocean.

Rafal

bk wrote: »

From what we are seeing here I think we can expect to See the Leaf 2 hit in 2017 and not long after the Bolt.

I have seen some Nissan emails which mention "late 2018" with regards to that concept car/Leaf 2.

bk

Rafal wrote: »

I have seen some Nissan emails which mention "late 2018" with regards to that concept car/Leaf 2.

Nissan Dealers? or HQ?

Because of course the dealers would want to push the idea of late 2018 (even HQ partly) in order to not Osbourne their current Leaf sales.

Perhaps they mean a totally new Leaf/concept car, but will still squeeze the 60kWh battery in the current Leaf for 2017.

It is extremely hard to believe that Nissan wouldn't release a 60kWh Leaf until two years after the Bolt! It simply makes no logical sense, they wouldn't sell hardly any Leafs during that 2 years!

Maybe they would bring a 60kWh only to the US in 2017 to compete with the Bolt and 2018 for Europe due to lack of competition here. But that would still likely kill sales in Europe too.

Rafal

I suppose unless Nissan makes public announcements we will not know until we see it on the roads. I'd expect they will announce something, if anything to react.

bk

bk wrote: »

. So in order to make as much money as petrol you need to charge the equivalent of 6 to 12 petrol fills. Even electricity priced at the equivalent of diesel isn't good enough. It would need to be 6 to 12 times the cost of diesel to equal petrol stations profits.

This but 6..12 times the profit margin of a single customer fill. If the profit margin of petrol is 5c/l and average fill is 40l that a profit of about €2. So a full charge would then cost about €15 including the electricity price which sounds fine by me for occasional day trips of over 300 km.

Oh yeah, has it been published which charging standard the new Bolt and the Leaf II will use? The CCS seem to have more untapped capacity and is used by all the Germans whereas everybody else apart from Tesla seem to have been using Chademo.

If every manufacturer moved to CCS it would probably be a good thing. Chademo cars would then need to carry an adaptor to use CCS only stations, but those could be built quite cheaply as it would just need to translate between the protocols and provide CCS socket and Chademo plug at ends of it.

cros13

samih wrote: »

Oh yeah, has it been published which charging standard the new Bolt and the Leaf II will use?

The Bolt uses CCS. You can see in many images the yellow cover for the CCS pins below the J1772 (The american CCS has J1772 on top).

The big problem is that GM have made rapid charging an option on the Bolt. It's not included in the base price.

bk

samih wrote: »

This but 6..12 times the profit margin of a single customer fill. If the profit margin of petrol is 5c/l and average fill is 40l that a profit of about €2. So a full charge would then cost about €15 including the electricity price which sounds fine by me for occasional day trips of over 300 km.

That is ok, but doesn't take into account the much greater space a service station would require for a lot of EV's sitting there for 30 minutes+

I mean otherwise service stations would actually be quiet happy with EV's as seemingly they make very little money on petrol, they make more from the shop. However having to have a lot more space would likely be a major issue (if most cars were EV's).

Yes, €15 for once a year road trips sounds fine, but then that also doesn't sound like much business model for service stations either as most people drive right by with their 200 mile EVs 99% of the time.

I think a €15 would be ok, as long as it didn't come with any subscription. Paying €17 per month sub just so you can do €15 fill ups once or twice a year would be madness!

I think we will see service stations turn into food courts (many already are), that offer lots of level 2 charging spaces which are free if you buy a meal and perhaps just one or two level 3 chargers for €10 to €15 if you need.

I think the commercial side of it is more complicated then people make out, more complicated then simply replacing petrol pumps with EV chargers.

Actually thinking about it a bit more, with 200 mile EV's I don't think most people would even need any fast charging. 200 miles will get you from Dublin to any city in Ireland and almost every town, with no need to charge. You then charge on level 2 overnight at your hotel.

200 miles also gets you to almost every town in Ireland from Dublin, e.g. Killarney. So really the only people would would need level 3 chargers are people who need to go city to city and back again the same day. Travelling sales people, technicians, etc.

I don't think we are going to need all that many level 3 chargers in the long run. At least not from the Irish perspective. US is very different with their long road trips they take.

nokia69

Deleted User wrote: »

I've no idea where future funding will come from, why would the ESB fund 100 Kw chargers for instance if there's to be little profit ?

Because they make money from home charging, in fact they will end up making more profit from EVs than the car companies

so its in their interest to have a good public charging network

All electric cars sold in Europe from 2018 must be CCS and there are to be no more ChaDeMo chargers installed after this either.

Regarding the Government subsidising electricity, they're not going to do this on top of loosing billions in revenue from Petrol and Diesel, and the loss of motor tax revenues.

I believe garages make a lot more profit from the shop than they do on fuel so it would make more sense to install the fast chargers and they can then get people coming in to pay for food, Tea/Coffee etc.

They are not going to pay for chargers though and petrol/diesel cars won't be going anywhere for a while yet until there are more makes and models and until the E.U and our own Government stop promoting diesel as a green fuel .

CCS port optional on the bolt ? they're having a laugh. No mention to cost, but they're not cheap !

So the base price for the Bolt probably is base !

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1101774_gm-wont-fund-ccs-fast-charging-sites-for-2017-chevy-bolt-ev

aliveandkicking

Deleted User wrote: »

All electric cars sold in Europe from 2018 must be CCS and there are to be no more ChaDeMo chargers installed after this either.

Not quite correct. The EU position is that all public chargers must have CCS but that doesn't mean they can't have ChaDeMo aswell. There is nothing stopping ESB installing ChaDeMo chargers as long as they have a CCS port too. Private chargers can be what they want to be, if hotels, supermarkets and car dealers want to install ChaDeMo only chargers on their own property that is their own business and nothing to do with the EU so it is wrong to say that 2018 will be the death of ChaDeMo in the EU.

aliveandkicking

aliveandkicking wrote: »

Not quite correct. The EU position is that all public chargers must have CCS but that doesn't mean they can't have ChaDeMo aswell. There is nothing stopping ESB installing ChaDeMo chargers as long as they have a CCS port too. Private chargers can be what they want to be, if hotels, supermarkets and car dealers want to install ChaDeMo only chargers on their own property that is their own business and nothing to do with the EU so it is wrong to say that 2018 will be the death of ChaDeMo in the EU.

No I'm nearly sure that all ChaDeMo installations were to cease by 2018.

I can't find any recent info.

Private installations ? sure unless there are to be no ChaDeMo chargers sold. There won't be many private charger installations, not any time soon.

cros13

There is a scheduled re-examination of the rapid charging situation in 2018.
CCS is very much favoured. The Spanish are now mandating CCS at all sites.
In fact the reason the Tesla supercharger locations in Spain were delayed was the Spanish government's insistence that the same number of CCS rapids be available at each site as superchargers.

aliveandkicking

Deleted User wrote: »

No I'm nearly sure that all ChaDeMo installations were to cease by 2018.

I can't find any recent info.

Private installations ? sure unless there are to be no ChaDeMo chargers sold. There won't be many private charger installations, not any time soon.

No, not the case. All the EU directive says is that any public chargers have to be CCS compliant. Journos took that up as the EU is banning ChaDeMo and reported it as such but the all the directive actually says is that all new EU funded chargers have to have a CCS port (but can have multiple different ports). Privately funded chargers can be what they want. Also as far as I'm aware it doesn't force manufacturers to have CCS in their cars either. Nissan could stick with ChaDeMo in the new Leaf if they wanted to. The EU favours CCS but is not forcing anyone to use it.

Key wording from the directive below

“Interface to charge electric vehicles could include several socket outlets or vehicle connectors as long as one of them complies with the technical specifications set out in this Directive, so as to allow multistandard recharging. However, the choice made in this Directive of Union-wide common connectors for electric vehicles (Type 2 and Combo 2) should not be detrimental to Member States having already invested in the deployment of other standardised technologies for recharging points and should not affect existing recharging points deployed before the entry into force of this Directive.”

TBH I'd rather they just have one standard and be done with it !

KCross

With PSA buying out the european arm of GM (i.e. Opel/Vauxhall) does that sound the death knell for the possibility of the Bolt being delivered over here or does GM have some other route to market in Europe?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/psa-group-to-buy-opel-and-vauxhaul-in-22bn-deal-for-gms-european-operations-780161.html

cros13

In the agreement GM has agreed to license production of the Ampera-e to PSA and all associated patents.

KCross

cros13 wrote: »

In the agreement GM has agreed to license production of the Ampera-e to PSA and all associated patents.

Would that suggest a european manufacture rather than a resell from USA?

cros13

Yes, That was on the cards anyway for volume sales as LG Chem in Polnad spools up production.
Opel's CEO was working on a strategy for the brand that focused on Opel becoming an EV-only car brand in the next 10 years.

PSA also has a new EV platform (called ECMP) under development with Dongfeng:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160525005996/en/PSA-Group-Presents-Electrification-Solutions-Future-Hybrid


Reportedly the PSA-GM agreement includes a non-compete clause that will prevent PSA Opel from exporting the Ampera-e to markets outside Europe in which GM will sell the Bolt or specific markets named in the agreement. PSA will have to pay license fees which may impact the retail price.

The Ampera 2 (2nd gen Volt) was due for LHD european launch but is expected to be cancelled now.