General Motors Plug-In Electric Cars: Charging Up For 2010

Motoring Channel Staff - 15/January/2007

Detroit, America — That GM's new plug-in electric cars (the Saturn Vue Green Line hybrid and possibly even the Chevy Volt) could be rolling off the manufacturing lines in 2010 wasn't the main GM story during the 2008 Detroit Motor Show.

The man in charge of one of America's largest and most influential corporations, General Motors, stated that electric cars will be the way forward as more demand is put on a shrinking supply of oil. 

This could potentially undermine the viability of petrol cars in the long-term future.

Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors (GM) said, "There is no doubt demand for oil is outpacing supply at a rapid pace, and has been for some time now. As a business necessity and an obligation to society we need to develop alternate sources of propulsion."

The theory of "peak oil" has been gaining momentun for the last decade and General Motors has for the first time publicly suggested the world's oil supply has peaked. 

The bottom line of this argument is that petrol prices will continue to rise until the oil runs out. 

When a car maker begins talking about shrinking oil supplies, people take notice.

During his media address at the 2008 Detroit Motor Show, Mr Wagoner presented figures obtained from the US Department of Energy that indicate some 1000 barrels of oil are burned every second of every day of the day. 

Most alarming however was the forecast: demand for crude oil and petroleum products is expected to increase by more than two thirds the present amount in the next two decades. 

As industries and populations continue to grow and developing nations such as India and China develop a much wealthier middle class who now have disposable incomes to consume goods, the demand for oil-derived fuels will further increase.

GM says that electric cars are therefore the next logical step. Plug-in electric cars, to be exact. Hydrogen-fuelled electric cars are still a long way off due to the infrastructure hurdles, while almost all homes have electricity sockets.

When they arrive in around 2010, General Motor's plug-in electric vehicles can be recharged in the garage overnight, ready to run with full batteries in the morning.

General Motor's Australian operation, Holden, is also expected to begin focussing more on more hybrid vehicles in the future, and sources suggest that work has been underway for some years for a rear-wheel drive hybrid system that could be easily fitted to the Commodore.

Asked whether electric vehicles would fill the potential whole left by decreasing stocks of petrol, GM's CEO said, "Yes, for sure," but cautioned that "we need something else to significantly reduce our reliance on petroleum in the interim."

Until General Motors can get 100% electric vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt into its showrooms and accessible to mainstream society, it believes that ethanol will be this interim solution.

Just recently GM signed a deal with Coskata, Inc. to produce ethanol using an environmentally friendly method. While ethanol emits far less C02 than petrol when combusted in an engine, you often need twice as much to travel the same distance as with petrol.

Furthermore, an increasing body of research is suggesting that the energy costs to get the ethanol into fuel stations outweighs the reduction of C02 it represents over petrol.

Most of the ethanol used for car fuel comes from plants, such as sugar cane and corn. Simply put, the cost of farming, maintaining, harvesting and then refining the crops belches almost as much C02 and pollutants into the atmosphere as the process involved in refining petrol.

However, GM's new deal with Coskata, Inc. is claimed to produce ethanol in a more sustainable way, with a far smaller impact on the environment. Based in Indiana in the United States, Coskata has developed a system that produces ethanol fuel from things such as animal and livestock waste, municipal waste and even things like used tyres.

Current ethanol processes using corn and other grains and plant matter currently uses about 4 litres of water for every 1 litre of ethanol fuel, while Coskata claims to use less than 1 litre to produce the same amount of fuel. Coskata isn't expecting to deliver large amounts of 'greener' ethanol until 2011 however.

During the 2008 Detroit Motor Show, GM showed off a number of ethanol powered concept cars, such as the Hummer HX Concept and the Saab 9-4X BioPower concept that use E85 fuel, which is an 85% ethanol fuel blend.

While ethanol may be a short term solution to General Motor's belief that the planet's oil reserves are dwindling, electric cars will have far more impact in reducing the oil demands of first-world countries.

In a couple of years time, we could be plugging our vehicles into the wall and never visiting the petrol station again.

Related Articles:
- Saab 9-4X Concept (2008)
- Hummer HX Concept (2008)
- smart cars: hybrid electric (2008)