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General Motors has added and/or recalled 6,900 jobs in the United States since exiting bankruptcy last year. During a radio interview, GM vice chairman Steve Girsky that some of these workers were laid off during the time leading up to The General’s bankruptcy proceedings and were called back in when production was increased. Continue reading.
During a media briefing at GM’s Brownstown Township, MI battery plant, General Motors Vice Chairman Tom Stephens announced that the lithium ion battery pack for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt would carry a warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles. Continue reading…
General Motors has issued an update on its electric vehicle efforts, stating that calibration drives of the upcoming Chevy Volt achieved 39.9 miles of emissions-free electric-only driving range, which is exactly in line with what has been promised by The General for a few years now.
Andrew Farah, chief engineer for the Volt and Opel Ampera, said that Volt pre-production vehicles have already clocked in more than 500,000 test miles and that Volt production is on track for the fourth quarter of this year.
Lastly, Micky Bly, GM executive director of global electrical systems, hybrids, and electric vehicles & batteries said that GM’s Browstown Township, Michigan battery plant is slated to build more than 300 pre-production battery packs. Putting two and two together, we’re guessing that these will be used in the pre-production Volt units that started pre-production two weeks ago.
These updates come on the heels of GM releasing the official Volt specs and the automaker’s announcement that it will invest $8 million to double the size of its Warren, Michigan battery lab. To date, more than 850,000 miles of customer use lab testing have been completed on the battery pack design for the Volt and Ampera (probably in the battery lab). We have GM’s full press release after the break. (more…)
For an American vehicle, the much-anticipated Chevy Volt has been a shocker in more ways than one. That statement is even more true when one considers that the Volt is a GM product, since the market is accustomed to The General’s gas hungry Tahoes and Escalades (which are – mind you – awesome in their own ways). Instead we’re seeing a (gasp!) Prius-shaped thing rolling off a GM production line. But the surprises don’t stop there! GM has shocked a number of people by not using UAW labor to produce the Volt’s battery at its Brownstown Township plant.
GM expects to have up to 100 employees on a single shift at the non-UAW plant when the Volt begins retail production later this year. Right now, however, only one quarter of that number are employed at the Brownstown Township plant. Increased demand will hopefully translate to the addition of more shifts.
Also of interest in Brownstown is the way in which workers will be compensated. The UAW and GM have two tiers of pay, beginning at $14 an hour. Without the UAW present however, The General will pay around $12 to new plant employees. GM claims that it’s able to avoid UAW rules because the new facility is operating under a GM subsidiary. This news comes to us after the Volt has begun pre-production assembly just a few short weeks ago. More as it happens.
[Source: TheGMSource]
As planned, today GM has produced the first Volt battery pack at its Brownstown Battery Pack Assembly Plant.
The General invested a total of $43 million last August to prepare the 160,000-square-foot, landfill-free facility for production of the lithium ion battery packs that will be used in the Volt as well as in other extended-range electric vehicles. The plant, part of wholly-owned GM subsidiary GM Subsystems Manufacturing LLC, has been converted from an empty facility to a production-ready battery manufacturing site in a very short five months.
The initial set of battery packs manufactured at the Brownstown plant will be used for testing and validation purposes and sent to GM’s Global Battery Systems lab in Warren for testing. Later this spring, the plant will begin shipping the batteries to GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant – the final assembly location for the Volt. These batteries will be used in production-validation Volts (read: test units).
We’ll let GM tell you the rest:
New machinery and specialized equipment have been installed and three primary assembly areas have been completed: battery module pre-assembly, final assembly and the battery pack main line.
The Volt’s battery pack is made up of multiple linked battery modules and more than 200 battery cells. The initial assembly area is where the prismatic-shaped cells are processed and installed by state-of-the-art flexible automated equipment into modules, which are then delivered to the battery pack main line.
The battery pack main line area features an Automated Guided Cart (ACG) system that includes operations for thermal and electrical assembly, along with quality and dimensional checks. The main line is also where battery pack final testing, verification and packaging for shipment take place
Every day brings us closer to the release date of the Chevy Volt, and we can’t wait. The fact that GM is perfecting the mass-market manufacturing of the Volt and its components (such as the battery pack) makes it that much more exciting. Rock on GM, rock on!
Here’s GM’s full presser: (more…)
GM is about to take a major step in bringing the Volt EV to market. The General has announced it will begin production of the Chevrolet Volt battery pack on January 7, 2010 – exactly three years after the Volt concept car was revealed.
The battery pack will be produced at the GM Brownstown Battery Assembly Plant in Brownstown Township, Michigan. It will be the first lithium ion battery pack manufacturing plant in the U.S. operated by a major automaker.
Production will begin at 10:00 a.m. January 7, 2010. GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, as well as leading government officials and honored guests will be present to witness what will undoubtedly be an historic event for General Motors and the auto industry at large. This news comes after GM’s announcement that it will invest $336 million in its Detroit-Hamtramck plant to build the Volt.
While you’re waiting for the Volt to roll into the showroom of your local Chevrolet dealer, we recommend a nice cup of your favorite hot beverage, revisiting the Chevy Volt and Me dance (if that’s your sort of thing), and perusing through our high-resolution Volt gallery.
We’ve also have GM’s full presser after the jump.
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