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By Bill Visnic October 12, 2011
During an event in Detroit today to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of its Chevrolet brand, General Motors Co. said it will launch a battery-electric variant of its Chevy Spark subcompact car in the U.S. and other world markets next year. The company will join Detroit rival Ford Motor Co. in selling contemporary domestic battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) to U.S. customers starting in 2012, although many consider GM’s Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid – launched as a 2011 model – to be an EV. Many also will remember GM’s EV1 of the mid- to late-1990s as the company’s first modern-day BEV.
With the 2013 Spark EV, GM becomes part of a widening cadre of major automakers offering an option of all-electric propulsion after tiny startup Tesla Motors launched its Roadster in 2008. Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. introduced the first new-era BEV to the U.S. market with the Leaf last year and Ford, GM, Mitsubishi Motors Corp., California-based Coda Automotive and Tesla all aim to begin selling EVs in 2012, although mostly in limited regions to start. The 2013 Spark EV, said GM today, will first be sold “in limited quantities in select U.S. and global markets starting in 2013, including California.”
Few specifics about the Spark EV were provided by GM; the critical performance measure of EVs typically is the projected driving range, with most automakers such as Nissan indicating a maximum of about 100 miles. The subcompact Spark EV’s size could limit its battery capacity to less, however. The only clue from GM about the Spark EV’s driving range game from a statement by Jim Federico, global chief engineer for electric vehicles, who said, “The Spark EV offers customers living in urban areas who have predictable driving patterns or short commutes an all-electric option.”
Massachusetts-based battery developer and manufacturer A123 Systems will supply the Spark EV’s lithium-ion battery packs, GM confirmed in a release. In August, GM announced it had awarded a contract to the battery developer, which also was in a competition to supply the batteries for the Volt. The A123 technology uses lithium nanophosphate chemistry, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that uses nanoparticles to increase the storage surface area in the battery cells, enabling quicker storage and release of electrons than conventional lithium-ion batteries.
General Motors’ announcement of the Spark EV comes at a time when a jittery economy, stable gasoline prices and a growing selection of high-efficiency conventionally-powered vehicles have conspired to cloud the outlook for limited-purpose all-electric cars and to slow sales of conventional hybrids as well. In September, sales for all advanced-drive vehicles in the U.S. were down 15 percent compared with a year earlier, to just 18,690 vehicles from ten different automakers. The two electric-drive vehicles currently for sale, the Leaf and Volt, combined for a total of less than 2,000 sales for the month.
Bill Visnic: is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter
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