GM Hy-wire: Major Step Forward In Reinventing Automobile

The GM Hy-wire, appropriately named for its technology, incorporates the features first envisioned in the AUTOnomy concept vehicle at the 2002 North American International Auto Show in Detroit and the Geneva Motor Show. Hy-wire will be introduced to the public at the Paris Motor Show Sept. 26. Early photos were released today.

"The fact that we developed Hy-wire as a drivable concept vehicle in just eight months (from its introduction in Detroit) shows our commitment to this technology and the speed at which we are progressing," said Rick Wagoner, GM's president and CEO.

"With AUTOnomy, GM shared a vision. Hy-wire accelerates our progress with a functional proof of concept which strengthens our confidence in our ability to gain marketplace acceptance of production fuel cell vehicles."

Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development and planning, said, "We are driving to have compelling and affordable fuel cell vehicles on the road by the end of the decade. With Hy-wire, we have taken the technology as it exists today and packaged it into an innovative drivable vehicle comparable in size and weight to today's luxury automobiles.

"All of the touring sedan's propulsion and control systems are contained within an 11-inch-thick skateboard-like chassis, maximizing the interior space for five occupants and their cargo. There is no engine to see over, no pedals to operate - merely a single unit called X-drive that is easily set to either a left or right driving position."

Hy-wire is the product of global cooperation. GM designers and engineers in the United States developed the vehicle chassis and body design, as well as the engineering and electrical system integration. Engineers at GM's research facility in Mainz-Kastel, Germany, integrated the fuel-cell propulsion system, which is the same system designed for the HydroGen3 concept (top speed of 160 kilometers/hour or 97 mph), based on an Opel Zafira and shown for the first time at the 2001 Frankfurt Motor Show. American designers also worked closely with Italian design house Stile Bertone in Turin, where the body was built. The SKF Group, headquartered in Sweden, developed the by-wire technology in the Netherlands and in Italy.

"By combining fuel cell and by-wire technology, we've packaged this vehicle in a new way, opening up a new world of chassis architectures and customized bodies for individualized expression," said Chris Borroni-Bird, director of GM's Design and Technology Fusion Group and program director of the Hy-wire concept. "It is a significant step towards a new kind of automobile that is substantially more friendly to the environment and provides consumers positive benefits in driving dynamics, safety and freedom of individual expression."

According to Wayne Cherry, GM's vice president of Design, the chassis architecture provides designers the freedom to create a number of different body styles.

"Until now, fuel cells and by-wire have been demonstrated as if they were an end in themselves," said Cherry. "But we look at this technology as enabling us to create a number of exciting new body styles for consumers to choose from. This is just the second interpretation of many to come."

Hy-wire is a sporty yet elegant four-door vehicle with clean lines and short overhangs.

"It's a luxury vehicle in the sense that it is a luxury to have the kind of space and visibility this car provides," said Ed Welburn, executive director of GM Design for Body-on-Frame Architectures. "The design is built around the fact that there is no engine compartment; the vehicle is very open from front to rear. This is intentional to highlight the openness in the interior and the range of possibilities."

To show off this radically new architecture, the front and rear panels are made of transparent glass. Onlookers can see through the car from front to rear; the liberal use of glass and the absence of a hood also provide a greater visual command of the road for the driver. To reinforce this effect even the seat backs are open. There is no post between the front and rear doors, known as a B-pillar. Drivers and passengers have greatly enhanced legroom.

"The most dramatic view of this car may be from the driver's seat," Welburn said. "Imagine having no engine, instrument panel or foot pedals in front of you - an open, yet secure cockpit with a floor to ceiling view. It's like being in my living room looking out my picture window."

The X-drive, which allows steering, braking and other vehicle systems to be controlled electronically rather than mechanically, provides greater freedom for the driver.

Drivers now have the option to brake and accelerate with either the right or left hand. The driver accelerates by gently twisting either the right or left handgrip, and brakes by squeezing the brake actuator also located on the handgrips. The handgrips glide up and down for steering, somewhat different than today's vehicles where the steering wheel revolves around a steering column.

The X-drive, which also incorporates an electronic monitor for vital car functions, shuttles easily from side-to-side on a horizontal bar that stretches across the full width of the vehicle. It provides another example of the extreme flexibility of the car's architecture.

A single docking port provides the electrical connection between the all-aluminum chassis and the fiberglass body. Mechanically, there are 10 body attachment linkages.

The fuel cell stack, which produces a continuously available power of 94 kilowatts, is installed in the back of the chassis. Most of the chassis is 11-inches thick, tapering to 7 inches at the edges. The electrical motor drives the front wheels and is installed transversely between them. Three cylindrical storage tanks (5,000 psi - pounds per square inch or 350 bars) are located centrally in the chassis.

"The new packaging of the components was a major challenge and certainly, in terms of compactness, we're not at the finish line yet," said Erhard Schubert, director of the Mainz-Kastel facility. "But this functional prototype impressively demonstrates just how flexible our fuel cell technology is and the opportunities it offers."

Hy-wire weighs 1,900 kilograms (4,180 pounds) with 20-inch tires in front and 22-inch tires in the rear. Putting all technical elements into the chassis provides a low center of gravity, giving the architecture both a high safety and driving dynamics potential. Passive safety requirements will be fulfilled using impact-absorbing elements, so-called crash boxes, at a later stage of development.

"Most of the powertrain load has been evenly distributed between the front and rear of the chassis so there is a lower center of gravity for the whole vehicle, without sacrificing ground clearance," Borroni-Bird said. "This contributes to the overall safety of the vehicle by enabling superior handling, while resisting rollover forces, with the tallest body attached."

Hy-wire so profoundly changes the automotive industry that GM has more than 30 patents in progress covering business models, technologies and manufacturing processes related to the concept and more inventions are being added all the time.

"Someday, Hy-wire could be displayed in a museum side-by-side with the first horseless carriages of Carl Benz or Gottlieb Daimler, or next to Henry Ford's Model T," Burns said.

From the pages of Manufacturing.Net
GM unveils photos of

skateboard' fuel cell vehicle

-- 8/13/2002 6:47:00 PM

BC-GM-Hy-Wire, HFR,0861

GM unveils photos of

skateboard' fuel cell vehicle

Eds: Hold For Release until 12:01 a.m. EDT Wednesday; Hy-wire is cq

AP Photos DT101A-102

By ED GARSTEN=

AP Auto Writer= August 14, 2002

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) _ The car has no engine, transmission, brake or gas peddles and is controlled by a box that looks like it belongs in the hands of video game jockey.

The sweeping windshield on the four-door sedan body reaches down close to the bumpers and there's room to spare inside because there are no mechanical components.

The body is connected to a skateboard-like chassis that contains most of the vehicle's working parts.

General Motors Corp. revealing the first pictures Wednesday of the fuel cell powered vehicle, called the Hy-wire.

It's the first drivable version of a concept the automaker unveiled during January's North American International Auto Show in Detroit under the name Autonomy as its attempt to reinvent the automobile.

The new name "conveys the message we're above the crowd, we're willing to take risks and we're capable of doing some things with this technology that one would not normally expect," Larry Burns, GM vice president research and development and planning, told reporters at a recent briefing here.

The concept was to create a 6-inch thick chassis devoid of a powertrain, stuffed with electronic components instead of mechanical controls for steering, braking or acceleration with four electric motors, one for each wheel, driven by hydrogen fuel cells.

Interchangeable bodies would be "docked" to the skateboard-looking chassis, making it possible, in theory, for a driver to follow whim or necessity without the expense of buying a new vehicle.

The Hy-wire represents a very early, incremental version of what GM hopes to one day market, but the automaker says it shows the concept is workable.

Engineers couldn't quite get all the components into a 6-inch chassis, but did manage to fit them in one that's 11 inches in the middle, tapering to 7 inches on either end.

"This suggests GM is focusing less on the technical issues of making fuel cells operate and more on packaging," said Thad Malesh, director of alternative power technologies for the market research firm J.D. Power and Associates.

"Clearly it will be one way to focus on research work, with an eye toward commercialization," Malesh said.

Hy-wire is the first vehicle that combines fuel cell technology with by-wire operation.

Fuel cells convert hydrogen into electricity. By-wire is a technology that substitutes electronic controls for nearly every mechanical component such as brake and accelerator peddles and a steering wheel.

Everything is operated with a hand-held unit called an X-Drive, which can be moved from side to side like a video game system.

Acceleration is performed by twisting a handle as a motorcycle rider would, and braking similarly is accomplished by squeezing a hand control. Steering is a matter of moving around an aircraft-like yoke.

The system was developed by The SKF Group, a Swedish company.

Tom Johnstone, the company's executive vice president says some applications of by-wire technology should be available in production vehicles by 2005.

"By-wire is safer because there is no steering column and better for the environment because there is no hydraulic fluid," Johnstone said.

GM sees Hy-wire as one step closer to meeting specific targets for cleaner-running, hydrogen-fed fuel cell vehicles.

"GM's goal is to be the world's first company to produce 1 million fuel cell vehicles a year," Burns said.

GM's other goal, he said, is to make money doing so.

Burns said GM hopes to achieve "high penetration, high profitability," selling hundreds of thousands of fuel cell vehicles between 2010 and 2020.

"If we don't do this, somebody else is going to do it," he said.

A decision must be made by 2005 or 2006 on whether to greenlight a production version of the Hy-wire by 2010, Burns said.

Every major automaker is working on some sort of fuel cell vehicle, but considerable challenges lay ahead before they begin to mass-market them.

For one, the vehicles are too expensive.

"Right now we're about 10 times too costly," Burns said.

Another obstacle is the lack of a hydrogen refueling infrastructure.

Still another concern is developing on-board tanks that are both light and strong enough to transport hydrogen, a flammable gas, safely, at capacities large enough to provide an acceptable driving range of about 300 miles.

"A lot of where we end up doing reforming depends on consumers' level of comfort," J.D. Power's Malesh said. "My belief is there will be some resistance."
http://www.evworld.com/databases/shownews.cfm?pageid=news150802-01

GM Concept Deletes Driver's Seat

X-wire technology enables driver position to be anywhere inside vehicle cabin.

Source: CNN [Aug 15, 2002]

General Motors Corp. unveiled a drivable version of its vision of automotive design of the future Wednesday, as it presented a car without an engine compartment that allows the driver to sit in different positions throughout the car.

The world's largest automaker's new concept car is a fuel cell-powered vehicle that puts both the fuel cells and the vehicle's powertrain in a relatively flat platform running below the car body. The platform ranged from 11 inches thick to seven inches thick on the sides, with the four wheels attached to it, making it look something like an overgrown skateboard.

The design freedom that comes from having a nearly flat powertrain allowed GM to experiment with using a "drive-by-wire" system that eliminates the steering column and foot pedals now standard on all vehicles. It allows the steering wheel to be shifted easily between the seats, and provides much greater room and visibility for the driver and passengers because of the lack of a traditional engine compartment.

GM unveiled this vision of future auto designs at the North American International Auto Show in January, but the version of the vehicle it used that day -- called the AUTOnomy -- wasn't actually able to drive. The new concept car, dubbed the Hy-wire, can be driven.

An actual production version of the vehicle still is many years away. The fuel cell, which converts hydrogen into power and produces only water vapor as a waste product, is not yet economically viable. And the skateboard-like platform still needs many refinements, GM design executives admitted. The AUTOnomy, which was not burdened by the need to actually be drivable, showed GM's concept of a platform that is only about six inches thick, rather than the 11- to 7-inch thick dimensions of the Hy-wire.

"The new packaging of the components was a major challenge and certainly, in terms of compactness, we're not at the finish line yet," said Erhard Schubert, director of the GM research facility in Germany that produced Hy-wire.

GM believes one major advantage of this design concept is that it could allow mass production of the skateboard for different models of the car, reducing manufacturing costs.

GM will put the Hy-wire on public display for the first time at the Paris Motor Show Sept. 26.
http://www.cleanup-gm.com/ev1.html

EV1 White Paper

Last modified: August 22, 2002

There is a common -- but incorrect -- perception that electric cars are technically and economically unfeasible. Ironically, this position has been most aggressively promulgated by General Motors, creators of the highly successful EV1. Perhaps that is why GM is pulling functional EV1s off the roads, to its own financial detriment and to the distress of drivers, who fear the cars will be destroyed.

The GM EV1 is a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) powered purely by electricity, capable of traveling 70-140 miles per charge at speeds up to 80 MPH (artificially limited by a speed governer). It can accelerate from 0 to 30 MPH in under 3 seconds and 0 to 60 MPH in under 9 seconds. Its (NiMH) batteries are charged through special inductive chargers in drivers' garages or at public charging stations. The EV1 is a two-door, two-seat coupe, with an aerodynamic body, with all of the features of a modern car, such as air conditioning and CD player. Electric vehicles are inherently simpler and more efficient than gasoline-burning cars, as power goes straight from the battery through the motor to the wheels, eliminating the need for an engine or transmission. When the car slows, energy from the wheels actually recharges that battery, in what is called "regenerative braking". [There are EV1 drivers in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Phoenix, Tucson, and Atlanta areas who would be happy to let reporters try their cars.]

GM took the lead in zero-emission vehicles with its solar-powered Sunraycer, which set a world record in the 3000-km 1987 World Solar Challenge race across Australia. In 1990, GM chairman Roger Smith demonstrated an electric concept car, Impact, and announced that GM would produce it in quantity. In 1994, a modified Impact set the world electric vehicle speed record by completing a mile in 19.44 seconds (183.075 MPH).

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) was founded in 1967, in response to California's air being worse than that of the other 49 states combined [Shnayerson, p. 50]. After the federal government enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970, California was the only state allowed to regulate its own emissions. In 1990, impressed by the GM Impact, CARB ruled that each of the seven biggest carmakers -- the largest of which was GM -- would need to make 2% of its fleet emission-free by 1998, 5% by 2001, and 10% by 2003.

Simultaneously fighting and preparing for the CARB regulations, GM debuted 50 handbuilt Impacts for a consumer study in 1994. As Matthew L. Wald wrote in a front page New York Times story (January 28, 1994):

General Motors is preparing to put its electric vehicle act on the road, and planning for a flop.
With pride and pessimism, the company, the furthest along of the Big Three in designing a mass-market electric car, says that in the face of a California law that requires that 2 percent of new cars be "zero emission" vehicles beginning in 1997, it has done its best but that the vehicle has come up short.... Now it hopes that lawmakers and regulators will agree with it and postpone or scrap the deadline.

Against GM's perverse expectations, the Impact release was a huge success. GM's Sean McNamara organized the PrEView program, in which the 50 cars would be lent for 1-2 week periods to consumers who agreed to log their experiences. McNamara expected at most eighty volunteers in Los Angeles but closed the phone lines ahead of schedule after 10,000 calls [Shnayerson, p. 182]. In metropolitan New York, 14,000 calls were logged before the lines were prematurely closed [Shanayerson, p. 182; Wald 1994]. Drivers' response to the cars was overwhelmingly favorable, as were reports in car magazines. Motor Trend reported: "The Impact is precisely one of those occasions where GM proves beyond any doubt that it knows how to build fantastic automobiles. This is the world's only electric vehicle that drives like a real car." Automobile called the car's ride and handling "amazing," praising its "smooth delivery of power". GM subsequently destroyed the cars.

EV1

The production version of the Impact was called the GM EV1. (It is the only car in GM's history to be branded with the company's name instead of one of its divisions.) GM made 660 Generation 1 (Gen1) EV1s. In December 1996, GM provided a limited launch of the EV1 in what many believe to be a quid pro quo arrangement with CARB, which agreed to delay implementation of the first phase of the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate that had been scheduled to go into effect in 1998 [Kirsch 2000]. Powered by lead-acid batteries, the Gen1 had a range of 70-100 miles.

GM continued to show ambivalence toward the EV1. Their marketing was so dismal that one driver, Marvin Rush, spent $20,000 of his own money to produce and air four unauthorized radio commercials for the EV1. Rush, a cinematographer for "Star Trek: Voyager", got "Voyager" cast members, such as Robert Picardo, to provide voiceovers.

In 1999, GM's Ken Stewart, brand manager for the EV1 program, described the positive response from drivers [Moore 1999]:

I got some first hand experience in what I would call a wonderfully-manical loyalty to the car. They are absolutely in love with their vehicles and they are challenging the sales consultants on who knows more about the vehicle...

What we've learned from that is the vehicles themselves have had some advantages that we knew were pluses, but didn't know how strong they were. One was the styling. The other was the ride and handling and performance of the car. They really do love the car for the car's sake, as well as for some of the larger causes like zero emissions and helping the environment and just plain doing the right thing.

We find that compared to what we were expecting, the owners are driving the cars more, more miles, more trips, and have integrated it more into their lifestyle. So, it went from being a sort of novelty car for them to their primary source of transportation for most of the time.

GM produced the second generation of EV1 in 1999. These Gen2 cars were lighter weight, less expensive to make, quieter, and capable of supporting more advanced batteries than their predecessors. There were two models of Gen2 with different battery technologies. The lead-acid model had a range of 80-100 miles, while the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) model had a range of 100-140 miles. The cars were leased in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Phoenix, Tucson, and Atlanta areas for $349 to $574 per month. GM produced approximately 500 Gen2 cars. It is not known outside of GM how many were leased, but it is known that there were waiting lists of hundreds of drivers who wanted but could not get EV1s.

Despite having long waiting lists and enthusiastic drivers for the EV1, GM has declared that people do not want the EV1 and that the CARB mandates are thus impossible to meet. In 2000 CARB hearings, GM and Toyota claimed that a study they commissioned showed that people would only buy an electric car over a gasoline car if it were $28,000 less than a comparable gasoline car. Prof. Kenneth Train of UC Berkeley, who conducted the study, said that with a RAV4 SUV typically selling for $21,000, "Toyota would have to give the average consumer a free RAV4-EV plus a check for approximately $7,000" [Healey 2000].

An independent study commissioned by the California Electric Transportation Coalition (CalETC) and conducted by the Green Car Institute and the Dohring Company automotive market research firm found very different results. The "study the auto industry didn't want to see....used the same research methodologies employed by the auto industry to identify markets for its gasoline vehicles" [Moore 2000]. It found the annual consumer market for EVs to be 12-18% of the new light-duty vehicle market in California, amounting to annual sales of 151,200 to 226,800 electric vehicles [Green Car Institute, 2000], approximately ten times the quantity specified by CARB's mandate [Moore 2000]. The results of the Toyota-GM survey are also called into question by the success of Toyota's RAV4-EV, which has waiting lists of buyers at over $30,000.

Despite hundreds of enthusiastic drivers who now lease the car and hundreds more waiting to pay to drive the EV1 (of which approximately 1150 were produced), on February 7, 2002, GM Advanced Technology Vehicles brand manager Ken Stewart notified drivers that GM will remove the cars from the road, contrary to a statement two months earlier that GM would not be "taking cars off the road from customers" ["GM", 2001]. Drivers fear these working cars will be destroyed, because GM has crushed other functional electric cars in the past.

This summer, at least 58 EV1 drivers sent letters and deposit checks to GM asking for a lease extension at no risk or cost to GM. Specifically, drivers would be responsible for maintenance costs and repairs, and GM would have the right to terminate the lease if expensive repairs were needed. GM refused the offer and returned the checks, totaling over $22,000, on June 28. (In contrast, Honda extended the lease on their EV+.) In November, GM will begin reclaiming the cars, possibly to destroy them, as it has done with their past electric vehicles that were popular with drivers but provided embarrassing contradiction of GM's claims that nobody wanted EVs. While a minority of EV1s will be donated to museums and educational institutions, GM has allegedly received government permission to crush EV1s [Adams 2001].

On August 14, 2002, GM announced it would meet California emissions regulations by giving away thousands of golf cart-like vehicles, incapable of driving in regular traffic. Larry Burns, GM vice president of research, development, and planning, stated: "Customers don't want to buy electric vehicles", despite research and petitions showing that consumers do, in fact, want electric cars.

Many EV1 drivers are distressed that (1) the clean cars they love to drive and are willing to pay for will be taken off the roads, possibly to be destroyed, and (2) the press and public seems to believe GM's false claim that electric cars are a failure. They are considering press outreach, protests, and civil disobedience to educate the public. Some EV1 drivers are members of the Production Electric Vehicle Drivers Coalition (PEVDC) (http://www.pevdc.org), which, along with the Natural Resources Defense Council (http://www.nrdc.org) filed a request to intervene in GM's federal suit against CARB. The hearing has been scheduled for September 30 in Fresno.