Perhaps you were still reeling from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that killed thousands and prompted Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuke-plant meltdown. Or Osama bin Laden’s demise in Pakistan. Or a terminally ill Steve Jobs passing the Apple baton to Tim Cook. Whatever the distraction, you missed one of the more significant engagement ceremonies in automotive history. On August 25, 2011, General Motors and Korea’s LG Group signed a joint development agreement to design and engineer electric vehicles.
Need we remind you GM invented the modern electric car nearly 20 years ago, when it leased 1100 or so EV1 two-seaters powered by a 137-hp electric motor? GM was then the world’s largest automaker. After deciding electrics weren’t ready for primetime (due to that old profitability bugaboo), GM hedged its billion-dollar bet by retrieving and crushing all the EV1s, except for a few donated to museums.
Then in 2010, four years after Who Killed the Electric Car? hit the silver screen, GM acknowledged it was only kidding by launching the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid. Twenty-three million LG Chem battery cells later, GM is rolling forth the second-generation Volt and preparing to revisit pure electrics with the Chevrolet Bolt, slated for sale in about a year.
LG’s roots reach back to 1947. It became the first Korean plastics producer in 1952 and entered the (local) consumer electronics business in 1958. Today, it’s Korea’s third- or fourth-largest conglomerate (after Samsung, Hyundai, and maybe SK) with 220,000 employees and $143 billion in 2012 revenue (versus GM’s $152 billion during the same period). Best known in the U.S. for its ‘Life’s Good’ consumer appliances and electronics, LG has 57 subsidiaries and is a world leader in chemicals, telecommunications, and electronics. The biggest thing it hasn’t dabbled in is automobile manufacturing, which makes this Asian mega-might an ideal partner for GM. The two began collaborations in 2007 when LG Electronics started supplying OnStar communications modules.
Hesitant to discuss the Chevy Bolt in detail before unveiling the production design in January at the North American (Detroit) International Auto Show, GM has at least provided a peek under the covers of the bed it shares with LG. To wit:
LG will manufacture the Bolt’s electric motor, power-inverter module, onboard battery charger, instrument cluster, and infotainment system. Building on the successful Volt battery-cell supply relationship (a claimed failure rate below 2 parts per million), LG will also manufacture lithium-ion cells and assemble them into a finished battery-pack system, along with modules that distribute electrical power, energize accessories, and communicate with charging stations. The battery heater—necessary for optimal performance in cold weather—will also be supplied by LG. Subsidiaries LG Chem, LG Innotek, LG Display, and LG Electronics working under the LG Electronics Vehicle Components umbrella in Incheon, Korea, invested $250 million developing and preparing to manufacture these Bolt components.
To toast the thriving LG-GM courtship, the happy couple hosted a tour of the Holland, Michigan, plant that makes Volt battery cells. Following a $151-million Department of Energy grant and $187 million in investment funds from LG, this sparkling, sprawling factory commenced battery-cell deliveries two years ago in November 2013. Prior to that, cells were shipped here from Korea.
LG’s prismatic lithium-ion battery cells are made with automated machinery overseen by 318 employees working on shifts that operate around the clock for five or six days per week. Like practically every battery, there is a cathode (positive electrode) and an anode (negative electrode) sandwiching an electrolyte material. Here the cathode is a sheet of aluminum foil coated with lithium, carbon, binding material, and a solvent. The anode is copper foil coated with a similar slurry containing carbon, binding material, and de-ionized water.
Raw materials are for the most part imported from Japan and China by ship and then rail. An LG plant in Ochang, Korea, (south of Seoul) and described as the world’s largest electric-car battery plant, uses the same processes as those found in the Holland facility. (LG currently provides cells to a total of 10 electric-car manufacturers, competing with a dozen or so other battery makers around the globe.)
After coating and drying, the electrode foil is rolled on a winder, cut to the desired width (each roll produces three strips), and inspected. A subsequent notching process leaves bare foil tabs to be used as terminals. The lamination phase creates layers of electrodes with thin separator (ceramic plastic) material serving as insulation between the layers. A finished cell consists of 20 anodes folded together with 19 cathodes. After the aforementioned tabs are welded together, a cell assembly is placed inside an aluminum pouch. A carefully measured quantity of liquid electrolyte is added to the pouch before it’s sealed.
While the above steps require only a few minutes of manufacturing, finished cells undergo subsequent procedures that last 30 or so days before shipment to customers. Up to three days of initial aging, some of which is in a vacuum chamber, helps the electrodes absorb the liquid electrolyte. Following the application of an electric charge to trigger electrochemical activity, each cell spends a full day in a closed compartment heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Following that, each pouch is punctured to allow gas to escape and then resealed. There are various inspections along the way to remove low performing cells from the mix. While a total of 1.3 million cells are in process at any given moment, most of them are held in automated storage racks. A sophisticated tracking system knows the whereabouts of every cell.
GM and LG won’t acknowledge that this factory will supply similar or identical battery cells for the Bolt, though that’s a reasonable leap of faith. What GM does acknowledge is that Bolt will be manufactured at its Orion Township, Michigan, plant beginning late next year and that nearly 100 preproduction test vehicles are already on the road. The ‘roughly $30,000’ announced price is after the $7500 federal tax credit is applied. Dealers in 50 states and selected foreign countries will sell Bolts. While the concept presented this January at the Detroit auto show is indisputably a four-seat, four-door hatchback, Chevrolet intends to market this addition to its lineup as a crossover SUV. GM North America president Mark Reuss stresses that the 200-mile range claim for this pure electric is conservative and test units are having no difficulty topping that.
Regarding battery-pack configuration, it’s clear that the Bolt will need significantly greater electrical capacity than the 2016 Volt, which delivers 53 miles of EPA combined-driving, electric-only range from its 18.4-kWh battery pack. (Or the Nissan Leaf, which scores 107 miles with its recently introduced 30-kWh pack option.) Plan on at least 50 kWh of capacity. Speaking to that, GM says only that the Chevy Bolt will use a ‘flat-pack’ configuration, bound to consume less interior space than the Volt’s T-shaped battery pack. In other words, the prismatic cells surely will be laid horizontally and built into the floor instead of using the Volt’s vertical alignment. One other cost, weight, and space-saving deviation we predict is use of air cooling in the Bolt versus the complex liquid-cooling arrangement seen in the Volt.
The question of the moment is whether the Chevy Bolt will seize the honor of being the first practical and affordable pure electric from the Tesla Model 3’s clutches? Rather than sticking our neck out further, we’ll delay speculating on that issue until January, when the Bolt will be revealed in production form.
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