7/19/12 By Charles Murray, Senior Technical Editor, Design News In the midst of the Tesla Model S rollout at the company's California manufacturing plant recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a startling prediction: "In 20 years more than half of new cars manufactured will be fully electric," he said, according to a Reuters article. "I actually feel quite safe in

Third in the Teardown series By John Scott-Thomas For the designers of the Chevrolet Volt – GM’s signature hybrid automobile – the infotainment system presented an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, the infotainment system is the primary interface between the driver and the automobile, and as such, it should be a highlight of the vehicle. On the other hand,

Fourth in the Teardown series By John Scott-Thomas The Chevrolet Volt is a tour de force of complex systems engineering, requiring advanced control electronics. Reliable and efficient coordination of the onboard lithium-ion battery pack and 1.4L gasoline engine require dedicated microprocessors and firmware; in previous articles we’ve analyzed the battery pack made by LG-Chem/Compact Power (Volt Battery Teardown) and the

By John Scott-Thomas, TechInsights The Chevrolet Volt is GM’s atonement for the cancellation of its first modern electric vehicle, the EV1, and a potent attempt to create a bold new technical future. The Volt’s control systems are among the most elaborate ever created. Close to 100 microprocessors are in the car, and over 10 million lines of software are used; a Boeing

(Second teardown article in a series) By John Scott-Thomas, TechInsights The Chevrolet Volt, GM’s entry in the electric car market,  is one of the most complex vehicles on the road, using almost 100 microprocessors that are controlled by about 10 million lines of code. By comparison, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner  gets by with only 6.5 million lines. One of the

By John Donovan, Low-Power Design, for Drive for Innovation While electric vehicles have been around since the late 19th century, they only became practical with the development of energy storage systems that sport a lot better horsepower-to-weight ratio than bulky lead acid batteries. By the mid-90’s automakers had pretty much given up on being able to go very far on

MARLTON, N.J.–We've been slowly peeling back the onion on the Chevy Volt and EV technology on this site. (We'll be tearing down a Volt next year and analyzing it to cap off this adventure). John Donovan has been looking under the hood at the Volt, such as interfacing the motor with the engine and electric driving and Henry Muyshondt examined "Making the ‘MOST’ of

NOVI, Mich.–Since its invention, lighting has been as much about function as it has been about form. It's no different in automotive lighting. Remember the old three-headlight Dodge pick up trucks from the 1960s? Or was it Ford? Or both? I'll never forget the first time I saw it, on a remote mountain road at dusk when I was a

By John Donovan, Low-Power Design, for Drive for Innovation When you step on the gas in an ordinary car, most of us have a pretty good idea what happens, having driven them since we were teenagers. But what happens when you depress the accelerator in a Volt? A lot more than you might expect. The Volt has three power sources: