GM Says It Will Make Electric Motors, Invest $246 Million in 2-Mode Hybrid System
By Scott Doggett January 25, 2010
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
General Motors announced today that it will design and manufacture motors to propel some electric vehicles, possibly becoming the first major automaker to do so when the motors debut in 2013.
In a photo released today, an engineer checks the status of electric-drive tests at a GM plant in Pontiac, Michigan.
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The motors will be designed for use in next-generation, rear-wheel-drive two-mode hybrids, Pete Savagian, GM's engineering director of hybrid and electrical architecture and electric motors, told reporters in Detroit.
However, neither he nor the other two men who addressed the press at GM's headquarters - Tom Stephens, GM vice chairman of global product operations, and Brian Corbett, GM manager of hybrid communications - could or would say when the motors would enter production in a vehicle.
The announcement comes five months after GM said it was planning on adding electric-motor development and manufacturing to its list of electric-vehicle specialities that it hoped to bring in-house, in order to further its expertise in the field as the electrification of the automobile continues.
Traditionally, automakers have relied on their varying expertise in powertrains to differentiate themselves from one to the other. GM's expertise in automatic transmissions, for instance, or BMW's in straight-six engines has provided notable selling point discriminators between vehicles that companies can point to as sources of excellence when selling a vehicle.
But with powertrains changing so dramatically with the onset of electrification, a whole new skill set must be learned to the point of expertise - and in some ways, GM is behind. Toyota is the unquestionable leader in hybrid technology for instance, having had the Prius hybrid vehicle on the road for over a decade.
Today's electrification technology briefing marked the first time GM had provided specifics regarding the planned motors, including details regarding the cost of GM's investment in its next-gen, RWD two-mode hybrid system - $246 million, of which the U.S. Energy Department has contributed $105 million, Stephens said.
The location of the high-volume manufacturing facility will be announced later this week, Corbett said.
The U.S. government holds 61 percent of the company after investing $50 billion in it.
Included in the $246 million are facilities where GM has been "doing a lot of things in-house really quietly," Savagian said. These include:
- In Pontiac, Michigan, $2 million for and electromagnetic computational facility and $26 million for development and validation dynamometer facilities;
- In Indianapolis, $10 million for development and validation dynamometer facilities;
- In Torrance, California, $6 million for characterization and development dynamometer facilities.
Savagian said GM is making the $246 million investment in large part for the knowledge GM engineers such as himself will acquire in the process.
"For us to achieve the performance, quality, reliability [GM wants in the motors it puts in its EVs], we need not only to buy the parts - you know, please sell me a motor, Mr. Supplier - but we need to really understand them. We need to understand them very deeply and we need to know best. We learn by doing and so we know best when we can control a design, the manufacturability, the material selection, and the production processes," Savagian said.
"And in order to do that we need to engage the entire value chain of what it takes to make a motor, so it's not enough for us to say make the motor of wire bent like this and draw a picture of it. We need to understand everything about that wire and we need to do that by engaging the whole supply chain, understand how wire is made, exactly what it's made of, what alloys of copper are important, how it forms, how it welds, what it's coated with, what the tolerance is are on the dimensions," he said.
Electric motors are made from a relatively small set of commercial materials. Besides copper wire, there are insulation systems around the wire, and laminated steel, magnets, a precision bearing and mounting system, and a cooling system.
So, an electric motor is made of fairly simple parts. "But the difference between a great motor and a motor that's not so great is in a lot of specific details, not obvious on visual examination and only obvious after spending a good deal of time looking in an electromagnetic space at what's really going on," Savagian said.
While Savagian dived fairly deep into the planned electric motor, Stephens presented an overview of various GM strategies, at one point saying that the automaker has decided that lithium-ion batteries, electric motors and power electronics would be core technologies to the General going forward.
"If you just had a motor and you didn't have transmission experience, it would be kind of hard to put it all together and come up with an electric drive," he said. "Then you take the electric drive with the motors in it, with the battery and power electronics and you can mix and match. You have that capability. You can mix and match and do anything you want to do...from hybrid to plug-in hybrid to BEV to extended-range electric vehicle. Whatever it is, you have the capability to make it happen."
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