Teardown reveals Chevy Volt's electronic secrets
 

Teardown reveals Chevy Volt's electronic secrets
Beyond battery chemistry and electric propulsion and control, the Chevy Volt enhanced-range electric vehicle builds in flexibility, ruggedness, and diagnostics—with attention to quality construction.
Rick DeMeis, Automotive Designline -- EDN, May 10, 2012
Teardown reveals Chevy Volt's electronic secrets - 2012-05-10 07:00:00 | EDN

Porn for nerds. :) Got to keep it plugged in so the cooling system wont drain the battery? Think they need to use a solar panel or just turn that off.

Ptero -

I'm an adVoltcate, but that's NUTS.

CarloSW2

...sometimes things get TOO complicated to be useful.

And this is NOT one of those cases. Look up how many lines of code are in your web browser.

On a good note if they reprogram all that code the car's economy could be improved.

nice find!

Or your computer's operating system...

Windows XP - 45 million
Mac OS X - 86 million
Debian Linux - 324 million

A mere 8 million is very compact in comparison.

I am an advocate of hydrogen cars. Hydrogen cars were essentially perfected (by GM and others) at the end of the last presidential administration. But hydrogen cars required a renewable energy source and a nationwide distribution network which would have worked like an Apollo program to bootstrap our nation into actual technology leadership again. Despite their blatant posturing, Republicans fought renewable infrastructure, gave little support to a hydrogen distribution network, and sold their political influence to international oil companies who realized vast profitability by using the military and State Dept to enable their seizing of resources overseas and transferring associated costs to incredibly gullible taxpayers.

Now the Democrats have stupidly trashed billions of dollars of taxpayer investment in automotive hydrogen research in favor of the dead end of non-refuelable batteries. The $45,000 Chevy Volt is a perfect example. GM does not dare allow the battery pack to charge or discharge beyond 60%. An incredibly complex electronic control system attempts to control charge and discharge cycles of 288 cells which the scientific literature states can burst into flames if overcharged or overheated.

Regardless of their sophistication, electric cars remain and will always remain city cars. Long-range EVs are up against physics limits with lithium-based technology. Future experiments with advanced battery types are driven by industry lobbyists, not promising science. Improvements will be incremental and inconsequential. And the fast-charge vs. cell degradation issue is not going away.

Of course, the Chevy Volt is a plug-in hybrid. But after a few dozen miles, without a recharge it is just a gasoline car lugging around a heavy battery as I zip by in my $14,000 50-mpg Smart Car. Below a few dozen miles, it can be an electric car but don't run a pay-back analysis unless you are a masochist.

Battery advocates ignore the well-to-wheels baseline. Lithium comes mainly from Peru. It is mined with diesel fuel. It is shipped to LG South Korea with bunker fuel (the dirtiest liquid fuel), assembled into cells, then shipped to Detroit with bunker fuel where the cells are assembled into the heavily subsidized $8000 battery packs. A recent study by EV skeptics claims that each Volt is actually subsidized to the tune of over $200,000 when component research, government cost-share or grants, and well-to-wheels analyses are included.

Then there is the issue that electric cars essentially run on coal. Yes, without aggressive government involvement in expansion of a renewable national infrastructure, neither EVs or H2 make sense. Hydrogen cars share similar prototype-to-market cost issues but consumers could drive them anywhere. And fuel cells had demonstrated significant year-on-year cost reductions. Hydrogen cars were a product targeted for the general automotive market. Electric cars, aside from city cars (which I have no argument with, if one can afford two cars), are merely toys. No one is going to choose a car that you have to wait for more than a few minutes to fuel. No one with only one car will choose an EV. EVs are targeted at a strange market segment: rich people willing to fork out huge amounts of money for a second car they can't drive to see Grandma. Even more disturbing for EV advocates is recent evidence that hybrid and electric vehicle first adopters are returning to conventional gasoline cars in droves.

We have lost the dream. It's over. Choosing EVs over hydrogen cars, watching the Space Shuttle go to the Smithsonian when we have a Space Station in orbit... We are done as a leader. As Thomas L. Friedman said, "We are going to become a second-rate nation." Good luck.

The hydrogen car may not be done in yet, here's a link to a fleet of suv's being used in Hawaii with implications of a wider application.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles join the Army - Feb. 23, 2012

Less than 7500 lines of code in the computer that ran Apollo 11.

Here's the open source site if you want to check for yourself.

Apollo 11 code goes

That's back when programmers were meaner and cleaner!

Pop started working with computers in 1961. They managed to process all of the USAF's Tactical Air Command payroll with 4k memory. Just like people who waste energy because it's cheap. People waste computing power because it's cheap. Apollo could get to the Moon on a limited amount of computational capacity because weight and space was at a super premium, with price secondary. We used to develop technology in the space program that made us leaders in many fields.

No we just suck, ignore new tech and wait for our dole, like the citizens of Rome waiting for their bread.

regards
Mech

What specifically is the evidence for that? Where did that tidbit come from?

I don't know what he means by "second-rate" since there are no rating agencies for nations, but I don't consider Friedman to be on par with the Oracle of Delphi, anyway.

I like the Volt. But I don't consider EVs or anything else to be the replacement for the ICE. Seems likely they are part of an emerging patchwork of automobile transportation systems. But I don't have "Oracle" credentials, either! ;)

Please stop wasting computer memory with this kind of post.

He's probably thinking of the information in this article, which appeared last month in the LA Times (and probably other sources, as well).

Of course, as it says in the article, many of those who trade in a hybrid do so on full-electric cars. What it doesn't say is that none of them do so on hydrogen cars. Oops! :p

Where does the article say this? I don't see it. Nor is the article specifically about first adopters. And it does not even mention the Volt. What it does do is specifically mention online cross-shopping data suggesting people shop simultaneously for conventional and alternative drivetrain vehicles. But the reasons for the choices made are sketchy, apparently, according to Edmunds.com.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. That hydrogen car-buyers never switch to another drivetrain? If so, what's the citation for that?

Well, of course we do. The silver lining in this statement is that if we did NOT waste computer memory, the consumer-financed revolution that produced desktops, laptops and now smart phones would never have happened. And the closest you'd ever get to posting to a forum like this would be to type out assembler code on your TRS-80 to appear on a BBS to be downloaded at 300 baud. :eek:

Down where is says, "One reason is that about 17,000 people purchased electric cars last year, and other data shows that many of those were trading in a hybrid vehicle."

Really? You're asking me this after reading Ptero's wall-of-text rant about how much he loves hydrogen-powered cars? Okay, it's Saturday and everybody gets to sleep in and get a slow start, so I'll expand on my comments:

I was making a joke along the lines of, "Yeah, folks are trading their hybrids in on non-hybrids, but NONE of the cars they're trading for are hydrogen powered."

Hey, humor is not my strongest suit! ;)

This is not a good website for tooting the hydrogen car's horn. Most people here are too intelligent for that. Even with coal power, electric cars are less harmful than ICE cars thanks to the magic of increased efficiency.

Where does your lovely hydrogen come from? From splitting natural gas molecules. Where does the waste CO2 go? Into the air. According to William H Kemp's "Zero Carbon Car: building the car the auto industry can't get right" (2007), making hydrogen to power a car produces six times the CO2 than if you powered the same car with gasoline in the first place.

The long tailpipe emissions of a hydrogen car are six times that of a gasoline car.

Electric is better in every respect.

Yeah, I see that now. I was a bit confused by your phrasing for describing trade-ins by using "on" instead of "for". Maybe that's normal usage. But it's not normal to me, so it threw me off a little and left me wondering what you were claiming and whether it was in the article.

That's clearer. But there's that "on" again.

On ptero's point, though, I don't think that this LA Times article really offers that much comfort to ptero's position. The main causal factor speculated upon for selecting a conventional drivetrain over a hybrid seems to be price, maybe. If that's true, when the Prius subcompact is compared to the newer Civic HF, the price is the same but the fuel economy is far superior for the Prius. There is clearly a market for the hybrids, and there may be for the EVs too. I'd be much more tempted if the prices were lower, especially the Volt.

Sorry to the OP for contributing to this thread's slight topic-drift.

I liked the point earlier that the somewhat extensive code written for the Volt suggests potentials for re-tuning the electronics to get more fuel economy. I'm going to be watching for second hand Volts and to see what sort of community of tuners might eventually sprout-up.

...just another example of programmers "...following..." the infamous Microsoft-methodology of programming, ie: efficiency is inversely proportional to amount of memory available, so just require a bigger memory computer with each software upgrade (wink,wink)!

Meh ... There is a lot that goes into decisions about how efficiently the software should be coded, and Microsoft certainly doesn't hold the monopoly on inefficient programming. Compatibility across multiple platforms, reusability (Volt may be using OTS GM modules for some portions of their code), reliability (error checking / correction), testability (diagnostic support), configurability (software updates), etc, etc. All those "-ilities" can contribute to less efficient code while (in theory, anyway) contributing to a more robust system.

Another thing to consider is that more and more devices have their own microcontrollers and therefore also contribute to the software "load". Consider just the radio, for instance... my 1982 Chevette radio was 100% hardware... volume & tuning & station presets were all mechanical... Nowadays, new cars have a "theater system" ... 7.1 surround, bluetooth, touchscreen, USB, etc, etc. ... each feature 100's or 1000's of lines of code! Often the identical hardware (head unit) is used in various trim levels, with just the software image tweaked to expose the features appropriate to the price of the car.

...as stated before: "...too complicated..." for their originally intended purpose!

Prepositions...how do they work? ;)

J/k...because of where I lived my formative years I do speak, and especially write, somewhat differently to most Americans. My west coast accent is very good, though! :)

Stan and California98Civic: two ecomodders separated by a common language. :thumbup:

NachtRitter -

Yeah, you're right, it could have tons of legacy code from all over the place. Also, where there's a GUI, there's tons of lines of code. I would like to see a breakdown of "where the code lies". This all made me google lines of code :

1.1 The Need for Reliable Software
Also, I don't think the operating system comparison applies. iOS and Debian are based on Unix, so that's something that goes back to 1969, and Windows XP is based on Windows NT, which started development in 1989. The Volt is "embedded" software, so it doesn't have to support umpteen number of graphics cards, hard disks, and motherboards.

CarloSW2

Yep Electric Vehicles are coal powered. Where does electricity come from?..... the outlet and as we all know that outlet doesn't pollute.

A friend of mine hears a similar line of logic. He works in a prison as a baker. He asked the prisoners where food comes from, Most told him that food comes from the store.

I am not trying to be sarcastic but really, electricity comes from the burning of coal, natural gas and nuclear energy ... with a trickle from wind and solar (during the day).

A comment about engineering in the 60's It was done with slide rules, you know.... 3 significant digits. I always get a laugh when someone says that they went 233.4 miles using 6.23 gallons and got 37.46388443 mpg.

LOL who are you to judge? How many complex integrated circuit controlled systems have you programmed?

Carlos -

You actually bring up a good point... some of those high-end automotive entertainment systems are often equivalent to a full-fledged PC, sometimes even based on an IA processor with a graphics accelerator (or two), and so require a complete OS (well, embedded, which is stripped down to work with the specific hardware but still has full OS functionality) (such as Linux, Windows CE, Embedded XP, or some others) ... I'm not sure if they count the lines of code from the COTS OS, but wouldn't be surprised if they do.

Tele man -

Too complicated to be useful? Not really sure what that means. Are you trying to say the Volt is not useful? Because it has a lot of software? It turns out that the 10 million lines of code for the Volt is not that much in comparison to modern "premium" automobiles... at that level it is more like 100 million lines of code. See This Car Runs on Code - IEEE Spectrum.

Too complicated for their originally intended purpose? Not sure which originally intended purpose you mean. Granted, if you define the originally intended purpose of an automobile was to get from point A to point B, then a pair of seats on a frame with carbureted engine and without windshield or body would do it. Something like this:
http://www.intelligentmag.com/wp-con...automobile.jpg
But I think a few other purposes crept in since then... safety, ability to sustain higher speeds, comfort, and more recently, environmental friendliness from both emission and consumption standpoints. And as our society evolves, so do our ideas about the purpose of the automobile. We want to be entertained, we want to stay connected, and we want to take advantage of technology to make our automobile even safer an even more efficient.

(Note that when I say "We" I mean society as a whole, not necessarily the members of this forum... :) )

Personally, I am thoroughly enjoying learning about some of the new drivetrain technologies that have been (and are being) developed... The Volt is a very cool idea, Mazda's SkyActiv is just awesome, and incorporating "EOC" ("Glide" mode) into production cars is sweet. The fact that significant advances are still being made on ICEs (from both performance and efficiency points of view) is pretty amazing. I have absolutely no desire to "harken back to the olden days" of carbureted engines, vinyl seats, and lap belts.

I should add a disclaimer that my newest car is ~7 years old which has plenty enough technology for me, and I have no desire for a vehicle with a "Bang & Olufsen (or whatever big brand name sticker you want) home theater system" in it or with "lane departure warning" or "parking assist" or "back seat driver assist" or whatever. Probably the only new vehicle I'd be interested in is the VW XL1, and that would be for the technology "under the hood", not in the cockpit. But I'm sure I wouldn't be able to afford one of those anyway ...

Older folks are generally a little more skeptical of rapid advances in technology when applied to vehicular transportation. It comes from experience in maintaining a car in a reliable operational state when it approaches a decade in age. I have a reliable vehicle sitting in my garage that has had fewer that 1/10 of 1% of it's parts replaced since 1971.

When you grow up enough to respect age and experience maybe you can get your 40 year old Volt to work with fewer than 1/10 of 1% of the parts replaced. Fortunately in 40 years I will be gone from this earth, but I would gladly bet that my 40 year old vehicle might actually still be operational while your Volt will have long ago gone to the recycle bin.

The ludicrous attempt to characterize experience and skepticism based on real life examples with a narrow minded character assassination merely demonstrates the misconception that blindly accepting every technological "advance" is the only way to get to the future vehicle.

Long ago GM adopted the concept of "planned obsolescence" when you could buy a 57 Chevy for $1600 new. Maybe you feel that $40k + spent on a car today is chicken feed, but lets see where that $40k gets you the day the warranty runs out. Your resale value will be pitiful.

regards
Mech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZCp5h1gK2Q

I guess it will be kind of difficult to figure out what went wrong when 2 billion dollars went up in smoke.

regards
Mech

Coal powered electric cars still produce 21-58% less CO2 than gasoline powered equivalent cars, according to this:
Greenhouse gas emissions

Efficiency. ICEs are 25% efficient on a good day. EVs are 80%+ efficient. A bad fuel source (coal producing electricity) with good efficiency becomes good, or at least decent, doesn't it?

Hydrogen? Horrible. 6X the CO2 of an ICE when the hydrogen is produced from natural gas, which is most hydrogen. When it's not derived from natural gas, it comes from lots of electricity + water. Where does the electricity come from? Wait for it.......COAL.

$1.4 billion according to this: Andersen Air Force Base B-2 accident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. And it sounds like they did figure out what went wrong.

Exactly... which is why one should never buy a daily driver vehicle new. There are plenty of used vehicles sold in the last decade that are reliable, comfortable, fuel efficient, and safe.

And while I can't argue that your 1971 vehicle meets all your criteria, it is unlikely that it would meet my criteria for daily driver / cross country driver with the comfort, efficiency, and safety features I expect to have for me & my family. As a group, the vehicles built new in the past 20 years are significantly more reliable (and comfortable, fuel efficient, and safe) than the vehicles built the 20 years before that.

I do agree that it would be hard for modern vehicles to meet the "fewer than 1/10 of 1%" replaced parts that you have, but I don't agree that unique vehicles such as the Volt are automatically destined for the recycle bin within 40 years because of their complexity... maybe a larger percentage of the parts will be recycled, but I suspect the vehicles as a whole will be sought after by the current generation of folks who embrace the technology... just look at the first gen Honda Insight... 20+ years old with a fairly high resale value and there is a generation of folks keeping them running and getting absolutely incredible FE out of them... in some cases even when the electric assist is disabled! The Volt is another vehicle like that... it will be tweaked, hacked, reverse engineered, modified ... and because of the ability to modify, the ability to use it like an EV for short trips while still being able to drive it across country, and the uniqueness of the vehicle, I believe the resale value will likely remain fairly high.

It would be interesting to see, 40 years down the road, what the % of Volts are on the road vs the % of your 1971 vehicle on the road today. It may not be a fair comparison since the production numbers are likely different, but I'd hazard a guess that the Volt % will be higher.

From the website, it sounds like the cause of the accident was rain, disturbing a critical sensor.

This makes me wonder about the Chevy Volt, and other EV's handling bad weather. Driving rains, lightning, snow, extreme hot and cold.

I was reading that many Hybrid batteries can be damaged by hot weather conditions. In fact my Hybrid has a warning label on the door about baking the car after a paint job can damage the batteries.

Ever been in a parked car in that has sat in the Pheonix sun? What will this do to the Lithium batteries?

That number for the Linux OS is just plain nuts. Maybe if you include all the possible hardware drivers, and all the application software that can be said to be part of a Linux distribution, you might get somewhere close, but the core OS itself is pretty compact.

GOOGLE the book title "TRS-80 Assembly Language Made Simple"...I'm the author.

Some of that ratio might be changing eventually ... to narrow that 6:1 gap down ... even if not enough to change the results.

They are making algae which produce H2 as a byproduct of photosynthesis instead of the natural plant hydrocarbon sugars... currently not any where near cost effective ... but it will be closer than the current gap... even if it still will not close the gap.

Although other technologies can convert solar energy to electricity more energy efficiently than photosynthesis ... the modified algae based version is a self replicating system ... solar cells and the like might be more efficient energy conversion ... but they don't self replicate more of themselves... so the modified algae has a potential production benefit.

Once the conversion has been made they each have their own additional sources of loss:

BEV:
electricity has the grid losses ... charger losses ... battery cycle losses ... motor controller losses ... motor losses.

Hydrogen:
Has more distribution losses ... to compress it , transport it, refrigerate it, etc ... has far more losses in the ICE ... than a electric motor ... and if you use a fuel cell you have all the losses of a BEV expect you trade a battery for the fuel cell ... and I don't know of any ( even prototype ) fuel cells that can get to the cycle efficiency of modern Batteries.

So in Short:
Due to the additional losses in distribution, compression, refrigeration, and conversion to mechanical energy ... Hydrogen wold have to be produced from the initial energy source more energy efficiently than one could produce electricity from that same source ... That's a really really tall order ... none of the current systems I know of are that energy efficient at producing hydrogen ... and even if some of the new ones reach a even point at production ... Hydrogen still have other losses down stream ... in order for it to be equal at the end use , it needs to have a significant production efficiency benefit ... which it doesn't have ... and doesn't look like it is ever going to.

- - - - -

As for the Volt ... if 8 Million lines run everything for the 787 Dreamliner as the article claims ... 10 million ( ~25% more ) does seem kind of out of scale for the Volt ... Think about that scale for a minute ... the Dreamliner has a larger electrical system ... more feedback and sensors from the jet engines than the Volt gets from the ICE ... additional aeronautical instrumentation ... more communication system not only the the plane but the wifi / phone service / entertainment / etc ... for all the ~290 passengers... yeah ... Me thinks they could improve the efficiency of that code considerably.

Although as others have already posted ... they might not care to spend the cost of labor to do so when the cost of the computer chip is so low.

gazinga!!!! That is pretty ironic, and good for you !

Once upon a time I was a programmer, then moved towards networking and databases.
I respect the heck out of the Assembler and C++ guys - a bit tedious for me as I don't have the patience.

Today I am a lowly mechanic, just like you are an old teleman......

:D