Bob Lutz: The Man Who Revived the Electric Car
When General Motors was fingered as the prime suspect in the 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Bob Lutz's inbox filled with hate mail. "I hope you rot in hell," read one missive to the GM vice chairman, known for his love of gas-guzzling sports cars. But now the movie's director wants Lutz to star in a possible sequel, "Who Saved the Electric Car?" "Now that they've done their mea culpa, I'm bullish on GM," says director Chris Paine. "I'd like to include Lutz in my next film."
What explains this turn of events? Lutz—the man who brought us the Dodge Viper muscle car and the 1,000-horsepower Cadillac Sixteen—has become the unlikely champion of the Chevy Volt, a 150mpg plug-in electric car that GM is fast-tracking for production in 2010. GM's car czar now admits he was wrong to dismiss the popular Toyota Prius hybrid as a PR ploy. Though he still loves fast cars (and fast fighter jets, which the ex-Marine flyboy pilots on weekends), Lutz, 75, is undergoing a green conversion in the twilight of his career. "I believe strongly that this country has to get off oil," he says, sitting beside a massive V-16 engine on display in his office. "The electrification of the automobile is inevitable."
Skeptics initially viewed the Volt as Lutz's own PR ploy. But they've come to believe in the plug-in, as GM has poured millions into developing a lithium-ion battery (like those in laptops) that will allow the car to go 40 miles on pure electricity before a tiny gasoline motor kicks in to recharge the battery. (It also can be juiced up by plugging it into a wall outlet for about six hours.)
But the biggest naysayers Lutz faced were inside his own company. After being burned by the failure of its EV1 electric car in the '90s (the subject of Paine's film), GM was gun-shy about plugging in again. When Lutz first proposed creating an electric car in 2003, the idea "bombed" inside GM, he says. "I got beaten down a number of times." After pouring billions into engineering futuristic fuel-cell cars (still years away from production), GM engineers didn't want to switch gears to a plug-in electric, which they insisted couldn't be run on lithium-ion batteries. The turning point came when tiny Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley start-up, announced in 2006 that it would produce a speedy electric sports car powered by those same laptop batteries. "That tore it for me," says Lutz. "If some Silicon Valley start-up can solve this equation, no one is going to tell me anymore that it's unfeasible."
So in 2006, Lutz formed a skunkworks team of engineers and designers to quickly cobble together the Chevy Volt concept car, which became the star of the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. And then he persuaded the brass to greenlight the Volt for production by arguing that they must try to seize the green high ground from Toyota, which is battling GM for the title of the world's No. 1 automaker. "We saw Toyota getting highly beneficial rub-off from their Prius success, which permitted them to cloak themselves in the mantle of total greenness," says Lutz. "This was starting to hurt because it was one reason for a sudden surge in Toyota's market share."
Now Lutz envisions selling hundreds of thousands of Volts a year, probably priced below $30,000. Detroit's horsepower jockey insists the Volt will be his crowning achievement—and his swan song. "This is like JFK's call for the moon shot," he says. "I want to stick around to see the Volt come to market. Then I'll pack it in around 80." And ride off into the sunset on electric power.
© 2007
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Member Comments
Posted By: D0li0 @ 01/09/2008 6:16:47 AM
Comment: In the Third paragraph why in the world would you put in parenthesis the sentence about plugging into a wall outlet? That is the main point and purpose of these PHEV cars, if anything the (tiny gasoline motor kicks in to recharge the battery) is what should come in quotes. I suppose it just goes to show the default perspective of most folks, including the author of this mostly well written article, is that buying gas from a gas station (and all that that implies and entails) is normal while plugging in at home (safe, warm, secure, and potentially renewable and CO2 neutral) is the new weird thing that we might do with our cars someday.
PS. Dear Bob Lutz, While some of us skeptics give you grief about the EV1/Volt, Be aware that when/if it does show up in a dealer near me it will go a Very very long way towards turning me back into a domestic Chevy driver from my current state as a Honda Insight driving and Toyota Prius Plug-in Hacker...
Posted By: jimbaber @ 01/03/2008 6:15:44 PM
Comment: Not if you consider the comparative fuel costs for the typical 45,000 miles many will put on their vehicles in 5 years of ownership. At 35 mpg (new CAFE std) that would cost $4,178 assuming a $3.25 / gal cost for the 5 years in a car meeting the new standard CAFE numbers. A Volt would cost $2,036 for the same distance, considering a $0.10 / kWh electricity charge and the same gasoline cost for a 150 mpg+ usage.
Posted By: spmosher @ 01/02/2008 4:14:08 PM
Comment: Dear Newsweek,
Why are we applauding a supposed "industry leader" and a "visionary company" who was just as happy for decades to provide us with inefficient, unsafe automobile. There was no advances in mileage, pollution and safety for years until pressed by government to do so. Even then, they obstructed and lobbied against any federal standards in these areas whenever they could. And why.. profit.
And now they are jumping into the electric and hybrid arena late, because of a rival company beat them to the punch! Why? Because their profits are getting hit. That is what we are talking about here. If they see lesser profit in one method than another, they take the higher profit. Because they are not here to make us great cars.. they are here for their stockholders first, customers and society second.
And It's not that they wouldn't make money. It just that they would make more profit by not going greener... or so they thought. When the could have been leaders... they followed the money, and are now a little weakened because of it. Couldn't have happened to a better company for a better reason. I hope others learn from it and consider it in their decisions for the future. Do what is right or do what is most profitable.
And now, over a decade after their research, they see the future of hybrid and electrics literally, getting run over by a Toyota Prius. A novelty car I believe they called it.
$30,000 for an small electric car? Are they nuts or greedy or both? I know there is research and development. But that much for a small electric car and in 2010... three years from now? I would go the extra $20,000 and get a Tesla 2008 or 2009, or wait for the Prius plug-in to come soon.
GM and companies in collusion with Big Oil are partly to blame for holding auto progress back for years because of self- interest first and foremost. They should not be awarded by good publicity. They should be the footnote in economic history. A footnote that explains how they and their ilk kept us from where we needed to be all along, in the name of corporate influence and high profit.
Thanks GM and you too Lutz! For helping Toyota!