Plug-In Saturn Vue Green Line Hybrid Announced

There’s no time frame for it, but GM just announced plans to build a plug-in hybrid based on the Saturn Vue that debuted to the public just minutes ago at the L.A. Auto Show. The main reason the company can’t announce a timeline is that the battery technology — GM is looking at using lithium ion batteries — isn’t advanced enough to be mass-produced in this type of application. It will be worth it though; one executive was overheard saying such a plug-in could get around 70 mpg on the highway.

Other news is that the Saturn Vue Green Line will get a more advanced — and more expensive — two-mode hybrid system in calendar 2008. Vue Green Lines with that system will be available alongside ones with the current, less-efficient belt-alternator system, which is what’s in the all-new 2008 Vue Green Line debuting today. Customers will be able to choose between the two types. The belt-alternator setup will deliver roughly 25% better fuel economy than the regular Vue, while the two-mode system will see up to a 45% improvement. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the standard Vue’s estimated mileage in order to do the math.

Comments

A conventional lithium ion battery will retain, at most, 75% of its original capacity after a couple of years. I hope they're talking about a newer technology that doesn't degrade so quickly.

Cost is very important. Its better to have Ni-Cd battery which costs $4K more and gives 50 MPG than Li-Ion which costs $8K more and gives 70 MPG.

I want the General to get things right. But this looks a little mad to me.

Just as the first GLV is ready to sell you announce a significantly better one is a year away?

People are often jumpy about buying the first model with a drastic change anyway. Why give the impression it is a placeholder, not ready for prime time?

Ok, two years away if it comes out the last day of 2008.

I hope General Motors has heard the news from Stanford about the breakthrough there on lithium-ion batteries. Search for "Stanford's nanowire battery". See the banner about it holding ten times the charge of other li-ion batteries. I cannot imagine they have not heard about this.
If the Tesla roadster gets 200 miles range with its 9000+ little lithium ion batteries, what would it get with these new batteries, 2,000 miles?
I have not seen one, single, solitary word about the Stanford breakthrough in the press, not on TV, not in my local paper, not in Time magazine. Just unreal. I wonder if they'd cover a cancer cure.
It seems to me that the Stanford breakthrough is what the auto makers have been waiting for. I am certain that the emails are flying between GM and the Stanford Materials Sciences Dept. As a Stanford grad and a GM retiree, they will be if I have to get involved with them both to make it happen.

It seems that as long as the form factor is the same they could offer the PHEVs with current battery technology and offer upgrades as the battery technolgy improvements became available. But that would make too much sense for the consumer and not enough for the automakers.