The tenth running of the Petit Le Mans took place on Saturday and along with celebrating a decade of the American Le Mans Series it also marked the debut of the ALMS Green Challenge. For those of you that TIVO'ed the race you can come back later. The rest of you can follow the jump to see who won.

[Source: American Le Mans Series]

In yet another dismal sales month here in the U.S., General Motors actually did better than many companies with only a 15.8 percent drop in September compared to last year. There were even some bright spots in the numbers with the Malibu being up 192 percent and the Vibe jumping 91.1 percent. GM's hybrid models are also continuing to gain ground with 1,957 units moved during the month. The combined total of Tahoe and Yukon Two-Mode Hybrids topped 1,000 for the first time and the Malibu and Vue mild hybrids held steady at 382 and 443 respectively. The new Escalade hybrid still hasn't climbed into triple digits and the Saturn Aura still doesn't seem to be more than an afterthought with 31 sales. All together, GM has sold 9,053 hybrids through nine months. That doesn't go far toward offsetting the 50 percent drop in sales of the normal Tahoe and Yukon, but it's a start.

Related:

• In the AutoblogGreen Garage: 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid Limited FWD
• In the AutoblogGreen Garage: 2008 Saturn Vue Green Line Hybrid
• In the AutoblogGreen Garage: 2008 Chevy Tahoe Two-Mode Hybrid
• In the AutoblogGreen Garage: 2008 Chevrolet Malibu LTZ and Hybrid

[Source: General Motors]

Chevrolet has fully taken the wraps of the new Orlando compact people mover for its debut at the Paris Motor Show. We still don't know for sure if the Orlando will be offered here in North America, but the rest of the world will get this compact seven seater. For its debut in Paris, the Orlando is being shown with GM's new 2.0L diesel engine rated at 150 hp and 236 lb-ft of torque. The three-row Orlando is based on the new generation Delta compact platform that also underpins the new Cruze, the next Astra and, of course, the Volt. The Orlando was originally planned to be built in Detroit alongside the Volt, but the Wall Street Journal recently reported it would not be built here. However, more recent reports indicated otherwise. The Orlando has style elements from the Sequel fuel cell concept and could appeal to people moving out of SUVs that still need room to haul the kids around. An Orlando with either the Two-Mode or mild hybrid system could prove to be a very capable and efficient people mover here in the U.S.


[Source: Chevrolet]

There has been a fair bit of discussion and controversy in the last couple of weeks on the interwebs about the exact nature of the powerflow and battery charging in the Chevy Volt. Back in July GM's Larry Nitz discussed how the charge sustaining mode would work. As with parallel hybrids the battery is generally kept between about 35 and 85 percent charge. That means when the battery reaches its "depletion" point it still has a significant amount of charge left. The range extender has less power output than the the electric drive motor is capable of (100 hp vs 150 hp) but it has enough output to work in most day-to-day driving conditions. The range extender doesn't normally try to charge the battery fully as that is deemed to be less efficient and more costly than holding the battery at the minimum until the car can be plugged in. For the times when more power is needed such as acceleration or hill climbing some of the reserve battery power is available to be used. The battery can be drawn down below the "depletion" point to about 25-30 percent. When this happens, a combination of regenerative braking and some surplus power from the range extender will bring the battery back up to the minimum. A video after the jump shows the various modes and the power flow.



[Source: General Motors]

In recent months virtually every major automaker has been turning up the wick on their factories that build small cars to try and keep up with soaring demand in one of the few growth segments in the U.S. market. At plants building the Ford Focus and Chevy Cobalt, overtime has been the order of the day. However, GM has had to cancel plans for two production shifts this weekend at the Lordstown, OH plant that builds the Cobalt and Pontiac G5. Apparently, parts suppliers haven't been able to provide enough of the bits needed to put together a complete car so, Lordstown employees will get this weekend off.

[Source: MarketWatch]

Ever since the Chevrolet Volt appeared as a concept last year, debate has been hot and heavy over exactly what it is. Although many call it a hybrid because it has a battery and an engine, GM prefers to call it an extended range-electric vehicle (ER-EV). That poses a problem for GM when it comes to emissions and fuel economy testing. With its 40 mile electric only range the Volt could complete the US06 test cycle that is part of the current EPA test regimen without ever running its engine. So far this doesn't sit well with the EPA which considers the Volt a hybrid and expects it to complete the test cycle with a charged battery. GM and the feds have been going back and forth on this for months. Reports out this morning on Bloomberg and the Detroit Free Press indicated that GM and the EPA had reached an agreement that would potentially see the Volt as the first car classified with a 100 mpg rating are erroneous. We called spokesman Rob Peterson to get the scoop, and it turns out that GM has reached an agreement with the California Air Resources Board, (CARB) on a unique classification for the Volt. Peterson told ABG that this classification would reflect the Volt's true capability, essentially treating it as an EV. According to Peterson, "the classification helps us to optimize the Volt for what it does do, instead of being put into the category with a normal hybrid." This will potentially allow GM to run the Volt with the planned charge sustaining mode rather than having to run the engine to fully recharge the battery at the end of the test.

The agreement with CARB gives GM a bargaining chip in its talks with the EPA, but Peterson cautions that the automaker and the federal agency "still have a long way to go" to finalize any agreement. The Volt may yet get that magic 100 mpg rating, but it's not there yet.


[Source: General Motors]

It seems that Popular Mechanics is nearly as interested in fuel efficiency as we are these days. To wit, the online mag has grabbed the keys to three of the latest fuel-sippers on the market in order to wring them out. The goal? Not performance, but fuel efficiency. While the Jetta TDI and the Prius are clearly the headline bearers, we shouldn't forget the lowly Chevy Cobalt XFE. This is the model that General Motors was able to massage EPA ratings of 25 miles per gallon city and 35 highway from. What's it like to drive, and does it approach those figures in the real world?

After about 500 miles of driving, PM achieved an average of 32.3 miles per gallon in combined driving. For a car costing just over $16K, that's pretty good. Remember, that number may be well below those of the Prius or Jetta TDI, but those vehicles may be priced a bit out of the range of many shoppers who'd like to save on their fuel bills. All in all, it's a pretty good effort from Chevrolet and will have to do until the Cruze arrives.

[Source: Popular Mechanics]

At an event in Flint MI today, GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm were on hand to officially announce that GM will be building its new 1.4L direct injected four cylinder engine in the city in new facilities on the campus of the Flint South Powertrain plant. GM will be spending $370 million dollars erect a 552,000 sq ft plant and tool it up. The company will start building the new factory immediately and full scale production is set to start in early 2010 in preparation for the North American launch of the Chevy Cruze. The Flint factory will also be the exclusive source of the range extending engines for the Volt. The plant will use 300 flexible machining and assembly stations so that a variety of four cylinder engines can be built without retooling. GM is planning to double global production of small four cylinder engines (1.0L to 1.4L) between now and 2011 and expects one-third of its North American volume to be fours by that time. The 1.4L is an all new engine that will produce 140 hp and 148 lb-ft of torque. We'll have more information on the 1.4L later today after a technical briefing.


[Source: General Motors]

General Motors made its case to a Detroit City Council committee on Wednesday in a bid to get some property tax brakes for its Hamtramck assembly plant. The Poletown plant is where General Motor is planning to build the Chevrolet Volt beginning in late 2010 and GM told the council that the new production vehicles there would add 550 jobs to the facility. In return for creating those jobs in the city, GM is seeking $136 million in property tax relief on the improvements over the next 25 years. The plant already employs 1,944 people who build the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS. GM is planning on spending $336 million on the plant over the next two years in order to swtich over to the new, smaller ER-EV Volt. The full council is expected to vote to approve the abatements by sometime next week.



[Source: Detroit Free Press]

Bloggers love environmentally friendly cars. Or so it seems, according to research performed by J.D. Power and Associates. The most commonly referenced brands in blog posts over the last six months are Toyota, Honda and General Motors. This shouldn't come as shocking news, considering that the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and Chevy Volt are all hot topics right now and are all expected to be thoroughly redesigned or first introduced within the next few years. Naturally, then, these are the brands that are getting the most publicity and are likely the ones that you are most interested in hearing about.

Not all of the blog posts were positive, though, and JDP therefore kept separate numbers for each manufacturer counting how many good things were written about their sustainability and efforts to reduce global warming. The surprising winner of that group was Nissan, though that brand only got two percent of all mentions overall. We blog, they watch, we blog. Fun!


[Source: The Car Connection]

A few days ago GM finally introduced the production version of the Chevy Volt to the world (officially this time) much to the delight of the hundreds of journalists packing the hall and the thousands upon thousands of folks who descended upon the internets to get a good look and all the pictures. While it was truly wonderful to be able to see the car poised upon its pedestal after months of impatiently waiting and then sitting back and discussing things like whether this version will look better in a showroom than the original concept, it's quite another to see it in its natural environment, rolling down the road.

Now, thanks to über Volt fan Dr. Lyle Dennis, who helps keep the world up-to-date on all the details of the vehicle through his GM-VOLT website, we can show you just that. And more! Lyle has gotten hold of a promotional video featuring the 40 mile "E-rev" gently cruising around a track and has posted it on Youtube. Not only do we get to see the Volt moving along from all different angles but there are also lots of shots showing off the bling interior with all the fancy LCD displays doing their thing. The soundtrack isn't even half bad. Hit to jump to see the production version of the Volt in action!

Update: Added bonus video from My Ride with additional footage.





[Source: YouTube]

The game of musical chairs in the GM product lineup seems to be continuing unabated with the latest casualty being the Chevrolet Orlando. The Orlando won't even be introduced until next month's Paris Motor Show and is still scheduled to go on sale in Europe and elsewhere in 2009. The Orlando was originally scheduled to be built in the Detroit/Hamtramck assembly plant along with the Chevrolet Volt. Those plans have apparently been canceled and it's not clear where the Orlando will be built or why it won't be offered in the U.S. Chevrolet spokesman Terry Rhadigan would only say that neither sales nor production plans for the Orlando had ever been announced for the U.S. In fact, the Orlando to be shown at Paris is technically only a concept for now. Anything beyond that is just speculation anyway. GM is continuing to check out its worldwide product portfolio for cars to add to the U.S. lineup and the Pontiac G3 has already been confirmed. The G3 is simply a re-badged and re-grilled Chevy Aveo and GM needs something much more than that to compete with current and future small cars like the upcoming Ford Fiesta. Perhaps GM will finally bite the bullet and bring the Chevy Beat that proved so popular among auto show attendees in 2007.


[Source: Wall Street Journal]

Over at the RenCen yesterday, AutoblogGreen sat down with Britta Gross, GM's manager of Hydrogen and Electrical Infrastructure Development and Strategic Commercialization, and Mark Duvall, program manager at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), to talk about how the Volt - actually, how millions of Volts and other plug-in vehicles - could change the way electricity is thought of in the U.S., and what the automaker and utilities are doing today to get ready for the day when it's normal to plug in your car.

Gross said that GM is working with dozens of utilities to figure out how to best sell the public on plugging in a car. AutoblogGreen readers might be anxiously counting down the days until their garage becomes a fueling center, but there are a lot of people who just don't get what plugging a car in might mean, and we could all use a bit more information, no? The major automakers have a long way to go before everyone knows what PHEVs are and how to best use them. Duvall said that it's not just the batteries in the Volt, but also what might happen to li-ion automotive batteries after they're used in cars that presents a real opportunity for consumers and utilities for energy storage from wind, solar or just nighttime power. It was an interesting talk, and you can listen in here (21 min):



For more from Duvall, click here.

Ahh, the blogger round table. At GM's Centennial celebration yesterday, GM chairman sat down with a group of bloggers to talk about - what else? - the Volt. Lutz took questions about the car and gave a upbeat assessment of where the overall program is now; he didn't even knock wood when he said that the battery testing has not given them any problems - guess he's not superstitious. One thing that Lutz said would help GM sell more Volts would be government incentives, specifically $7,500 incentive for each person who buys one. By the looks of it, the he won't quite get that amount.

Over the next few years, here's what will happen with the Volt program: There will be 50 or so Volt powertrains in Chevy Cruze bodies cruising the streets gathering data in the next few months. They are currently building three a week. Next year, about 100 Volts that look like the Volt will be out and about and in 2010 there will be a "pretty huge fleet" testing. Basically, Lutz said, everything's on track for the late-2010 production date.

We also hear how those leaked photos hit the web - yup, GM was embarrassed.

Have a listen to all this a lot more (31 min):