Volt gets Vehicle Line Executive and Design Studio

[Flybrian]

From GM FastLane Blog

First, the Volt (and all other vehicles that will use E-Flex) now has its very own vehicle line executive, just like all of our other vehicle development teams. The VLE for E-Flex vehicles is Frank Weber, who has a lot of pertinent experience under his belt, including a stint leading advanced concept development for Opel.

Also, we have opened a brand-new studio dedicated to the design of vehicles using E-Flex. As I’ve said time and again, GM is once more a design driven company, so it’s only natural that design keep pace with the engineering development of the E-flex system. The studio will be led by Bob Boniface, director of advanced design. Bob led advanced design work of the Chevy Camaro Concept, Sequel Concept, and Volt. He previously led DaimlerChrysler’s Advanced Product Design Studio and directed architectural design of the minivan stow-and-go seat.

Finally, we have allocated even more engineering resources to this program, and to our fuel cell program. We have assigned over 150 engineers to E-Flex development, and transitioned more than 500 fuel cell engineers from our Research and Development group to our core engineering functions. That’s a step toward accelerating the production engineering of hydrogen fuel cell and electric drive vehicles.

All these moves, and everything going on behind the scenes, are strong indicators that we’re serious about Volt, despite the “PR stunt” dismissals I still hear in some circles, and that we’re serious about other advanced technologies intended to move the future of the automobile away from petroleum. And we’ll continue to develop these technologies with as many resources as we can allocate to them, even if our attention and resources get diverted by proposed legislation that will only serve to keep America hooked on petroleum even longer.

[Camino LS6]

Tell it like it is!