ultium drive Ultium Drive - GM's New Power Train Lineup

[G. David Felt]

GM announced today their new family of EV motors, The Ultium Drive family.

The Ultium Drive family is made up of five interchangeable drive units and three motors. This will help transition the current portfolio of auto's to fully electric lineup. Performance, scale, speed to market and manufacturing efficiencies will provide GM significant advantages over past EV auto's. GM is leading the way with industry class leading drive units that use an electric motor and single-speed transmissions to apply power best in class horsepower and torque. Ultium Drives will be more responsive than internal combustion motors with precision torque control of the motors and smooth performance. The design and development of the Ultium Drive modular architecture allows us to offer industry-leading torque with power density across a wide spectrum of different vehicles types.

GM has applied their 25 years of EV experience in creating the Ultium Drive family with lighter and more efficient designs. The Ultium Drive family integrates the power electronics into the drive units assemblies allowing for a 50% reduction in electronics over previous auto's thus saving cost and packaging space while increasing capability by 25 percent.

To Quote GM press release:

“As with other propulsion systems that are complex, capital intensive and contain a great deal of intellectual property, we’re always better off making them ourselves,” said Adam Kwiatkowski, GM executive chief engineer, Global Electrical Propulsion. “GM’s full lineup of EVs should benefit from the simultaneous engineering of Ultium Drive. Our commitment to increased vertical integration is expected to bring additional cost efficiency to the performance equation.”

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/sep/0916-ultium-drive.html

[G. David Felt]

Have to say that the green car report web site brings up an interesting and solid discussion on the new Ultium Drive family.

IS THIS THE SMALL-BLOCK V8 of the EV Generation?

GM's Ultium Family announcement drives a package of electronics, motor and transmission to an all in one encompassing power train. With horsepower ranging from 235 HP to 1000 HP and battery packs up to 600 miles of range one cannot but help make these comparisons.

GM Launched what has become the most popular, reliable small-block V8 engine with Tubo-Hydramatic transmissions the world has seen which have been sourced according to the story below to Rolls=Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, etc. GM Small-Block motors have been used around the world.

Honda has now signed on to use the Ultium family of motors and their next generation of EV platform for Honda auto's that will be sold globally in Europe and North America. This will help to quickly drive down costs of the power train and battery. 

Nikola has signed on to use the Ultium family and Platform plus use a Hydrogen generator to give their pickup truck crazy long range.

One does have to wonder with 100 million plus small black V8's built to date. Could the Ultium family be the next centennial power train line?

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129625_will-gm-s-ultium-drive-be-the-small-block-v-8-for-a-generation-of-evs

[ocnblu]

44 minutes ago, David said:

cannot but help make these comparisons

Unless they're actually lucid.  LOL.

[USA-1]

1 hour ago, David said:

GM's Ultium Family announcement drives a package of electronics, motor and transmission to an all in one encompassing power train. With horsepower ranging from 235 HP to 1000 HP and battery packs up to 600 miles of range one cannot but help make these comparisons.

GM Launched what has become the most popular, reliable small-block V8 engine with Turbo-Hydramatic transmissions the world has seen which have been sourced according to the story below to Rolls=Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, etc.

GM's Ultium Drive powertrain seems like it's going to be a game changer for sure. Pretty awesome they are building all of it in house at GM Powertrain. Afterall, the powertrain is the heart of the car and should be built by the actual manufacturer of the car...looking at you Toyota Z err Supra and FR-S err 86 and all Infiniti SUV's with MB powertrain's ??

 

Even BMW used the GM 5 speed 5L40/50e Hydramatic AT in the late 90's early 00's, my parents owned a couple of 540i with the 4.4L V8 (a '98 and '02) with the 5L40e, that had super smooth, crisp shifts, awesome cars, horrible A/C systems.

GM used them in Cadillac, Pontiac and Holden cars among others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_5L40-E_transmission

[balthazar]

1 hour ago, USA-1 said:

Even BMW used the GM...

Ferrari, Rolls, Jaguar, Jeep.... many many OEMs bought GM Hydramatic units of various designs and put them into their vehicles.

But yes; best case scenario is that GM produces them in-house.

[riviera74]

If GM really wants to sell these EVs in numbers that make Toyota blush, GM vehicles will probably have to undersell just about everyone for at least three years.  GM could use the extra market share.

[USA-1]

5 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Ferrari, Rolls, Jaguar, Jeep.... many many OEMs bought GM Hydramatic units of various designs and put them into their vehicles.

But yes; best case scenario is that GM produces them in-house.

Right, David already mentioned many other OEM's who've used them so added my actual experience with Bimmer. Speaks to the quality of the 'ole GM Hydramatic trans. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, riviera74 said:

If GM really wants to sell these EVs in numbers that make Toyota blush, GM vehicles will probably have to undersell just about everyone for at least three years.  GM could use the extra market share.

Except Toyota is the Hybrid king, fully against EV's and BEV's. They still think Hybrid is the way today and are fully vested in it.

[ocnblu]

8 hours ago, USA-1 said:

Except Toyota is the Hybrid king, fully against EV's and BEV's. They still think Hybrid is the way today and are fully vested in it.

They've become the de facto hybrid brand.  Hybrids will always be more practical than full EV, if we are to stray from the normalcy of full-on ICE.

I do have to say that I am happy GM is making a point that their EV stuff is THEIRS, it does lend a hint of authenticity (but not a soul) to their EV push.

[A Horse With No Name]

7 hours ago, ocnblu said:

They've become the de facto hybrid brand.  Hybrids will always be more practical than full EV, if we are to stray from the normalcy of full-on ICE.

I do have to say that I am happy GM is making a point that their EV stuff is THEIRS, it does lend a hint of authenticity (but not a soul) to their EV push.

Toyota is indeed selling lots of hybrids, seeing lots of Camry and RAV4 hybrids around here. 

[G. David Felt]

6 hours ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Toyota is indeed selling lots of hybrids, seeing lots of Camry and RAV4 hybrids around here. 

Here on the local news, Camry and Rav4 Hybrid are the top selling auto's in Washington state behind full size Trucks and Luxury SUV/CUVs.

I honestly think we will go through a solid Hybrid with EVs move to total EVs around 2050. Course I will be pushing daisy's by then.