Tag: electric vehicles

OM in the News: GM and Old Chevy Volt Batteries

Used Chevy Volt batteries are becoming backup power options for GM's IT administration building.
Used Chevy Volt batteries are becoming backup power options for GM’s IT administration building.

General Motors said it has begun utilizing used Chevy Volt batteries to help power one its buildings, reports ZDNet.com (June 16, 2015). Under the plan, GM will use first generation Volt batteries to power its IT administration building at its Milford Proving Grounds facility. The company has built out an enterprise data center there.

When Volt batteries expire for use in the car, there is about 80% of power storage left. As a result, GM is using the Volt batteries to complement a solar array and wind turbines. By repackaging the batteries in this way, GM has found a very effective, efficient use of batteries that does not require difficult and expensive recycling.

GM’s move highlights how secondary uses are emerging for electric vehicle batteries. Scrap Volt battery covers have already been used for things like buildings for animals and nesting areas. One of the more interesting moves is Tesla’s efforts to use its battery technology to power data centers and homes. Amazon Web Services has been testing out Tesla’s technology for its data centers. For GM, the five Volt batteries serve as a nice backup power supply and cut down on waste. The batteries can provide back-up power for up to four hours in an outage.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. What other uses could an operations manager find for these Volt batteries?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of electric vehicles?

OM in the News: Which is Better–Electric Cars or Electric Trucks?

My blog on Oct.31, 2010 dealt with forecasting the demand for electric cars. Who doesn’t  love the idea of electric vehicles (EVs)?  But as we wrote: “everybody feels that everybody else should be driving environmentally-friendly vehicles”. With gas hovering under $3/ gallon, does it really pay financially for you or me to invest in a $40,000 Chevy Volt?

Maybe not, but logistics managers at such firms as Staples, Frito-Lay, FedEx, and AT&T have come to find that electric trucks make a lot of sense for their commercial delivery fleets. As The Wall Street Journal (Dec.8,2010) writes:” electric delivery trucks…make more sense in many ways than electric cars”. That’s because delivery trucks generally drive  short, defined routes each day–better suited to the limits in range of EVs. And  EVs have lower maintenance costs, a big concern to companies with large fleets.

“We’re a business here”, says  Staples’ VP-Fleet  Services. “They have to justify themselves”. Staples just bought  41 trucks from Smith Electric Vehicles, in Kansas City, and plans to double the order. The trucks have a top speed of  50 mph, and can carry 16,000 lbs. They cost about $90,000, which is $30,000 more than a diesel, but Staples expects to recover that expense in 3.3 years. The EVs have no transmissions; need no fluids, filters, or belts (which cost around $2,700/year); have “regenerative” brakes that last 4-5 years, vs. 1-2 on regular trucks; save $700/year because there is no exhaust system  to maintain; and cut fuel costs by $6,500/year. It all adds up to $60,000 savings over the 10 year life of a truck.

Frito-Lay, with an order for 176 Smith trucks, plans to convert 2,000 more delivery vehicles to EVs. Similarly, FedEx, which has 19 EVs in London, Paris, and LA, expects a proliferation of electric trucks. Its not a “good deed for the sake of a good deed. There is a great return on that investment”, adds a Frito-Lay OM exec.

Discussion questions:

1. Do you think use of electric trucks will spread faster than electric cars? Why?

2. What limits the proliferation of electric trucks?

3. Make the case for the USPS to switch to an EV fleet.