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General Motors CEO Provides Few Details In Appearance Before Congress

It was only two months ago that Mary Barra, freshly crowned as the new General Motors chief executive officer, visited Washington DC as an esteemed guest of First Lady Michelle Obama for the State of the Union address. On Tuesday, Barra returned to the Capitol under more strained circumstances. For more than two contentious hours, she took questions from members of a House of Representatives subcommittee investigating General Motors years-long delay in initiating a recall of millions of vehicles that contained a defect that has killed at least 13 people. Why did GM accept faulty ignition switches that were below the company's set specfications? Why did GM learn about the problem in 2001 yet take no action until 2014? Will GM compensate victims' families even though the company's bankruptcy may limit its liability? Those were a few of the questions members of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee asked. Few concrete answers were forthcoming. For her part, Barra sidestepped most of the questions, saying she wouldn't have information needed to answer them until an internal review is completed. David Friedman, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, testified after Barra. The biggest news that emerged from the hearing was that General Motors has retained attorney Kenneth Feinberg to advise the company on its civil and legal responsibilities. He has made a career of resolving disputes and serving in a 'fixer' role, serving as the chief of the federal government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, as an administrator of compensation fund for victims of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and a similar fund for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Barra, who has been GM's CEO since January but been with the company since 1980, expects to meet with Feinberg on Friday, and have a concrete plan within the next 30-60 days. Yet Barra would not say for certain Tuesday that GM would compensate the victims at all. Despite repeated questions from Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Barra did not outline the company's intentions. "I assume GM is hiring (Feinberg) to help identify the size of claims and then compensate the victims? Is that right," DeGette asked. "Is GM willing to put together some kind of a compensation fund for these victims that Mr. Feinberg will then administer?" "We've hired him to help assess the situation," Barra replied. "So really, there's no money involved at this point," DeGette asked.

GM patent reveals new two-stage turbocharger

Modern turbochargers may be some of the best ever made, but performance is something that engineers are always trying to improve. According to GM Inside News, General Motors (GM) is hoping to alleviate some of the negative aspects of a two-stage turbocharger setup with a newly-patented design. The patent, that was filed on May 19, 2016, reveals a clever bypass system that allows the engine, a four-cylinder unit, to optimize both the low-pressure and high-pressure inlets for its respective functions. According to the filing, a conventional two-stage turbocharger setup is engineered to allow both turbines to operate simultaneously at low and mid engine speeds. At high engine speeds, only the low-pressure turbine works. The setup can't isolate either the low or high pressure side, which can impair low-end performance. GM's new two-stage turbocharger setup looks to eliminate this by linking the high-pressure turbo to the exhaust manifold through the high-pressure inlet duct. The low-pressure turbo is attached to the high-pressure turbo by a low-pressure inlet duct, which is linked to a connecting channel. A single actuator that is housed in the exhaust manifold creates a bypass that can opens the high-pressure inlet or close the connecting channel. Depending on what the engine load and speed is, the ECU guides the actuator—a single rotating spindle with discs corresponding to flanges on the high and low pressure sides—to isolate one of the two turbos. Isolating the turbos allow the respective inlets to be engineered for the best possible fluid dynamic performance. The setup should increase performance and decrease lag. There's no word on what car this setup will make an appearance on, but it will most likely be used in premium vehicles before trickling down to the rest of GM's vehicles. Related Video: News Source: GM Inside News, AutoGuide via GM Authority Cadillac Chevrolet GM Technology Sedan turbo patent engine turbocharging

How real is the Chevy Bolt EV and will it really cost $30,000?

"This is us bragging that we can do this kind of car." That's how Michael Simcoe, GM's executive director for NA exteriors, described the Chevy Bolt EV concept, which made a surprise appearance at the Detroit Auto Show today. While there was talk of a 2017 production debut, this is for sure a concept vehicle. But that means the ideas behind the vehicle are perhaps more important than the details. For example, no one is talking about what size battery might appear in a production Bolt, but Simcoe would talk about how rapid progress in battery improvements made it possible for GM to make the bold Bolt declaration that promises 200 miles and a price tag of around $30,000 (after incentives). But if the Bolt makes it to market, it won't be until 2017 (as rumored) or later, is it really fair to promote the car as being available with a federal tax credit? For one thing, credits for plug-in vehicles may change in the next few years, but if the laws stay the same, each manufacturer is limited to 200,000 vehicles before the credits start to decline. GM is justifiably proud that it's sold over 70,000 Volts thus far, but with a new model coming out later this year and a few years to go until the Bolt potentially arrives, GM could be pushing right up against that 200,000 limit when the Bolt goes on sale. But Volt executive chief engineer Pam Fletcher told AutoblogGreen that, "We're just trying to take some of the confusion out." "Think about talking to the average consumer," she said. "First, going through the explanation of how the federal tax credit was set up, how it's being used and so on. [In the industry, we] have the luxury of understanding the nuances of that regulation, but right now people who aren't in the marketplace, they don't have the luxury of all that. It's already hard to communicate the details so we gave them data in a way that is what they're used to seeing." There was one question that drove the two-year Bolt gestation and design period, Simcoe said: What does a better battery offer a vehicle designer? "We've got a number of spaces we play in for powertrain technology and obviously electrification is one of them," he said. "With Volt 1 and then the Spark EV, with that development and batteries getting better for us, we started doing some practical packaging to deliver a vehicle which was not the traditional aero form which you see around electric vehicles.