GM confident in Volt launch after battery tests

By Kevin Krolicki

DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) - General Motors is confident it will be able to deliver the all-electric Chevrolet Volt as planned and is close to naming a supplier for the vehicle's crucial battery, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said on Monday.

"I would say there's almost no reasonable doubt in our minds anymore that this is going to work," said Lutz, who heads vehicle development for GM.

GM is designing the Volt to run on battery power alone for 40 miles, but some industry rivals and even some of the automaker's executives have questioned whether next-generation lithium-ion batteries could be ready for production of the highly anticipated vehicle in 2010.

Lutz, who was speaking to Reuters after an address to a Detroit-area business group, said GM engineers had shown the battery packs now being tested could power vehicles to the company's target mileage and beyond.

"They've routinely had it to the high 30s, low 40s and they go up hills with it and everything," said Lutz.

GM's Volt is on track to become the first mass-market rechargeable car, a step that would put the embattled U.S. automaker ahead of rivals such as Toyota Motor Corp in a key fuel saving technology at a time when sales of its mainstream trucks and SUVs have hit the skids.

The contract to build a power source for the Volt has also emerged as a crucial, early test of efforts to adapt the batteries widely used in consumer electronics to drive cars.

Lutz said he had driven a test vehicle equipped with a Volt battery pack 15 miles on Monday morning as part of a regular review of the Volt development effort with GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson.