New Powertrain Center Enables Faster Development of Fuel-Saving Options for Consumers
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By: Dan Hancock
General Motors, Vice President of Global Powertrain Engineering
At GM, we’re intensely focused on developing current and next-generation powertrain technologies that will improve fuel economy and reduce emissions, as well as our dependence on petroleum.
You can see our efforts on the road for the 2008 model year in 17 GM vehicles that get EPA estimated fuel economy of at least 30 miles per gallon on the highway. They include the Chevrolet Aveo at 32 mpg, the Pontiac G5 XFE at 35 mpg, the Saturn Vue Green Line hybrid at 32 mpg and the 2.4L, six-speed-equipped Chevrolet Malibu at 32 mpg. In fact, this Malibu model is the outright leader in highway fuel economy among non-hybrid mid-size cars!
To continue delivering new, fuel-saving powertrains to market more quickly – including the much-anticipated Chevrolet Volt – we’re making sure our powertrain engineering development capabilities are the best of the best. Today we dedicated the new, 450,000-square-foot GM Powertrain Engineering Development Center adjacent to our headquarters in Pontiac, Mich.
This facility is the largest, most technically advanced powertrain development center in the world, and it will allow us to shorten our powertrain development time so that we can design, develop and test more powertrain systems faster than ever before. The Volt’s electric drive unit, motors, power electronics and engine will be tested in this center, along with advanced transmissions and a variety of gas, diesel, hybrid and alternative fuel powertrains.
The facility features two test wings that can accommodate all powertrain configurations, fuels and power levels. The center also features a new test setup area and a quick-change pallet system, which accommodates setups and repairs outside the test cell while other work is conducted inside. It used to be that an engine needed to be moved out of a test cell in order to prepare for a test. This involved unhooking all of the test equipment so that a new engine could be brought in and hooked up to various test equipment pieces. Now, the components are pre-assembled on a pallet in the test prep area, and the pallet is then air-floated into the test cell by using compressed air, much like a hovercraft.
This new process allows a 20-minute changeover in the test cell, whereas previously it took 24 hours. That’s a very dramatic savings by any measure.
The new quick-change pallet system, along with our lab’s test automation and data analysis capabilities, is expected to help us improve our powertrain efficiency by up to 50 percent. These efficiencies slice 10 weeks from our development time for new powertrains.

By: Spencer Chamberlain
By: Tara Settembre