Holden Pushes Green Plans

The Age

Wednesday December 10, 2008

Andrew Heasley, With Barry Park

A four-cylinder green car is on the cards, writes Andrew Heasley.

AS GENERAL Motors' immediate fate rests on a multibillion-dollar US Government rescue package, its local arm, Holden, is hanging its future on building greener cars here, possibly even a small four-cylinder car.

Holden's chairman and managing director Mark Reuss said the company could make a four-cylinder car here for domestic consumers and for export markets. "If we chose to put a small car in Australia it would be one of our global architectures (structures) that would have influenced design and engineering for a country like Australia and it would have implied export opportunity, if we did that," he said.

"We don't manufacture and engineer our new global-program cars that can't be world cars."

Mr Reuss said he was confident that the company could make a car costing less than $30,000. This could mean a modern-day Torana.

A locally built small car, he said, should fit the criteria for gaining access to funds from the recently announced $6.2billion Federal Government automotive assistance scheme, including money for its Green Vehicle fund.

"If you look at cars that have been announced that we're doing on a global basis from GM on a global platform, then I think it would fit that (scheme)," Mr Reuss said. "We have worked closely with the Government to craft the $6.2billion plan."

Holden is also looking at ways to make its staple Commodore more fuel efficient, trialling a suite of alternative technologies.

From February, V8 Commodores will come with cylinder deactivation, which shuts down half the engine cylinders' fuel supply when coasting, effectively leaving the car running on four cylinders.

The V6s won't get this as the engine runs too unevenly on three cylinders, engineers say. Extra fuel economy gains are expected to be made on existing engines by adding direct injection, already found on many thrifty European cars.

The following year, the 2010 Commodore will be able to run on up to 85per cent ethanol-blended fuel, called E85.

Mr Reuss said GM was building a relationship with ethanol producer Coskata and Holden had been in talks with the company for setting up an ethanol-producing plant and a distribution network in Australia.

Coskata, a US-based ethanol producer, specialises in converting non-food-based biomass - wood, household waste and even grass clippings - into fuel. Most of the ethanol produced in Australia is derived from food sources including sugar cane and wheat starch.

Mr Reuss said the car-maker was introducing E85 engines to the Commodore line-up as "affordable technology" that would help reduce Australia's dependence on imported oil. The flex-fuel engines can run on any mix of petrol and ethanol ranging from 100per cent petrol to a maximum of 85per cent ethanol.

Holden already makes and sells E24-compatible engines for export to Brazil, and the current Holden V6 and V8 engines sold here are E10 compliant. It has also shown an E85-compatible V8 fitted to a pre-production Sportwagon concept earmarked as a US export model.

GM has tested Australian buyers' acceptance of E85 vehicles with Saab, Holden's Swedish sibling, launching its 9-3 and 9-5 biofuel cars last year.

While E10 fuel - a combination of 10 per cent ethanol and 90per cent petrol - is widespread throughout Australia, E85 is a bit harder to find.

Independent fuel distribution company United Petroleum provides an E85 filling station at Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne's east.

Holden is also looking at making Commodores more fuel efficient. Smaller-engined Commodores are being trialled, with a prototype built with a 2.0turbo-four under the bonnet. Performance is believed not to be an issue but economy is.

Holden has experimented with a diesel-engined Commodore, fitted with an engine supplied by Italian GM affiliate VM Motori, but the fuel price disparity between diesel and petrol has now pushed it down the order of priorities.

LPG gas is gaining greater importance for the Commodore but compressed natural gas (CNG), of which Australia has an abundance, lacks infrastructure (no pumps at service stations) and has technical issues over storage.

But by 2012 Mr Reuss promises the GM electric hybrid Volt will be here, branded as a Holden.

"You can have petrol stations that service a small internal combustion engine that in turn recharges the battery packs. On a lithium-ion Volt, you can drive that car just about anywhere you want tomorrow. That's a huge difference in what it takes to bring something like that into this country and be successful."

Lessons learned from the Volt's technology could be applied to other Holden cars made here. "We're going to take generations of that (Volt technology) and decrease the cost," Mr Reuss said.

-- With BARRY PARK

drive.com.au/green

© 2008 The Age

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