Engineering Excellence: Chevy Volt

Motor Trend magazine named Chevy Volt the 2011 car of the year. The electric car boasts some of the most advanced engineering ever seen in a mainstream American automobile.
Automobile Magazine named the Volt its 2011 car of the year as well.
  


In November 2010, General Electric provided details about its commitment to encourage the widespread adoption of all-electric vehicles that included an order for 12,000 Chevy Volt vehicles from GM. GE has a focus on environment, health and safety that extends beyond the company's walls to reduce environmental impact on local communities.

Driving Vehicle Performance

Engineering simulation from ANSYS helped to reduce automobile drag and improve acoustic performance on the pluggable electric vehicle. The manufacturer used fluid dynamics technology in combination with wind tunnel testing to achieve aggressive range and fuel economy targets.

Developing Electric and Hybrid Vehicles from the Ground Up

Because the electric powertrain is revolutionary technology, automotive industry engineers face the challenge of designing affordable, efficient, stable and reliable hybrid electric powertrain technologies almost entirely from scratch — and in an incredibly compressed time frame. The best prxactice is to use engineering simulation from ANSYS to thoroughly explore design options and optimize the one that best meets all those often-competing demands.

ANSYS offers an integrated platform that enables designers to simultaneously evaluate individual components and subsystems under various physical conditions — fluids, structural stress, thermal, electromechanics and more — as well as the interactions between them at the system level.

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