The past year has been a big one for General Motors. The company enjoyed a successful initial public offering after emerging from bankruptcy. And its electric Chevrolet Volt model was named the 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year.
GM has staked much of its future to the Volt, which was developed in part by Georgia Tech alumnus Micky Bly.
Bly, executive director of hybrid, electric and battery engineering, grew up in Augusta, Ga., before enrolling in the Institute. His corporate biography credits a passion for “tearing apart, figuring out and putting back together” for leading him first to Tech and then to the auto industry.
Bly co-oped at GM seven times while studying mechanical engineering. He joined GM at its Detroit headquarters as a power train development and validation engineer after graduating in 1990.
He has worked in various facets across the company — and around the world. He started out as a lead development engineer in redesigning the Corvette’s iconic V8 small block engine. In 1997, he transferred to England and later Germany to work on the Ecotec L4, GM’s global four-cylinder engine.
In 2006, Bly was back in Michigan and became director of global hybrid integration and controls, managing teams responsible for the design of GM’s hybrid vehicle line. In 2009, he took on a new role and title as executive director of global electrical systems, hybrid and electric vehicles and OnStar engineering.
He now leads about 2,000 engineers around the world who are responsible for all aspects of GM’s electrical systems. The work of Bly and his team was recognized with the 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid being named Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year.
GM dedicated much of its resources to development of the Volt, an electrically powered car designed to drive on its lithium-ion battery pack for 25 to 50 miles. A 1.4-liter gasoline-powered engine can then kick in, giving the car an additional range of 310 miles on a full tank of fuel. The car simply needs to be plugged into a standard outlet to recharge its battery.
The car was seen as a big risk for GM, an expensive venture that required cutting-edge components. Bly and his team of engineers had a four-year window to develop those technologies.
“Our biggest challenges centered around the development of all these new technologies on the production-critical path,” Bly said. “We knew that if our parts failed to deliver, the program would not launch.”
Of those challenges, the biggest was designing the lithium-ion battery.
“We had no idea how to design the battery,” Bly said. “No one in the automotive industry had a blueprint. We were asking a technology used in cell phones to be scaled up to supply enough energy to propel a 3,500-pound vehicle between 25 and 50 miles electrically at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. Not a simple task.”
The battery also would have to last eight years in environments from 30 degrees below zero Celsius up to 50 degrees Celsius. Bly opted to work with LG Chem, a leader in cellular technology, and GM internally designed and developed the battery and its support systems, he said.
“We were able to do this during the worst financial times of the industry, and we delivered,” he said.
Despite the unconventional power system, the Volt has a top speed of 100 mph and accelerates from zero to 60 mph in less than nine seconds.
Motor Trend was effusive with praise in naming the long-in-development Volt its Car of the Year:
“In the 61-year history of the Car of the Year award, there have been few contenders as hyped — or as controversial — as the Chevrolet Volt. The Volt started life an Old GM project, then arrived fully formed as a symbol of New GM. … As a result, a lot of the sound and fury that has surrounded the Volt’s launch has tended to obscure a simple truth: This automobile is a game-changer.”
“I am so proud of the GM team and what we have delivered,” Bly said. “I can honestly say this is the high point of my 20-year career with GM. This car is just amazing, and the top critics agree.”
Bly said that one of the most important aspects of developing the Volt was making sure it offered a pleasant driving experience, not just an eco-friendly engine.
“Driving the Volt is easy to describe,” he said. “Open the door, get in, push the start button and drive. It’s as easy as that. The real pleasure of the vehicle is the driver experience, from the outside design to the interior technology interactions.”
Motor Trend agreed with that sentiment. In announcing the Volt as Car of the Year, the magazine enthused, “It is a fully functional, no-compromise compact automobile that offers consumers real benefits in terms of lower running costs.”
Bly said he hopes the Volt can lead to a shift toward more eco-friendly vehicles.
“Our customers are making a commitment to technology that will help reduce our dependence on petroleum,” he said. “In turn, we commit to deliver the highest standards for value, safety, quality, performance and reliability to our customers.”
The Volt became available for sale in select markets in December, and it will expand gradually. While Bly couldn’t say what project is next on his plate, he said his role will continue to be in developing GM’s electrical systems and pushing more products and technologies similar to the Volt. A critical part of that will be information, entertainment and human-machine interaction technologies, and Bly said his team is developing concepts to make GM a leader in the area.
Bly is just one of many Yellow Jackets to make an impact at GM. The company currently employs about 100 alumni at more than 20 locations around the world. Additionally, about 40 current Tech students are serving as interns or co-ops at GM.
GM officials said the company has given $1.4 million in education grants, $900,000 in scholarship programs and $700,000 in research grants to Georgia Tech.
Bly reflected on his time at the Institute as the propulsion that pushed him into the automotive industry. And it was the breadth of engineering offered at Tech that allowed him to work in so many areas across GM, he said.
“I believe that my mechanical engineering classes and degree have given me the best possible foundation to take on any challenge that I have encountered while working at GM or on the Volt,” Bly said. “It is key that Georgia Tech’s academic programs continue to grow and adjust to the cross-engineering needs of complex systems similar to vehicle engineering or the Chevy Volt.
“Engineers of the future must be able to work together to resolve tough technical and societal problems of the future. Georgia Tech can and should continue to lead in this area,” he said
Outside of vehicle engineering, Bly listed his interests as watching sci-fi movies and renovating houses.
But the bulk of Bly’s engineering skill continues to be focused squarely on the future of the automotive industry.
“I feel so blessed to have a career I love and family that supports what I do,” he wrote on the GM site. “In fact, I think I may even have two future engineers on my hands. My 9-year-old son Ethan is already a car buff, and he can’t wait to see which new car I’ll bring home. And my 11-year-old daughter Emily is already talking about engineering school. Maybe someday they’ll both be working on a new concept vehicle that could change the industry and make their old man’s work seem obsolete.”
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