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Chevy Volt Fire Prompts Safety Investigation For EV Batteries
Three weeks after undergoing a crash test, a Chevy Volt caught fire. The car's battery was determined as the cause of the fire, though GM said its protocols for deactivating the battery following a crash would have prevented it. Either way, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association is now on the case. They're planning additional testing of the batteries, though they were quick to say, "Based on the available data, N.H.T.S.A. does not believe the Volt or other electric vehicles are at a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles. In fact, all vehicles — both electric and gasoline-powered — have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash." According to the president of an engineering firm, "If a lithium battery is pierced by steel, a chemical reaction will take place that starts raising the temperature and can result in a fire... If the piercing is small, that reaction can take days or weeks to occur."
Do you want to know why the American economy is swirling down the shitter? It's became Americans have become nancies. They have become sissies, if you will. They don't have the guts to take real risks. They don't have the guts to try something new.
Maybe this shouldn't be surprising. America often has been a backward "conservative" nation for much of its history. Aside from a few generations at the very beginning of America's modern history, the tolerance for risk has been decreasing rapidly. Without real risk you can't have real gain.
This story is a perfect example. This is clearly a very minor issue with a simple solution: if the vehicle gets into a collision, change the fucking batteries! But America as a culture will overlook this, and will overlook the immense economic and environmental benefits that these vehicles would bring, because they are TOO FUCKING SCARED to take what's a very minor risk.
This happened with an old laptop battery I had which was pierced after a fall and left in a metal trash bin. Nothing serious resulted but people need to be aware that damaged batteries are always dangerous. The fact it happened ona volt seems irrelevant. Maybe they can release a new car and call it "duravolt" (like duracell batteries except with a volt tag).
How long before we see a TV show or mystery novelist use an intentional puncturing of a battery to kill someone weeks later?
I give it two years, any other guesses?
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
I was always skeptical of the Chevy Volt, not because of its technology per se, but because of the "executor". In this case, engineers at Chevy.
After living in a household that owned Chevys for decades, and seeing how poor workmanship was an almost guaranteed feature in all those vehicles, the Chevy left a bad mark on my mind.
Even simple stuff like seats were poorly done. The cars over heated in the summer, and many of them would just lose power when you needed it most.
Needless to say, I do not think I will ever own one even if given to me as a gift.
4 weeks later and entire tank of poisonous and flammable hydrocarbons could leak from a damaged car onto a garage floor or into a drain.
ICE cars are no angels: we've just gotten used to their failure modes.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
My cousin's ex-eyebrows are interested in your views on the safety of gasoline and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Lets face it if you rode up to the regulators today on your horse and said: "I have a new idea for a product. It will be a giant metal shell on wheels. People will sit in it and move at 60km/h in opposite directions on a narrow road only a meter appart. The metal shell will become the subject of about half of your efforts to control how people use it. Best of all it runs on a highly volatile mixture of hydrocarbons."
There's no way a car could be invented today.
That arguement falls down for two reasons.
a) if something like this didn't exist our world would likely be as it was during the time it was invented, and we would likely have thought "What is the point of that? I have a horse!"
b) You're ignoring my point that we have become an insanely litigious society. It's not a necessity that will or won't allow us to move forward, its the fear of getting sued the first time something like this causes a death.
The only thing that saves the car is entrenchment. Take a look at typical industry today while you're at it. Why is it today we say nuclear power is too expensive whereas in the 60s it was seen as a way to finally make cheap power? Our society has changed for the risk averse where these days people are much more concerned about building an intellectual property portfolio than build equipment.