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Chevy Volt Passes Safety Investigation
An anonymous reader writes "A few months ago, reports of battery fires from crash-tested Chevy Volts caused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open an investigation into the type of batteries used in the Volt and other EVs. That investigation has now concluded, and the NHTSA says the cars are safe. 'The agency and General Motors Co. know of no fires in real-world crashes. GM and federal safety officials say they believe the fires were caused by coolant leaking from damaged plastic casing around the batteries after side-impact collisions. The coolant caused an electrical short, which sparked battery fires seven days to three weeks after the crashes. GM announced earlier this month that it will add steel plates to about 12,000 existing Volts to protect the batteries in the event of a crash.'"
Except for the reported fires????
Thankyou, I know, your're from the government and you're here to help.
No brain, no pain.
So your solution to protecting the batteries are adding heavy Steel plates to the car. Which in turn adds more weight and gives less mileage. We can't find a metal that is lighter and stronger?
Gasoline fires happen at the time or minutes after the accident. Battery fires happen some random time later when the driver thinks that the vehicle is safe and the accident only caused a small physical damage. And the threat of fire is not only when the vehicle is in use. The fire can be started while the vehicle is inside of the garage and there is a room above where family members are sleeping..
Do you have a source to validate your claim that GM just canceled the Volt?
To have a battery penetration here, you would have to have a side intrusion into the car which extends about 2 feet in from the side of the car. Your side airbags will have gone off, the car likely isn't even drivable.
No one is going to think their car had only small physical damage with this kind of wreck.
And your statements about gas cars are also incorrect. I've followed cars on the highway which clearly were leaking gas. This isn't a fire hazard because it's been more than a few minutes since the wreck? I've seen cars just plain catch fire on the side of the road with no wreck at all.
And gas cars can catch fire in garages too.
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2012/01/gloucester_township_car_fire_s.html
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
if someone today came up with that we should all be driving around at 100kmp with 100L of highly flammable liquid people would say; are you nuts?
Sorry, but that's nonsense. Our ancestors used to drive electric cars, but when the ICE came along it was so clearly superior that they rapidly dumped the electric nonsense; it's taken a century for people to forget the lessons of the past and come to believe that electric cars make any kind of sense.
Eh... You don't have to buy an overpriced death trap from a 1/3 government owned "business" to buy a vehicle that doesn't rely on "big oil." There are a few electrics out there produced by companies that aren't GM.
You can have an electric car for which the testing didn't have a massive conflict of interest. More affordably (for some models), even. Why take the risk?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
GM will add battery shell reinforcements for free:
http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/tech/entry/gm_to_voluntarily_repair_volts_to_prevent_post-crash_fires/
Table-ized A.I.
It's is a hybrid. But you can drive between 35 and 40 miles without gas AT FULL SPEED. I have a friend who has one and drives for weeks at at time with no gas. I was with him when he drove up a several mile long grade of about 3-4% at 80 miles an hour on electricity only as part of the 32.5 drive to his house.
I don't know where you get the idea of short distances at low speeds from, but you're wrong. Perhaps you're thinking of the Prius PHEV or something else?
So the statement 'doesn't rely on a big oil corporation to be useful' is accurate.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I've been doing some research. The Volt was only tested in -10 weather in Canada, not the -20C to -40C we get in Saskatchewan. As battery efficiency drops dramatically in the cold, I have my doubts about it's electric range capabilities here.
And once you switch over to gas power, the Volt gets atrocious mileage compared to many other similarly sized cars, including Ford's lineup. And the Ford I'm looking at sells for literally half the price of the Volt. $20,000 buys a HELL of a lot of gasoline.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"no real benefit other than being able to run for short distances at low speeds on the battery"
Low speeds, huh? I wish I'd known that when I was blasting down the highway earlier this evening in my Volt, purely electric. Top speed: 101 MPH*
Please mod parent down, just more of the usual misinformed opinio-crap. And if you have mod points, please look for other garbage posts like this and mod them down too. Wish I had some mod points today.
In the meantime, chew on this: http://wardsauto.com/commentary/why-innovation-dying-america
* I didn't go that fast, I stayed down at a safe speed. 101 MPH is the published top speed of the Volt, regardless of which mode it's in.
One simple rule for its versus it's
They didn't do it for safety reasons! And of course the technology of batteries has changed far more than the technology of combustion engines in that century.
"Top of the line in utility sports
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Canyonero!
In the article you quoted, they said they haven't even kept up with demand. So it sounds like they are selling cars as fast as they can build them.
GM’s North American President Mark Reuss said the automaker is still filling orders and may not know until around the second quarter.
“There’s no trend because we haven’t satisfied demand,” Reuss said to reporters. “I told everybody that we’d be looking at satisfying demand right around second quarter. We’re not there yet, so I don’t know.”
Of course, it remains to be seen how well demand holds up for the remainder of the year. If there is a spike in gas prices this summer as some have predicted, the Volt should do well.
No, it says they're not committed to a hard production number, nowhere close to cancellation.
There's plenty of things to be concerned about, but a company being flexible on production numbers isn't one of them.
In the end, the Volt turned out to be a lemon .... the battery charge does not deliver the promise (miserable) 30 miles per charge and the gas engine has an efficiency about as bad as a small SUV (~22 mpg). And for $40K that is a crappy deal. Maybe that is why GM just canceled the model.
When consumer reports tested the car, on their 150 mile trip of mixed city/highway driving they got 70mpg.
They said that the battery-only range varied from a low of 20 miles (with electric heater on) to up to 50 miles at moderate speeds with no climate control switched on. 25 miles of electric range would cover most of the typical American's commute (USA average is 29 miles per day)
Blah Blah, Republicans Bad, Volt Good...
It has to be the republicans trying to destroy it. It couldn't have anything to do with it being a lackluster vehicle with crappy specs not quite designed for the market it claims.
Protip: If I'm paying $40k for a car, I'm not in a position were "money savings on fuel" are an issue. I want to show off my environmentalism chops, and I can't do that with a jonny-come-lately Prius when full electrics like the Leaf are out.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Unlike you, I own a Volt, so, unlike you, I don't need to lie about the numbers.
It gets 25 (winter) to 46 (mild weather) miles per charge for me. When the battery runs low and the gas engine is powering the car, it delivers 38-40 MPG depending on speed. My lifetime economy (4.75 months, 4350 miles) is 255 MPG. I'd say that's pretty good, considering my Lexus was getting 19 MPG on the same commute.
Apparently you're also not smart enough to do the math, it turns out the Volt is cheaper than the average car.
$45.5k sticker (loaded)
$7.5k tax credit (complain about this and I'll complain about the child deductions I'm funding with my six figure income)
$11k gas savings (5 years, for me)
= $27k gas vehicle equivalent (the average new car sale price in the US is ~$29k )
If you're still not convinced the Volt is a good idea, I suggest you start reading this blog http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
My best ever all electric range is 51.3 miles. My worst ever is 33.5.
My engine does not turn on ever unless the temperature is below 25F or the battery is at the designed lower limit of state of charge.
The car handles and drives wonderfully. I have, in 13,500 miles, rotated the tires. I will have to change the oil in a couple years. My lifetime average mpg is 158 mpg. Because I changed to a time of use schedule I have a lower electric bill now than I did before buying the car.
Hippocrates says "There are two things, knowledge and opinion, one of which makes the possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant."
Most of the petrol station was destroyed. It was amazing to see so many people run so fast...
OK, so I know from you calling it "petrol" that this wasn't the US, but...they don't have required fire suppression systems in your country?
Here in the US, every gas station has to have an automatic fire suppression system. When they let go, it's very, very impressive...
Please help metamoderate.
because battery technology hasn't changed at all in the last 100 years. Not at all!
I take you use a horse pulled cart still? After all the very they were clearly superiour to the first automobiles, and since apparently technology never changes in your universe...
It doesn't come on to go up steep hills at more than 40mph. You have badly misread this text.
The car slows down if you climb a steep grade at more than 40mph if the electric battery is low. Because of this they have a special "mountain mode" where the battery is not allowed to get that low. It reduces the range of the car by about 1/3rd and that's on top of the fact that you get reduced range climbing hills like any other car.
The gas engine will not come on PERIOD unless the battery runs out or if the temperature gets so very low that the electric car heater is so inefficient that there's little point to driving on battery. This happens at some temp below 10F.
The only time this text mentions the engine coming on and assisting at any speed is when in charge sustaining mode. Charge sustaining mode is the "regular" hybrid mode when the battery is depleted and all the motion is coming from the gas. In this mode it acts like a non-plugin hybrid, all the propulsion comes directly or indirectly from gas.
The initial mode you operate in after a charge up is charge depleting mode. In this mode the gas engine doesn't come on except at very low temperatures as I mentioned above.
I think the source of your confusion may be that the initial reviews indicated the gas engine connects directly to the drivetrain (through the ring gear) to drive the car at highway speeds. But this only happens when the gas engine is already on (the car is already in charge depleting mode). Before this info came out, GM had said (for a while) that the gas engine only ever drove a generator that generated electricity to run the electric motors to drive the wheels. But this turns out not to be efficient (as Toyota also knows, later Priuses get better mpg because they do this more often), so GM made it possible for the gas engine to drive the drivetrain directly. A lot of people got angry about this, mostly for no reason, although GM saying it would work one way and then working another I guess is at least worth mentioning.
But I emphasize again, this only happens in charge sustaining mode, which is the mode the car is in after the battery has been depleted (after the initial 37 miles or so). In charge depleting mode you can press the pedal as hard as you want and the engine never comes on. It'll hit its speed limiter of 85 but the gas engine won't come on. This is what makes the Volt a ER-EV (extended range EV) and not just a regular PHEV. This is unlike any other PHEV out there except for the Fisker Karma.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Steel plates are great at preventing electrical shorts.
There is no way you can discharge deeply enough to eliminate the risk of fire. You can only minimize it. The risk of fire is from the chemicals, and they are still dangerous and flammable even when discharged.
Lions (as used in the Volt) are not destroyed if they are discharged completely. It's not good for them, it reduces their lifespan. But doing it once (or a few times) won't end their lives noticeably prematurely.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I don't see all the running costs there, only fueling.
and 27k car will get you in mustang/taurus territory, going for a similar compact car will net you a 17k focus sedan that will run around your volt and will use 28k fuel just before getting to the price of a volt, and after that there is still more before breaking even
please, do the math, but right. the volta is priced like a bmw and kitted like a fiat. compare appropriately.
GM plays fast and loose with their numbers. They had set a goal of 10,000 vehicles sold in 2011, and when they fell short (selling only 7,600) they changed the claim to 10,000 produced rather than sold. They have been building more Volts than they are selling since last August or so and they have already been reducing production. Chances are, if your local dealer sells Volts, he's got one or two sitting on the lot waiting for a buyer. Sending a car to a dealer's lot counts as a sale, even if that car never ends up in someone's driveway.
The Volt as a vehicle is not that bad - a bit pricey for what you get but that's the early adopter premium you see with anything else. GM's marketing and PR departments have handled things so poorly it's impressive they sold as many as they did. They are completely unable to be honest about what the vehicle is and what it's capable of.
Basically what I'm saying is GM's executive branch is a bunch of compulsive liars, and I wouldn't be completely shocked if they are deliberately fumbling the Volt so they can drop the technology in a slightly less inflammatory way than they dropped the EV1. I remain cautiously optimistic that isn't the case, though.
Even if it isn't a concerted effort, their heart clearly isn't behind it.
=Smidge=
Did they really say "[they] know of no fires in real-world crashes" and then explain how they happened in the same paragraph?
Tis I: Me.
I don't think 27k is going to get you Mustang/Taurus with Navigation, sat radio, backup camera, leather seats, and remote control smart phone app. Comparing it to a Focus is ridiculous. I traded in a Lexus for a Volt. The other brands I was shopping were Jaguar and Audi. Comparing it to a BMW is no stretch. The drivetrain is smoother and quieter than a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Having 273 ft-lbs of torque available at 0 RPM is entertaining too. For some reason a Volt must pay justify itself immediately on economic terms. Why doesn't a Porsche 911 get reduced to a calculation?
The electricity to run it is very cheap for me, I get a special rate at night, $0.055/KWh. So a completely dead battery takes $0.70 to charge (~12.5KWh). The Volt is adding roughly 300 KWh/month to my bill, but before I bought it I eliminated wasted around my house (computers running all day, switched to LED lights) to the tune of 400-500 KWh/month. So I'm driving around on electricity that I was wasting a year ago. And for those who think the power needs are going to collapse the grid, please remember that it takes around 8 KWh of electricity to create/deliver a gallon of gas. So I eliminated 16 KWh/day (2 gallons of gas in my old car) and replaced it with ~13 KWh in battery charging
$0.70/per day ($0.055/KWh) I reduced my bill by 400-500KWh/month by eliminating waste, and the Volt adds about 300KWh/month, so even with the Volt my bill is lower. Don't forget it takes 8 KWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gas, my grid usage is still less.
Seems it's cool to hate just about everything on slashdot, so to solve the image problem of the Volt among slashdot geeks they should just tell them that the navigation system runs Linux. Then it would be the greatest product ever created, and would "crush all those closed cars" that "you do not own!"
I had to re-read that bit about adding 12,000 volts to steel plates a couple of times before it made sense (still working on my first pot of coffee of the day).
But it made me realize that Chevie has picked a poor name for their electric car. We are doomed to see electrifying headlines about damage when a bus gets hit by 12 volts, etc.
Stupid stupid name.
Will
Wow, that is the most asinine statement I've seen in a while.
Yeah, they're deliberately fucking up on a car that they spent few billion on to get out to market in near record time. It's not like they had the perfect opportunity to drop it when they were, I don't know, going though bankruptcy (like they did with the diesel engine for light duty trucks).
The Volt is a halo car like the Corvette. The car itself is the marketing. Its job is to get people into showrooms so the sales force can sell costumers another Chevy product.
"Wow, Volt is nifty little car. I think the only time I'd have to use gas is when we visit the cabin."
"Even then it will deliver mileage in the high 30's"
"Wow, but forty large is steep."
"Well for about eighteen five you can get into a Cruise Eco, that'll deliver 40 plus on the highway."
"Oh, so its a hybrid?"
"Nope, they just tweaked the regular Cruise for maximum mileage."
"I see, so it doesn't have A/C or air bags. It's a stripper."
"Nope, its got the same amenities as every other Cruise, its actually nicely equipped. If you have time for a test drive I'll show you."
"Sure, why not."
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
If my comment was the most asinine, then yours is a contender for most ignorant.
For starters, your little story about a bait-and-switch also makes no sense - why not sell the Volt at $40K instead of a Cruze Eco for $17K? Usually dealers try to get you to spend more, not less.
The effective MPG of the Volt is highly variable, since you do get ~35 miles of all-electric driving assuming you've charged up when you got the chance. If your trip is under ~35 miles, then you will use zero gas* (See disclaimer below). The same ~35 miles driven in a Cruze Eco would have used just under a gallon.
From here you can do the math: For a trip of length X, how much gas will I use in a Volt and how much will I use in a Cruze Eco? Well, both the Cruze Eco and the Volt have the same 37MPG highway rating from the EPA. So guess what? The Volt will always use less gasoline than a Cruze Eco for any length trip.
But if you compare a Volt to, say, a Toyota Prius, then the Prius uses less fuel for trips over 153 miles. (at 48MPG EPA rating)
That said, it's not nearly as common for people to drive 100+ miles in a single trip as it is for people to drive under 35 miles. This is why GM picked that as a sort of magic number as a balance cost and electric range. As a machine, and as a plug-in hybrid, the Volt is pretty nice.
Marketing-wise, however, GM has completely fumbled. Their press releases and public comments are contradictory and opaque. The advertisements fail to touch upon any reason for actually buying the vehicle, and instead focus on people's confusion about how it uses both gasoline and electricity: "I thought this was an electric car why does it have a gas tank?" and nothing about the car itself. I think I've seen ONE ad that actually mentions things like top speed, excellent off-the-line torque and cheap operating costs, and they pulled it from circulation. That was also the only commercial you actually saw the car in motion, now that I think about it...
=Smidge=
* "Zero gas" will be used not counting fuel burned in engine maintenance, fuel maintenance, and battery heating modes. The Volt will never not use gasoline - unless the tank is empty, not sure what'll happen then.
The hydrocarbons required to produce an electric car are arguably less than what is required to produce a gasoline powered car. At the absolute worst case, they are approximately equal, but I'd argue it's less. Just comparing the energy investment of an engine + transmission with an electric motor + lithium battery - all else being equal - an EV wins out.
And before anyone starts: No, you can't bring up the environmental impact of nickel mining and refining. Today's EVs don't use nickel based batteries.
=Smidge=
The part of your post I thought was asinine was the statement about GM management deliberately sabotaging the car. Yes, the marketing has been off the mark, but its a fundamentally new product to the modern automotive marketplace so there's a learning curve to the marketing. I also doubt they're going to sink massive marketing money into a car they know has limited market appeal.
Yes, the math is variable with the Volt & Pruis. The sad fact is people don't buy those cars because of logic or math, they buy them because they fill an emotional need.
It's not bait and switch, it's a loss leader. GM doesn't make any profit on the Volt (or the Corvette for that matter), GM has said they don't expect the Volt to be profitable until generation 2 or 3. The Cruise on the other hand makes a profit for every unit sold.
The point of a halo car is to drive brand awareness and dealer foot traffic. The Volt (like the Prius) is not going to be a major player in Chevy's sales figures, 1-2% tops. The Cruise will likely out sell the Volt 5 to 1.
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
Yeah, they're deliberately fucking up on a car that they spent few billion on to get out to market in near record time.
You haven't seen much corporate stupidity from on-high if you think they wouldn't be capable of doing precisely that. I'm not saying they are doing it at all, just that no one should be putting it besides them.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Why should anyone buy a new car, ever?
We should just drive old cars. They're demonstrably cheaper.
Just have a look at Cuba's aging fleet and you'll see that regular people just don't ever need new cars.
Kid-proof tablet..
Hmm... Of course there really can't be real-world crashes as there are very small number of vehicles in real-world use. Yet. However, good thing is that they reacted quickly to the problems and as some have already pointed out, the Volt's design with batteries is in many ways safer than that of the traditional gasoline powered cars. Chevrolet Volt / Opel Ampera is any case an iteresting design and surprisingly brave move from GM.