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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.'"
yeah the volt's batteries aren't safe like a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass.
Learn to read: "'The agency and General Motors Co. know of no fires in real-world crashes"
The fires happened to crash-tested vehicles only
Except for the reported fires????
Thankyou, I know, your're from the government and you're here to help.
Did you miss the part where it says "no fires in real-world crashes"?
How about the part where it says the fires occured "seven days to three weeks after the crashes"?
Contrast that to the very real danger of fire in gasoline powered car. Explain how this is worse, and part of some gubmint conspiracy.
Well to be honest, I don't think you will see too many crash wreckages sitting on the side of the road for weeks at a time under real world crashes.
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..
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
yeah the volt's batteries aren't safe like a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass.
I'm not aware of any car that puts a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass, though my old car did put one behind the passenger seat.
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
Yes, the battery must be drained after an accident. But this isn't much different than a gas car which requires the gas tank be drained after an accident. NHTSA in fact drains the gas tanks on gas cars (including the Volt!) BEFORE they wreck them because of the danger of the gasoline.
The draining of the battery is no big deal. It won't toast the battery. In this kind of wreck the battery has sustained damage that means it must be inspected and rebuilt whether it is drained or not. Also, the car is totaled after a wreck of this magnitude anyway, so the additional expense of draining the battery isn't a big deal.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
yeah the volt's batteries aren't safe like a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass.
I'm not aware of any car that puts a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass, though my old car did put one behind the passenger seat.
The Honda Fit does. The Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 from 1972-1979 did as well.
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
Several years ago I ran out of petrol going down a hill. I was able to coast into the petrol station further down the hill and put a load more petrol into my car. When I tried to start the car it would not start. I thought that it needed to pump the petrol from the tank to the engine and kept trying. What I did not know was that I had not run out of petrol, the petrol pipe had broken and the petrol was not getting to the carburetor, it was getting sprayed all over the engine and the floor. By the time the puddle of petrol finally managed to catch a spark from the starter motor the puddle had already spread under the car at the next pump. Most of the petrol station was destroyed. It was amazing to see so many people run so fast...
I do not accept that this theoretical risk of fire comes close to the real risk of fire in a normal engine...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I have a Honda Fit. The gas tank is under the front seat. Quite nice actually because the rear floor is completely flat and you can raise the rear seats and get a large and square storage area.
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.
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)
As the driver sitting on top of that puddle, and presumably still in close proximity to the pump which would make a nice obstacle to quick escape ... you should be fucking dead my friend.
Yes, the battery must be drained after an accident.
The draining of the battery is no big deal. It won't toast the battery.
Are you sure about that? No current battery technology suitable for use in an electric vehicle can withstand complete discharge without ruining the battery. Discharging deeply enough to eliminate the risk of fire would also destroy the battery, I would think. Is there a reliable source that says otherwise?
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
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."
The Volt is by far the best car that came out of America in recent times. They all know Chevrolet scored some seriously good car here and lots of people are driven mad about it. There is handful of competition and pressure from non-GM dealerships like Toyotas, Nissans etc. The car battery "catches fire" is just another bash line of theirs. The main point here is that the car needs no gasoline at all for trips up to 40 miles and the Voltec EV powertrain is just so sweet, it has torque like a sports car, all electric and whisper quiet. So it is not a hybrid, but full EV with assisted gasoline generator when the battery runs out. This is in my book the best solution to the EV range anxiety problem and lots of other EV related issues, avoidable gasoline engine, but gasoline range when needed -- the best of both worlds.
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.
To put it in perspective, a Volt battery has roughly 16 KWh of energy stored. An gas tank on an equivalent sized car is roughly 10 gallons. At 36.6 KWh/gal, that's 360 Kwh of energy, or more than 22X the energy of the battery. Now, assuming that all goes up at once, which one do you want to be near? Couple that with the fact you can't easily set off a lithium battery fire with an open flame or a spark, and I know which odds I'll be taking.
Of course the Volt has both energy sources. But, the point is that a battery pack--coupled with modern cooling controls, safety interlocks and fusing--is safer than a tank of gasoline in a multitude of crash scenarios. Yes, you have to be concerned about high voltage exposure, but all modern packs have disconnect relays that are wired to a crash sensor (ala airbags or the fuel pump cutoff switch).
The reality is this whole thing was a witch hunt likely egged on by Volt competitors.
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
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.
On average, there is another car fire in the United States every 109 seconds. (PDF warning)
Not all of them are the result of accidents. Food for thought.
=Smidge=
Pretty much all alternate fuel platforms are too much compared to an old used Civic, SL, etc, and even some new cars. Prius, Civic NGV, etc are $10k a compact car with great mileage, and the gas savings on those are not going to break even over the 2-5 years people keep their cars
Woah... so you did not get overwhelmed by the smell? This happened to me once, the fuel line blew (at a connection) & I knew what it was a moment later because the fuel vapor hit me like a wall.
Another moment later the engine quit. This was on I94 in the middle of Detroit at 2:30AM, no cell phone in those days... =D
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
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=
Is that what you think?
There's "electrical parts" all over a modern car, including around and even inside of the fuel tank.
And any gasoline leaking from a fuel tank tends to flow in a very specific direction, which might introduce it to other possible ignition sources. (I think the direction is called "downhill," and the means of propulsion is called "gravity." Please feel free to correct me if I've got these terms wrong.)
Kid-proof tablet..
1955 Jeep CJ5 had the gas tank under the driver's seat, so there is prior art.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Even more of something to read: Fires happened days and weeks after cars were crashed. Cause of the fire was determined to be that workers did not discharge the battery after crash.
For the record: it's currently a normal procedure to empty the fuel tank in cars after accidents (and testing). One of the important roles of these tests is to explore the emergency procedures with crashes of the new vehicle type. After the fire, there was a new recommendation to drain the battery in addition to draining the fuel tank for electric vehicles with batteries.
I don't think there was any concern of a battery fire like one happened in the tested vehicles happening during an accident. Weeks after the accident in a storage, on the other hand is a far more likely scenario.
>To put it in perspective, a Volt battery has roughly 16 KWh of energy stored.
THE FLAMMABILITY OF BATTERIES HAS FUCK ALL TO DO WITH THEIR CAPACITY!
Yes, I use caps, but this irks me so much. When a battery burns the energy doesn't come from the energy stored when charging it. It comes from reactions between the air's oxygen and the electrolyte ( and / or the electrode materials ). There is no direct correlation between the two. The reason people make the flawed assumption is most likely that Li-ion batteries is presently the most energy dense batteries there are, and it so happens that the cobalt based electrode in them is somewhat unstable. This instability is not directly related to the battery energy density. It just happens by coincidence that this material is both good at letting lithium ions diffuse through it, while it also burns quite well. It is perfectly possible that some alternative extremely stable material will be found with even better properties, producing a battery that is both more stable and more energy dense.
Another way to see it is that activation energy ( how easily something catches fire ) is not related to how much energy will be produced when it burns. That cast-iron frying pan in your cupboard would release VAST quantities of energy if you could react all the iron with the oxygen in the air, but it takes quite high temperatures to get such a reaction going. Hydrogen is very flammable, but it has a lower energy density than gasoline, even when liquid.
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.
To put it in perspective, a Volt battery has roughly 16 KWh of energy stored. An gas tank on an equivalent sized car is roughly 10 gallons. At 36.6 KWh/gal, that's 360 Kwh of energy, or more than 22X the energy of the battery. Now, assuming that all goes up at once, which one do you want to be near? Couple that with the fact you can't easily set off a lithium battery fire with an open flame or a spark, and I know which odds I'll be taking.
Your logic is flawed!
Gasoline would need to be premixed with enough oxygen to "go up all at once." In a real world situation, this is not possible. The oxygen deficiency would severely limit the magnitude of any explosion (sorry Hollywood). The combustion could burn someone trapped in the car to death, however.
An impacted lithium-ion battery, on the other hand, could actually dump most of it's energy at once through a series of shorts. This could electrocute people and then cause an explosion (discharge-driven blast wave). Then the lithium could react with atmospheric oxygen (again oxygen-deficiency could be a rate limiting step) to burn. Lithium fires burn hot, are very difficult to extinguish, and could ignite any gasoline nearby.
Personally, I would buy a hybrid to save money on gas. But I would rather be sitting in a gasoline-only car during a severe accident!