Shocking revelation on Chevy Volt fires
There are a lot of critics of hybrid and electric cars and one of the complaints is the giant high-powered batteries that are part of these vehicles. In recent testing by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) that fear made itself into a reality when a 2011 Chevrolet Volt caught fire after a crash test, opening an investigation.
Essentially what happened is the car was subjected to the usual battery of crashes (darned right the pun was intended) that the NHTSA does on a car to determine crashworthiness and the star ratings all cars are given in specific types of crashes. After the test, the mangled Volt was put out into the parking lot awaiting its trip to the scrap yard when, three weeks after the test, it caught fire and burned itself up along with several nearby vehicles.
Ooops.
This prompted the NHTSA to start an investigation into the car’s battery systems, simulating an accident and a rollover. One of the tested battery systems did record a heat spike the day after the simulated accident. It was then rotated 180 degrees simulating a rollover and, within hours, sparks and smoke were seen emitting from the pack.
Another pack, undergoing a similar accident and rollover test, caught fire a week after the initial test. These two incidents are what have prompted the NHTSA to further investigate not just the Chevy Volt, but all electric vehicles with lithium-ion battery packs.
It’s too early to tell what, if any, impact this will have on electric vehicle sales and, and the attitude of people towards them.
It is also important to note that the NHTSA did not follow GM’s procedures for discharging a battery that has been damaged (because GM didn’t bother to tell the NHTSA). But as electric vehicles become more prevalent, these are the kinds of issues that will keep cropping up, and who knows how informed any first responders will be when dealing with an accident involving such a limited-production vehicle.
General Motors Responds
With the threat of a potential backlash against cars like the Volt, General Motors has taken one preemptive strike by offering free loaners of any GM vehicle to owners of the Volt while they figure this mess out.
Yes, any GM vehicle.
“GM and Chevrolet believe in the safety of the Volt,” Mark Reuss, president of the automaker’s North American operations, said on a conference call with reporters. “We will take every precaution to ensure the driving public of the safety of the Volt.”
The Volt is one of GM’s most-promoted models in the U.S. and one key to its push to meet tightening U.S. fuel-efficiency standards. The Volt has been on the market for a year and went on sale in all 50 states last month. In January, the world’s largest automaker plans to boost production to 60,000 a year from a rate of 10,000 annually.
GM is sending out a letter to all Volt owners and dealers. If any owners have concerns, GM will give them another car as a loaner to drive until the matter has been resolved, Reuss said.
To my mind, this means that you could walk into a Chevy dealer with your set of Volt keys (I wonder if they look like a nine-volt battery? Wouldn’t that be cool?) and tell them that the only thing you’ll drive is a Corvette ZR1. Or maybe a big-as-a-bus Chevrolet Suburban is on your list just to kill off any environmental good you’ve done with the Volt. A new Camaro Convertible might also fill the bill. Heaven forbid you step down into something like the Chevy Spark. No way. I wonder if the Spark’s key is a wind-up key?
What burns GM up
The Detroit-based automaker has engineers working with NHTSA to establish the cause of the fires and no conclusions have been reached, Mary Barra, senior vice president of global product development, said on the call.
The company is also developing a procedure for drawing down the power in the battery after an accident so that fires will not occur in the days after a collision, Barra said. (Can’t you just touch your tongue to the poles like on a nine-volt battery? Maybe a huge tongue could be provided to all Volt owners that would extend after a crash, like the tongue that won Lightning McQueen his chance at the Piston Cup).
“We developed a process to depower the battery after a crash,” Barra said. “The battery assemblies were not depowered. We believe that if they were depowered the fire would not have occurred.”
So far the company has sold about 5,000 Volts in North America. With that many Volts already on the roads and with the incredible stupidity of the American driver, there have already been a few crashes with the cars and none of the real world Volts have caught fire. It’s also important to note that none of the Volts tested that did catch fire did so immediately after the crash, the incidents occurred from several days to several weeks after the collision.
“We don’t think there’s an immediate fire risk,” said GM North American President Mark Reuss, who addressed the media in a conference call along with Barra. “This is a post-crash activity.”
The company has not announced any time limit that the Volt’s owners may keep their loaners.
In the Volt’s system, Lithium-ion battery cells, which essentially are a single battery, are assembled into a pack of cells, and coolant is pumped between the cells to keep them from overheating. In the June fire at a test facility in Burlington, Wis., coolant leaked from the battery and crystallized, and that could have been a factor in the fire, GM has said. The fire came three weeks after a side-impact crash test and was severe enough to cause several other vehicles parked nearby to catch fire as well.
Barra said that in all the Volt incidents, the battery cells were not involved in the fires, only the electronics within the battery pack. But she would not be more specific until NHTSA’s investigation is over.
Responding to a question about whether GM should have caught the problem in its own testing, Barra said the battery pack was tested extensively following all known procedures before the car went on sale. It also won top safety ratings in testing by NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, she said
The safety testing hasn’t raised concerns about electric vehicles other than the Volt, but NHTSA is asking manufacturers who have electric cars on the market, or who plan to introduce them, for more detailed information on battery testing. The agency also is asking for the companies’ procedures for discharging and handling batteries, including recommendations for reducing fire risks.
Lithium-ion batteries, which are rechargeable, have been the subject of several recalls of consumer electronics. Millions of laptop batteries made by Sony Corp. for Apple Inc., Dell Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd. and other PC makers were recalled in 2006 and 2007 after it was discovered that they could overheat and ignite.
Battery concerns taking flight
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning to airlines about the potential for fires in cargo containing lithium-ion and non-rechargeable lithium metal batteries after a United Parcel Service plane crashed near Dubai last year, killing both pilots. The plane, which was on fire, was carrying thousands of lithium batteries.
The Volt is good, m’kay?
Personally I think that the Volt is the first electric car that makes sense to a lot of people. I recently drove one at the LA Auto Show and really liked the car. It’s silky ride, strong acceleration and whiz-bang interior were all a big plus.
The Volt is unique in that it really is an electric car but features a gasoline engine on board that can recharge the batteries should the owner drive the vehicle beyond the promised 35 mile range. This unique capability makes the Volt really appealing to a wide variety of people. You can drive it like an electric car but then not worry if you suddenly have to change your plans and go beyond the range of the batteries.
Recently Jay Leno has been featured in several media events. The auto-loving host of the Tonight Show owns a Volt and has mentioned that he has yet to put any gasoline in the vehicle - all 10,000 miles of driving have been done purely on electric power.
Our government has been working hard to mandate a greater percentage of electric vehicles in the production mix for car companies as a solution to dependence on the finite oil resource. While diesels and other options make a lot of sense to me, the government wants there to be more and more electric cars.
Remember, this is the same government that couldn’t keep the Mustang Ranch going and how can you go out of business selling hookers and whiskey?
Unfortunately this mandate doesn’t address the fact that this country cannot produce enough electric power to adequately motivate a lot of its citizens and nobody wants an electric generating plant in their neck of the woods.
While nuclear power was becoming more palatable to an American public who had begun to forget about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the earthquake in Japan reminded them of what a sticky predicament a nuke power plant in the neighborhood can be.
Curbside Publisher
This news was posted today on Automotive News (the magazine, not the section on this website):
General Motors Co. may redesign the battery for its Chevrolet Volt to address issues raised after federal officials opened a safety probe into the plug-in electric car, CEO Dan Akerson said today.
“We want to assure the safety of our customers, of our buyers, and so we’re just going to take a time out, if you will, in terms of redesigning the battery possibly,” Akerson told Reuters in an interview.
A GM spokesperson said no immediate changes are planned to the battery pack, and reiterated that the automaker believes the car is safe.
It’s not clear whether GM is studying engineering changes to the battery that would come later in the current product cycle or next product cycle.
GM will buy back Volts from any owner worried that the car is a fire risk amid a U.S. safety investigation of its lithium-ion battery, the automaker said Wednesday.
The offer — first reported by The Wall Street Journal — comes in addition to GM’s move this week to provide loaners to 6,000 U.S. Volt owners.
The automaker wants to reassure customers after three crash tests resulted in fires or sparks from the Volt’s battery pack days, and in some cases, weeks, after they sustained damage.
Some customers have asked if the company planned to buy back the cars, but no one has requested to turn theirs in, GM spokesman Selim Bingol said.
“If someone asks, we’ll snap it up in a second,” Bingol told the Journal.
GM is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on ways to reduce the risk of battery fires breaking out days after crashes involving the car.
(For the full interview with Akerson, see http://link.reuters.com/fyw35s).
The company also said it would not deliver the Opel-branded version of the Volt in Europe until its engineers and safety regulators had worked out how to deal with the 400-pound battery pack after any accidents.
The steps came in response to a decision last week by NHTSA to open an investigation into the safety of the Volt’s battery pack. A lithium-ion battery pack in a Volt that had been through a crash test in May caught fire three weeks later at a test facility in Wisconsin, according to NHTSA.
In lab tests completed last week by U.S. safety regulators, a second Volt pack began to smoke and throw off sparks while a third battery pack caught fire a week after a simulated crash.
‘It is a safe car’
The probe has threatened the reputation of a vehicle that has been featured prominently in GM advertising as a symbol of the U.S. automaker’s drive toward improved fuel economy.
“It is a safe car,” Akerson said. “We just want make sure that there are protocols post-crash.
“We want to make sure all the Ts are crossed, the Is are dotted, and no one has any question about the car long-term.”
He cited the Volt’s top crash-test ratings as well as Thursday’s announcement by Consumer Reports that the Volt ranked the highest among all models in customer satisfaction.
Consumer Reports said 93 percent of respondents who own the Volt would definitely buy it again, making it the highest-rated car in the nationally representative survey.
However, Consumer Reports pointed out that the Volt, which sells for about $40,000, has not been in dealer showrooms long and the survey was conducted before NHTSA announced its probe.
GM executives have said that the Volt’s battery pack would be safe during and immediately after any crash and that problems were not linked to any flaw in battery cells supplied by South Korea’s LG Chem Ltd.
‘Storm clouds’ in Europe
Akerson also said GM is looking at more moves to fix its struggling Opel unit in Europe. While declining to go into details, he said the focus would be on boosting sales and cutting costs and could include shifting more production into Europe, possibly from Asia.
GM executives have said all options are on the table for money-losing Opel, suggesting to analysts that job cuts or plant closures could be options.
In addition, the European economy remains shaky.
“We see serious storm clouds, if you will, on the horizon in Europe; a lot of consumer confidence has been eroding,” Akerson said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in Europe about the economy and whether it’s going to go into recession.”
He called Wednesday’s announcement of steps taken by top central banks around the world to prevent a credit crunch among European banks “a step in a journey that needs to be completed.”
GM said today its U.S. auto sales in November rose 7 percent, short of what some analysts had expected. Retail sales rose 15 percent, while sales to fleet, or corporate, customers, fell 14 percent to a level where Akerson wants GM to remain.
Akerson said he hopes to end 2011 with the Chevy Cruze small car taking the title.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 6:22PM | Email Article
Reader Comments (1)
I think not everyone is ready with electric cars, and that the 2011 Chevy incident is most likely an isolated case. Well, this whole new concept of electric cars should be developed further, as it has a lot of pros to offer to potential users.
-Tyra Shortino