GM Fixes the Volt | Green Energy News

January 6, 2012 – Vol.16 No.42

GM FIXES THE VOLT.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News.

To be more accurate than this story title, GM has announced “enhancements to the vehicle structure and battery coolant system in the Chevrolet Volt that would further protect the battery from the possibility of an electrical fire occurring days or weeks after a severe crash.”

For GM to use the word “fix” would be to imply that the Volt was defective, which the company never said it was. But in the public’s eye the “enhancements” will be seen as a “fix.”

These enhancements GM says, “come in response to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Preliminary Evaluation to examine post-severe crash battery performance."

“NHTSA opened its Preliminary Evaluation on Nov. 25 following a severe-impact lab test on a battery pack that resulted in an electrical fire six days later. The test was conducted to reproduce a coolant leak that occurred in a full-scale vehicle crash test last May that resulted in an electrical fire three weeks later.”

GM will conduct a Customer Satisfaction Program to further protect the Volt battery from the possibility of an electrical fire occurring days or weeks after a severe side crash. The Program will include modifying Volts already on the road or in dealership hands, as well as those on the assembly line. The Modifications will:

--- Strengthen an existing portion of the Volt’s vehicle safety structure to further protect the battery pack in a severe side collision.

--- Add a sensor in the reservoir of the battery coolant system to monitor coolant levels.

--- Add a tamper-resistant bracket to the top of the battery coolant reservoir to help prevent potential coolant overfill.

“The Volt has always been safe to drive. Now, we will go the extra mile to ensure our customers’ peace of mind in the days and weeks following a severe crash,” said Mary Barra, GM senior vice president of Global Product Development.

“These enhancements and modifications will address the concerns raised by the severe crash tests,” Barra continued. “There are no changes to the Volt battery pack or cell chemistry as a result of these actions. We have tested the Volt’s battery system for more than 285,000 hours, or 25 years, of operation. We’re as confident as ever that the cell design is among the safest on the market.”

GM crash tested four perfectly good Volts to test the enhancements.

To me, GM took too much flak in the press for something that could have been avoided. The press should have questioned NHTSA handling of the Volts after the crash tests more than concerns about the cars’ safety and GM’s engineering.

Generally speaking, I have no doubt that if a crashed hulk of ANY conventional car was leaking gasoline or even coolant or oil, technicians at the NHTSA storage facility would have plugged the leak or drained the hazardous liquid. Even if crashed vehicles aren’t leaking, don’t they empty the fuel tanks, oil sumps and coolant reservoirs as a precautionary safety measure? I believe commercial salvage yards and recyclers do this with wrecks they bring in. They don’t let cars leak all over the place.

True, we don’t know the full story of the events that led to the fires, but it seems as though the Volts were crashed and left fully energized, with a tank full of electricity if you will. If this is the case the problem may never have been with the Volt, but with NHTSA’s handling of this new technology. Perhaps the agency doesn’t know how to de-energize a Volt’s battery pack, or any electric vehicle battery pack for that matter. But, perhaps there just isn’t any easy way to do it.

If this is true it’s time for an invention. Call it a Battery Decharger to be used by anyone including emergency personnel at accident scene or auto repair shops or recycling yards to drain an electric or hybrid vehicle battery pack quickly, in perhaps 30 minutes. ( I don’t know how this would work. A big resistor, perhaps, that turned electricity into heat that was blown away by a fan?) A dead battery would be a safer battery, particularly the very powerful batteries used in electrically-driven vehicles.

Electric drive for the masses is still new. Volt technology is new. There’s much to learn. The fires were part of the learning process. And no one was hurt.

I wanted to own (or lease) a Volt prior to the much publicized fires. I wanted to own one despite the fires. And I still would like to own one. (But I can’t. My income level won’t qualify me for financing unless I put a heck of lot of money down.)

For people like me who want plug-in-to-recharge electric drive, but only want one vehicle, the Volt is the best choice. Most of my daily driving could be done on battery-only power, but the gas engine would let me take longer trips. (Toyota’s upcoming Plug-in Prius, with only 15 miles battery-only range, wouldn’t even let me run local errands on electric drive alone.) From my new address in a big state, Florida, destinations can be far apart, too far for any pure electric vehicle currently on the market. I don’t want a second, conventional, car for long trips. I need an extended range electric vehicle. I’ll just dream, for now, until I can afford it or the price drops.

I’m not alone. Others certainly want clean, plug-in electric drive, only want one car, and occasionally take long trips. GM understands this and is sticking with the Volt platform.

Links:

Chevy Volt
http://www.chevrolet.com/Volt