I haven’t commented about Volts and fires because I appreciate the value of the project. The engineering and technology impress me. I’m referring to the car’s ability to extend range by charging its battery on the fly with the help of an internal combustion engine.
Overcoming the hurdles that came along with this approach in an effort to diminish the range anxiety of drivers seems to me to be an accurate reading of the current state of both the market as well as the infrastructure needed to support all-electric vehicles. In short, I believe that GM is well served by appealing to consumers who identify with the need to reduce the dependence on gasoline and at the same time wishing to be free of the stress of where to find their next charge.
The backstory
If you are a casual observer of the alternate fuel landscape or your interest in automotive technology lies elsewhere, here are a few facts to bring you up to speed. On November 11th of last year NHTSA issued a warning about the possibility of fires developing in crash damaged Chevy Volts whose lithium-ion battery had been compromised. NHTSA had conducted a test on May 12 in which this type of damage occurred and the stored vehicle caught fire several weeks later.
In the advisory, the safety administration instructed owners (regardless of EV make),as well as, first responders, storage facility owners and tow truck operators to contact the vehicle manufacturers for the purpose of depowering the batteries when this type of damage was incurred. This would eliminate the lithium-ion battery as a possible ignition source for a fire.
Contentious hearing
Now fast forward to last Wednesday when GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson and NHTSA head Dan Strickland appeared before a congressional committee to respectively defend the Volt’s reputation and NHTSA’s actions.
Akerson was concerned about the market viability of the Volt in the aftermath of the NHTSA advisory while the purpose of Strickland’s appearance before the Oversight Committee was to answer questions about the timing and political implications of the safety administration’s notice. You might remember video clips of President Obama test driving the Volt leading up to the call to put one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
At this point it might be interesting to note that the Nissan Leaf EV has a battery that is air cooled as opposed to the Volt’s battery which is liquid cooled. The company’s Senior Manager of Corporate Communications told Translogic at Aol Autos that when the air bags deploy the system shuts down the modules going to the battery which eliminates the need to depower.
Unintended consequences
This brings us to the point at hand which I do not think includes whether NHTSA mishandled or soft pedaled the public notification of the crash test findings. I think that the real point is GM’s handling of the entire depower issue. The current procedure is for GM to send a team out to depower the battery. There is something about this that doesn’t pass the sniff test. When is the last time you have purchased a consumer product that had as an inherent safety feature its ability to provide a 24/7 worldwide house-call service?
The car company depends on an alert from its OnStar system which is included free of charge with the Volt for the first three years. Could it be that this 36 month window afforded GM enough time to launch the Volt while engineering a better solution to what they considered the remote possibility of the need to depower the lithium-ion battery? In the congressional hearing GM’s CEO stated that the only fires related to the Volt had been under test conditions, which is a set of circumstances they may not have foreseen.
Joshua Dowling, US congress grills the electric car, smh.drive.com.au
NHTSA 11-11-2011 Release
Todd Spangler and Brent Snavely, GM defends Volt as Congress asks questions about battery fires, feep.com
Reilly Brennan, Chevy Volt Unplugged: When To Depower Your EV After a Crash, translogic.aolautos.com