The president of GM North America, Mark Reuss assures consumers “The Volt is a five-star safety car,” but there is still that small matter of the car’s lithium-ion battery pack which seems to be causing the vehicles to spontaneously burst into flames. It’s a matter of concern for some Volt owners.
MSNBC Bottom Line reports:
General Motors is offering a free GM vehicle loan to any Chevy Volt owner who is worried about the possibility of a battery fire, the company said in a statement Monday.
“Any Volt owner concerned about safety can contact his or her Volt adviser to arrange for a free GM vehicle loan until resolution of the issue,” GM said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday that it had begun an investigation to gauge the risk of fire in the electric vehicle in case of a crash. It began the investigation after a Volt battery pack that was being monitored after a government crash test caught fire Thursday. GM was notified of the investigation on Friday.
Some words of wisdom from Don Surber on the “electric Edsel” via Warner Todd Huston at Big Government:
Friend Don Surber has the idea of the Chevy Volt just right, though. Calling the model the “electric Edsel,” Surber notes that the car nobody wants is a bad idea all the way around.
The Volt seems to be a farce of the highest order, Surber notes.
- Even Thomas Edison couldn’t figure out how to make a useful electric car.
- The problem the Volt is aimed at “fixing” is problematic because global warming is a farce.
- Even if global warming did exist, this “fix” is bad because it uses electricity that is generated by fossil fuels anyway.
- Worse, it takes tax money from us all to give it to the rich in a $7,500 tax credit. Apparently Most buyers of the Volt make $175,000 a year.
Spot on points, for sure. I’ll add one more to the list. It turns out the Chevy Volt gets the same number of hours on a charge that an electric car created in 1896 used to get! Now THAT is progress.
See also:
Seton Motley has more on GM’s “5-star safety car”: Powering Inferno: Chevy Volt and GM Going Down In Flames – Literally:
There were in April two Volt charcoal briquets. GM said it wasn’t responsible. And Volt proponents argued that we should wait to hear from experts before jumping to conclusions.
Fair enough.
Ok – a third Volt just recently immolated. During the requested expert testing – while it was stored in a garage at a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) testing center.
And a fourth Volt just went up in flames in the garage of a Mooresville, North Carolina home. Which led the local power company to issue a warning:
Duke Energy officials want anyone who has a charging station to stop using it until they know the devices are safe.
Again, we don’t yet know for sure that the Volt charging stations are to blame. It may (also) be the batteries.
As GM themselves inadvertently indicated.
General Motors believes the (NHTSA) fire occurred because NHTSA did not drain the energy from the Volt’s battery following the (test) crash, which is a safety step the automaker recommends, GM spokesman Rob Peterson said.
So emergency personnel, arriving upon the scene of accidents involving a Volt, must add to their list of responsibilities – draining the stupid electric car batteries?
Yes.
The fire’s cause – the battery puncture — led to questions about whether other automakers require batteries to be discharged of their energy following major crashes, the NHTSA official said. In addition, regulators are exploring protocols for who would do that – firefighters who respond first, for instance – and how quickly should they do it.
So said crisis workforce may have to prioritize draining Volt batteries above other things – like saving victims’ lives.
Emergency personnel may have to save drivers and passengers from their car batteries – before they save them from their injuries.
If they are able to do so before the batteries burst into flames.
Fantastic.
Nice Deb 
I’m disgusted with Dems saying what a great success the buyout of GM was on Obama’s part and the Dems aren’t being challenged for it. I heard movie mogul Harvey Weinstein say it tonight on O’Reilly and Alan Colmes is saying it everywhere, just to name a couple of Dems. They keep saying GM repaid the money.
That’s nonsense, and the buyout/bailout isn’t a success to my thinking. Just ask the GM investors who lost everything, the non-union affiliate workers who lost all/part of their pensions so the unions didn’t have to concede anything, and taxpayers still on the hook as company co-owners. Besides, if we loaned them money, then gave them money, then they gave some of it back, how is that considered a payback?
LikeLike
It’s a time honored Dem strategy, though – repeat a lie long enough, and people will eventually believe it. It’s actually worked pretty well for them over the years. That bogus narrative (the Gov Motors success story) needs to be pushed back aggressively every time it’s tried.
LikeLike
Chevy today denied that it had plans to give the Volt a facelift and sell it as the Chevy “Flame”, or that its marketing department had already prepared promotional materials which included the slogan “Flame…you’ll burn for one.”
LikeLike
Shareholders were excited however, at the prospect of lower production costs and the chance to use flameable materials in the construction of the “new” product, while sacrificing none of the retail cost. “Its the Union way!” one board member was overheard saying after the preview of the new marketing materials.
LikeLike