Tuesday, December 06, 2011

The GM Volt's One Hot Car - Recent Fires Show Safety Findings May Have Been Suppressed

http://www.rokemneedlearts.com/carsindepth/wordpressblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/car-fire-2-JPEG-500x375.jpg

Government Motor's flagship product, the vastly underselling Volt has some additional problems to contend with. Its lithium-ion battery system has shown a disturbing tendency to catch on fire in test crashes, even crashes at relatively slow velocity.

Even worse,evidence has been discovered indicating that both Government Motors and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration delayed disclosure of their original safety findings about the fire by months:

Apparently, way back in June, General Motors heard about a Volt fire that happened three weeks after said vehicle was crash tested, yet it wasn’t until November that the company, or NHTSA disclosed there was a potential problem, urging both dealers and customers to drain the battery pack immediately following an accident.

As a result the public relations nightmare surrounding Chevy’s halo vehicle appears to be deepening, though a good deal of the blame in this case also rests with NHTSA.

Joan Claybrook, a former adminstrator at NHTSA believes part of the reason for the delay was the “fragility of Volt sales.” Yet she also believes that “NHTSA could have put out a consumer alert, not to tell them [customers] for six months makes no sense to me.”


Hmmm..it doesn't make sense? Yes, I see. I mean, who would have imagined that a government agency would fail to publicize negative safety information that might kill sales on a product put out by Government Motors and its union owners..especially with a highly publicized IPO for GM coming up before investors earlier this year..

I don't know about you, but I'd be very cautious of any GM dealers offering unMATCHED prices or red hot deals if you know what I mean.

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1 comment:

UCSPanther said...

Lithium based batteries are known to explode due to their volatile nature. They offer excellent energy output, no capacity memory and good retention of charge, but the charging process needs special electronic regulators to control their temperature, current input and internal pressures to prevent the aforementioned explosions. If these do not work, you could have some serious problems on your hands...