- General Motors on Thursday announced it is making enhancements to the vehicle structure and battery coolant system in the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera to protect the battery from the risk of an electric fire after a crash.
- But federal safety investigators said they have not concluded their investigation into post-crash fire risk in the Volt.
- GM has not recalled the Volt at this point, saying that the enhancements are a "customer satisfaction activity."
DETROIT — General Motors on Thursday announced it is making enhancements to the vehicle structure and battery coolant system in the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera to protect the battery from the risk of an electric fire after a crash.
"We have made the Volt even safer," said Mark Reuss, president of GM North America in a media conference call. "We will continue on the road to rewriting automotive history with it. You will be missing an opportunity if you don't consider the Volt."
GM has not recalled the Volt at this point.
When asked if this action counts as a recall, Reuss said: "We're treating this as a customer satisfaction activity and we'll leave it at that."
However, the GM announcement was followed immediately by a posting on the Web site of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that said the federal safety agency "has not concluded the (Volt) investigation and is continuing to gather and assess information on the post-crash fire risk in these vehicles."
Reuss said during the call that "while we can't speak for NHTSA, we are optimistic this will have a positive outcome" on the investigation.
A federal investigation into the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles was launched after a Chevrolet Volt caught fire while stored in a garage in a NHTSA testing center.
NHTSA's Thursday statement said that "based on the work that NHTSA has already completed — under the observation of General Motors and in close consultation with experts from the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense — it appears that both battery intrusion and coolant leakage must be present to enable post-crash fire in the Volt."
"While the agency remains unaware of any fires from real-world crashes involving the Volt, each of the known cases of fire resulting from laboratory crash tests included these conditions," it noted.
Such a federal investigation sometimes leads to a recall.
GM said the Volt modifications will include strengthening an existing part of the Volt's vehicle safety structure to protect the battery pack in a severe side collision. It will also add a sensor in the reservoir of the battery coolant system to monitor coolant levels and add a tamper-resistant bracket to the top of the battery coolant reservoir to help prevent potential coolant overfill.
GM said it conducted four internal crash tests of Volts with the structural enhancement in December. "The enhancement performed as intended," the company said in a statement. "There was no intrusion into the battery pack and no coolant leakage in any of the tests."
Reuss said that about 250 Volt owners had requested loaner vehicles or asked the company to buy back the car since the post-crash fire risk was made public.
GM said there are roughly 8,000 Volts in customers' hands at this point and another 4,400 on dealer lots that will need the enhancements. The GM Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which is about to gear up for production following the Christmas break, will incorporate the fixes into the Volt.
Chevrolet dealers are expected to have the new parts available in February.
Reuss would not disclose what the Volt fixes will cost the company.
"I'm not going to speculate on the cost," he said. "But I will say that the way we treat this and handle it will model the way General Motors acts in the future. We will stop at nothing to make sure customers are satisfied."
During the conference call, Reuss was asked by one reporter, "Do you think a lot of people walk around thinking Volts burst into flames on impact?"
Reuss replied: "I don't think so. I'm pretty in tune with what people write on the Internet and what our dealers say."
Inside Line says: Good to see that GM isn't waiting around for NHTSA's findings to start addressing potential issues with the Volt.
Add A Comment »
wikiwiki says:
01:52 PM, 01/06/2012
Right. No basis in fact. Although the fact is that coolant leaking onto the battery caused a fire. And that Volts have been under investigation for fires. And that Fords have combusted in peoples' garages not too long ago. What exactly am I making up?
tomtom55 says:
12:48 PM, 01/06/2012
Well wikiwiki, you are what people here would call a troll. You post only to bait people into commenting on your outbursts which lack any basis in fact.
Thanks but no thanks. Look elsewhere - a Justin Bieber blog maybe.
Keep up the good work GM, Ford and Chrysler.
wikiwiki says:
11:35 AM, 01/06/2012
And the fires were a result of a coolant leak from the crashes that got onto the battery. So a fender bender or some other minor crash that leaks coolant onto the battery can cause a fire. Not just a total wreck. No thanks.
wikiwiki says:
11:28 AM, 01/06/2012
"The Ford you refer to is the Pinto."
Hey no but thanks for playing, tomtom55. I was referring to the much more recent Ford Windstar and SUVs that would just catch fire due to faulty wiring. Not the Pinto, which blew up in a rear end crash.
Looks like you know-it-alls know nothing. Pretty common actually. Most know-it-alls do in fact know nothing.
wikiwiki says:
11:25 AM, 01/06/2012
Article: "A federal investigation ... was launched after a Chevrolet Volt caught fire while stored in a garage in a NHTSA testing center."
HA! Stop drinking the GM Juice. They failed with the Volt. It's not an EV like they originally said. It does not get 9000000 MPG like the originally claimed. It was a waste of our bailout money. Sorry but that's the facts, Jack.
tomtom55 says:
10:34 AM, 01/06/2012
By the way, the Volt also scored a 5 in occupant protection. I think I could live with that, pun intended.
As to the constant regurgitation of the Government Motors moniker, yuck, yuck, I would like to have seen what happened if we didn't bail out GM and Chrysler. My only peeve is that these two should pay back ALL the money lent to them. Now that they are once again profitable they should pay the American tax payers back with interest.
Support American workers and businesses that keep jobs here - your own job may depend on it.
tomtom55 says:
10:22 AM, 01/06/2012
1. The Volt does not burst into flames in an accident. Flames occurred a minimum of 2 WEEKS AFTER THE COLLISION.
Oooooohhhh. That makes it better. Silly us. Have it parked in your garage when it bursts into flames ala Fords. Or when you are picking your kids up at school. Way way way better that bursting into flames upon impact. Silly haters.
"You idiots! You won't burn to death in a collision. You will burn to death several weeks AFTER the collision! Now what do you have to say?"
wikiwiki,
These collisions preclude driving the car, let alone parking it your driveway. Driving your kids to school? Hello? Do you understand the force of the testing collisions done by the NHTSA? Of course if you desire coolant, oil, glass fragments and other accident debris in your driveway, go for it. The only way you would burn to death several weeks after the collision is if you decide to live in your wrecked Volt, which really should be in a junkyard at that point.
The Ford you refer to is the Pinto. It did explode on impact when hit from behind. The resulting collision caused the rear mounted gas tank to rupture spilling gas under the car and more than likely igniting it. I think we can all understand the ramifications of that? The coolant catching fire from a battery pack that apparently wasn't discharged or even disconnected three weeks later in a storage area is altogether another matter.
Sorry, but you do sound like a hater.
mklrivowner says:
09:49 AM, 01/06/2012
Article: "A federal investigation ... was launched after a Chevrolet Volt caught fire while stored in a garage in a NHTSA testing center." ...nice spin... jerks.
No mention that the vehicle was one of perhaps a dozen that had been crash tested and had been sitting (CRASHED, uncleaned, and leaking) for three days with the battery pack still in place, depite GM's strong recommendations to disengage/remove the battery pack.
yamahr1 says:
07:57 AM, 01/06/2012
Interesting that IL's article here leaves out a key fact, which is this from NHTSA's official statement:
"NHTSA crashed a Chevy Volt retrofitted with GM's newly designed steel reinforcement device in a side-pole impact test on December 22. The results of that crash test showed no intrusion into the vehicle's battery compartment, and no coolant leakage was apparent. As a precaution, NHTSA has monitored the crashed vehicle since the test and will continue to do so for one more week. However, the preliminary results of the crash test indicate the remedy proposed by General Motors today should address the issue of battery intrusion."
Instead, they only mention GM's internal crash tests, implying that NHTSA has no opinion yet on the matter.
The whole tone of the article, and this critical omission, subtly reflects the anti-Volt bias that InsideLine and Edmunds have exhibited from the beginning. Why am I not surprised.
stingray454 says:
06:03 AM, 01/06/2012
Good for GM for not waiting for the government. If we all waited for the government to fix things, we would have all been dead a long time ago.