After nearly two month’s worth of unwarranted bad press, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has come forward with the results of its Chevy Volt investigation. The verdict:Â “Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.”
From what we gather, the NHTSA crash tested its Chevy Volt, and left the totaled vehicle to sit in a lot, where it spontaneously combusted into flames a full two weeks after the crash. And as far as we know, NHTSA didn’t kill the power of the Volt, as first responders are trained to do. If this was a real world situation, first responders wouldn’t take two weeks to arrive to the scene of the crash, and they would properly kill the battery power as taught. Now, let’s stop and think about the car fires we hear about on the side of the road regarding standard ICE vehicles. Is the Volt really as dangerous and unsafe as the general media would like us to believe? Hardly.
In any regard, GM — after offering buybacks and loaner vehicles for concerned Volt owners — is retrofitting the nearly 8,000 Volts that have so far been sold with several reinforcements and a sensor to detect coolant leaks, which was found to be the culprit of the fire. What’s more, Congress isn’t satisfied, and have called upon General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and NHTSA head David Strickland to face a House panel in a few days to gather information about the timeline of the investigation. Congress, and all of their wisdom, also declared pizza a vegetable, and passed the NDAA.
Comments
finally!!
why is this not a bigger story?????
Manoli, there has been a lot of negative press on the volt as well as a huge amount of praise by the informed press. I think this shows that pulling the trigger to quick by a tax payer supported organization can cause substantial issues and fuel a fire that never existed. We know the tech behind the volt is great but at this time expensive, we have a never waivering support of the technology we developed and we are working with all both adopters and nay sayers to show this can reduce gasoline usage by up to 90% which is 50% imported and switch that to electric energy which is 100% domestic. costs of opperation are also much lower using the grid. Hopefully with write ups by the informed press it will settle the nay sayers down and allow GM to show through technology leadership that this is a good way to proceed to change our dependancy on forgien oil and gas. we are in this for the long haul and feel this technology and our future advancments will help mankind travel the roads for a very very long time. I will get off of my soap box.
I just read something like this on a different website, my homepage, MSN. I was looking at the comments and oh so obviously, there were people who want the Americans to fail, why are there so many Americans who hate other Americans? I don’t know of any other country that hates itself and its produce like Americans. One of the dumbest comments was… “And when they are made in China I will feel a lot more confident in the safety of the car. Lucky me too, I only have a 8 mile commute to work so I can count on the Volt holding charge enough to make it at least to work. Probably have to walk home afterwards.” – Raging Capitalist or even… “Why does it cost $45,000 for that car? Why would you need a back up camera or park assist for something that small? These are $15,000 to $18,000 dollar cars that people are stupid enough to pay 3 times as much for? I’m all for alternative energy but the price is ridiculouis. You can’t even take a family trip[.]”- Brian-1756723. Sad.
I tried an experiment. I Googled “car fire” and I couldn’t believe what I got! I pulled up links to several articles ( Google sources to near your IP area ) from my city with titles ranging from freeway crashes that weekend where a car exploded into flames, or car fires where a home was burned down when a home mechanic wasn’t prudent working around gasoline. Thinking it was a fluke, I tried it another day and soon I was being linked to stories re: cars erupting into flames; fatalities and injuries; property damage galore!
This supports the data that states in America there are hundreds of thousands of car fire accidents per year, hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. Gas is explosive. Gas is flammable. I think we’ve all been numbed by car chase scenes in movies where cars ” ‘splode ” , going off cliffs and crashing into one another. We know gas is dangerous. I saw a short on TV the other night warning of grounding oneself at the gas pump by touching metal before picking up the gas pump. It showed a guy who jumped up into his pickup bed to fill a portable gas tank and he just combusted into a ball of flame! It showed how people can create static electricity by sliding off of their fabric car seat and thus igniting themselves aflame while filling up!
Most of us get that electric energy needs to be removed from a critically damaged vehicle before storing it. I guess it kind of supports the phrase: “Good enough for government work”, to see how the NHTSA bumbled this one, and covered it’s butt by making a big investigation over it’s mishandling of a Volt they had wrecked. Perhaps in the early days of the organization, somebody crash tested a Plymouth or something and forgot to remove the gas from the tank, then they lit a cigarette and, KAPOW! To cover this up, of course, maybe they drug Chrysler-Plymouth through the mud and created a media frenzy out of it – “NHTSA inacting official investigation: Do Plymouths blow up?! ”
Try finding a story or incident wherein a Volt or any EV caused a death by fire, or even an injury. Just prudence is required when working around electricity, gas or any energy source. The Volt was singled out and that is just a shame.
Try Googling “car fire” in your area and see what you get. You will be amazed at how often ICE cars and trucks kill and injure due to the volatility of their fuel.