Chevy Volt Passes Safety Investigation 200
An anonymous reader writes "A few months ago, reports of battery fires from crash-tested Chevy Volts caused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open an investigation into the type of batteries used in the Volt and other EVs. That investigation has now concluded, and the NHTSA says the cars are safe. 'The agency and General Motors Co. know of no fires in real-world crashes. GM and federal safety officials say they believe the fires were caused by coolant leaking from damaged plastic casing around the batteries after side-impact collisions. The coolant caused an electrical short, which sparked battery fires seven days to three weeks after the crashes. GM announced earlier this month that it will add steel plates to about 12,000 existing Volts to protect the batteries in the event of a crash.'"
Wait so we are adding more weight. (Score:2)
Re:Wait so we are adding more weight. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, like magnesium!
Re:Wait so we are adding more weight. (Score:5, Informative)
So your solution to protecting the batteries are adding heavy Steel plates to the car. Which in turn adds more weight and gives less mileage. We can't find a metal that is lighter and stronger?
They've said the additional bracket (it's a stretch to call it "steel plates" has it's not exactly armor) weighs about 3-4 pounds and will have no noticeable effect on efficiency.
Photo of the bracket is here:
http://gm-volt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ChevroletVoltPartsInstallation115-724x1024.jpg [gm-volt.com]
From this excellent overview of the actual "fixes" that GM will be doing to customers that CHOOSE to bring their Volt in for it:
http://gm-volt.com/2012/01/06/gm-chooses-to-%E2%80%98go-extra-mile%E2%80%99-with-volt-battery-protection/ [gm-volt.com]
Also, you might want to google "Volt high strength steel". The car has some of the highest structural rigidity in the industry. Yet another way in which the Volt is demonstrating a big leap forward in automotive technology.
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"The car has some of the highest structural rigidity in the industry."
So, less crumple zones to absorb impact, thus leaving me to absorb more of it.
No thanks.
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Yeah, I hear that Ford made the passenger cabin of the Ranger into a crumple zone - it dissipates energy really effectively!
The only downsides are slight crush injuries to your legs, arms, torso, feet, hands and head.
The EuroNCAP review of that Ranger is gone now, but it was hilariously bad and one of the very few "not even 1 star worthy" vehicles.
The extended cab folded like paper at the point between the front and rear seats.
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That's really not how it works. I assume you know nothing about auto body (looks like a safe assumption) so here goes.
The most rigid points in any typical unibody or indeed any place but the frame of most full-frame vehicles are areas called "torque boxes" located at the base of the first and last pillars. In these areas the floor pan and the pillar tend to overlap and carry extra welds. In most cars these are the only areas designed to be absolutely rigid. Stress is transmitted between the front and rear a
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So your solution to protecting the batteries are adding heavy Steel plates to the car. Which in turn adds more weight and gives less mileage.
Or you could just go exercise a bit and lose 3 pounds of weight to make up for the difference, if your mileage is that important to you...
I still don't want one (Score:3)
I've been doing some research. The Volt was only tested in -10 weather in Canada, not the -20C to -40C we get in Saskatchewan. As battery efficiency drops dramatically in the cold, I have my doubts about it's electric range capabilities here.
And once you switch over to gas power, the Volt gets atrocious mileage compared to many other similarly sized cars, including Ford's lineup. And the Ford I'm looking at sells for literally half the price of the Volt. $20,000 buys a HELL of a lot of gasoline.
Re:I still don't want one (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Volt is the best GM can do, the bailout/aid money they were provided was a waste of taxpayer dollars. They'll still end up bankrupt if they can't do any better than this.
Re:I still don't want one (Score:4, Informative)
They'll still end up bankrupt if they can't do any better than this.
Don't worry, they're doing okay [reuters.com].
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They'll still end up bankrupt if they can't do any better than this.
Don't worry, they're doing okay.
Unfortunately, your "citation" does not prove this. It tells us they sold a lot of cars, but it doesn't tell us if it made a profit.
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GM wins just about every Federal contract now, including additional contracts to buy cars they don't need.
If it makes you feel better, that was already true.
In addition they are not required to pay corporate taxes for the next 15 years either.
So, like every other defense contractor? It works well for GE, too. But I guess GM is getting this by fiat? Pun intended.
Re:I still don't want one (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been doing some research.
Might want to try a little harder.
The Volt was only tested in -10 weather in Canada, not the -20C to -40C we get in Saskatchewan. As battery efficiency drops dramatically in the cold, I have my doubts about it's electric range capabilities here.
The Volt functions down to -13 F / -25 C cold. That's the COLD SOAK temperature of the battery. If the battery pack is colder than that, then the gas engine will fire up to generate electricity to warm up the battery above that temperature threshold. Note that I didn't say ambient temperature; we're talking about the temperature deep inside the car, inside a 400 pound battery pack. It takes a long time at a given ambient temperature to get the battery pack itself down to that temperature. Does your weather stay at or below -13 F / -25 C for 24 hours at a time? If so then I agree the Volt isn't for you, but it's great for the rest of us.
And once you switch over to gas power, the Volt gets atrocious mileage compared to many other similarly sized cars
37 MPG is pretty damn good by nearly any standard. "Atrocious"? Don't be such a drama queen.
the Ford I'm looking at sells for literally half the price of the Volt. $20,000 buys a HELL of a lot of gasoline.
Make sure you're doing a fair comparison. The Ford you are comparing to (you don't say which) likely will have it's doors blown in by the Volt's performance. Further, the Volt is likely more luxuriously appointed than whatever econo penalty box you are comparing with.
For lots and lots of current Volt owners, their previous car was a luxury sports sedan. Mine was an Audi.
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The Volt functions down to -13 F / -25 C cold. That's the COLD SOAK temperature of the battery. If the battery pack is colder than that, then the gas engine will fire up to generate electricity to warm up the battery above that temperature threshold. Note that I didn't say ambient temperature; we're talking about the temperature deep inside the car, inside a 400 pound battery pack. It takes a long time at a given ambient temperature to get the battery pack itself down to that temperature. Does your weather stay at or below -13 F / -25 C for 24 hours at a time? If so then I agree the Volt isn't for you, but it's great for the rest of us.
I saw the weather do that when I lived in Minneapolis, so yes, I'm sure it does that in SK. In Minneapolis, it is common for there to be a week of weather in January where the daytime high never gets above -5F for the whole week. Minneapolis is the deep south compared to SK.
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I live is SE Saskatchewan. This winter is hardly a fair example (its been very warm here with the exception of the past week). However, even in an average winter, we would rarely see as cold as -25C as a high for more than a few days in a row. So what this says to me, is even though I thought the opposite, the Volt may actually be a reasonable car here. Even if its not the most efficient choice during the extreme cold, we're talking maybe less than a week on average in any give year that it drops bel
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37 MPG is pretty damn good by nearly any standard. "Atrocious"? Don't be such a drama queen.
No, it's pathetic compared to a Golf GTI at 50 mpg, or a Jetta TDI at 45 mpg, or that newish Jag with the V8 TDI and twin turbos at 40-50 mpg, or a Bluetec Lupo at 70 mpg. Don't be such a pathetic cheerleader.
For lots and lots of current Volt owners, their previous car was a luxury sports sedan.
Only for idiot posers. Oh wait, that's all volt owners. The volt is the new prius. Does nothing to help the environment, in fact it's worse for the planet than the competition. Costs more. More to go wrong. First generation and kinks not worked out. Mileage ultimately not that good. It's a total failur
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No, it's pathetic compared to a Golf GTI at 50 mpg, or a Jetta TDI at 45 mpg, or that newish Jag with the V8 TDI and twin turbos at 40-50 mpg, or a Bluetec Lupo at 70 mpg. Don't be such a pathetic cheerleader.
You can't make direct comparisons between gasoline and diesel engines when it comes to environmental impact. With the same fuel efficiencies, a diesel engine is going to put ~20% more CO2 into the atmosphere then a gasoline engine. Diesel fuel contains more carbon per gallon then gasoline.
But there are also other things to consider. For example, the CO2 byproducts resulting from the refining process. There are the transportation costs to consider. It can get very complex but the 20% estimate is a re
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The difference is that you can buy relatively carbon-neutral biodiesel right now, but BP and Dupont are preventing us from buying relatively carbon-neutral butanol by sitting on it via their shell company, Butamax, and suing anyone who tries to make Butanol and sell it to the public.
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The Volt doesn't get atrocious gas mileage. And Ford doesn't have a single vehicle in the size range of the Volt which matches it on overall mpg (counting only gas mode), let alone beats it so badly as to call the Volt mpg "atrocious"
As far as I know at this time, in the North American market Ford only has one vehicle in any size range that gets better mpg than the Volt (again, only counting gas mode) and that is the Fusion Hybrid. It tops the Volt by 5% (2mpg). It costs $30,000, about 3/4 what the Volt doe
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Well, that depends. Are we meeting this demand solely on current capacity, or are we approving new nuclear power plants to meet the expected demand?
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Just a reminder, just about every kind of power station can generate energy more efficiently than a car. Power stations are also largely located remote from centre of population, helping to create cleaner healthier cities. So smog-free cities, yes we all know, self centred douche's will scream like your typical toddler for their noisy gas guzzler and scream even louder when they get taxed up the wazoo for using it in city environment (you want to suck on an exhaust pipe do it in your garage don't force oth
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Just a reminder, just about every kind of power station can generate energy more efficiently than a car.
I agree. What bothers me though is that for these plug in electric vehicles to meet the claim of a lower carbon footprint the power is going to have to come from something other than coal. A coal fired power plant can achieve 60% efficiency. A common internal combustion engine used in a car can get about 30% efficiency, some as high as 40%. All the energy from the coal is coming from carbon. In a vehicle powered by gasoline or diesel fuel half of the energy is from carbon, half from hydrogen, give or t
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Why would I buy an electric vehicle when the electricity is produced with natural gas? Why don't I just burn the natural gas in my vehicle?
I get your point, reduce our carbon footprint with a shift in fuels. The problem with that policy is that the energy in coal cannot be legislated away. We can cap and tax all we want but people will still burn coal. There is only so much natural gas that we can produce. The faster we burn it, the rarer it gets, the more expensive it becomes. Basic economics.
If peop
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1). Because the POWER PLANT that burns the natural gas does so at double the efficiency you could with a car-sized engine. Fuel cells could change this, but they're damn expensive, and there's no sign of that changing.
2). Then you're stuck on another fossile fuel, with no path forward. Here in CA there's a healthy mix of hydro, wind, solar, and natural gas... Burn j
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Because the POWER PLANT that burns the natural gas does so at double the efficiency you could with a car-sized engine.
That is really not true. Modern direct-injected gasoline engines are about 25% efficient and diesels can be even better. Steam turbines are banging around 50%. Big diesels for marine use are banging around 50% too, at the top end. Then you lose maybe 5% in transmission to the charging station. Then you lose another 5-15% during charging. It also loses charge just sitting around, something that doesn't happen with fossil fuels unless you have a leak. So yes, there are big improvements, but they are not doubl
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Gasoline is the problem. Biodiesel from algae using technology proven at Sandia NREL in the 1980s using our tax dollars can replace 100% of our automotive fuel needs while simultaneously helping to reclaim desert and restore the water table. Small diesels that we don't have here only because of crash standards designed to support undertrained drivers operating overweight vehicles which are economically desirable to produce get mileage better than any practical gasser and could run on this carbon-neutral fue
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1) The efficiency of using a stationary natural gas power plant to charge an electric vehicle is not the only factor in the viability of doing this as a shift away from foreign oil and/or reducing one's carbon footprint. (I mention both because some people, like myself, are not terribly concerned with their carbon footprint but are concerned about foreign energy destroying the economy.)
One other issue is that of range. An electric vehicle will need a recharge every 50 miles or so while a natural gas vehi
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Steel plates (Score:2)
Steel plates are great at preventing electrical shorts.
So much hate for...pretty much everything. (Score:2)
Seems it's cool to hate just about everything on slashdot, so to solve the image problem of the Volt among slashdot geeks they should just tell them that the navigation system runs Linux. Then it would be the greatest product ever created, and would "crush all those closed cars" that "you do not own!"
Problem with the coming high Voltage freeway (Score:2)
I had to re-read that bit about adding 12,000 volts to steel plates a couple of times before it made sense (still working on my first pot of coffee of the day).
But it made me realize that Chevie has picked a poor name for their electric car. We are doomed to see electrifying headlines about damage when a bus gets hit by 12 volts, etc.
Stupid stupid name.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah the volt's batteries aren't safe like a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass.
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yeah the volt's batteries aren't safe like a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass.
I'm not aware of any car that puts a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass, though my old car did put one behind the passenger seat.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Informative)
yeah the volt's batteries aren't safe like a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass.
I'm not aware of any car that puts a big tank of hydrocarbons under your ass, though my old car did put one behind the passenger seat.
The Honda Fit does. The Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 from 1972-1979 did as well.
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I have a Honda Fit. The gas tank is under the front seat. Quite nice actually because the rear floor is completely flat and you can raise the rear seats and get a large and square storage area.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:4, Informative)
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Ymmm... Space Shuttle.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Insightful)
To put it in perspective, a Volt battery has roughly 16 KWh of energy stored. An gas tank on an equivalent sized car is roughly 10 gallons. At 36.6 KWh/gal, that's 360 Kwh of energy, or more than 22X the energy of the battery. Now, assuming that all goes up at once, which one do you want to be near? Couple that with the fact you can't easily set off a lithium battery fire with an open flame or a spark, and I know which odds I'll be taking.
Of course the Volt has both energy sources. But, the point is that a battery pack--coupled with modern cooling controls, safety interlocks and fusing--is safer than a tank of gasoline in a multitude of crash scenarios. Yes, you have to be concerned about high voltage exposure, but all modern packs have disconnect relays that are wired to a crash sensor (ala airbags or the fuel pump cutoff switch).
The reality is this whole thing was a witch hunt likely egged on by Volt competitors.
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>To put it in perspective, a Volt battery has roughly 16 KWh of energy stored.
THE FLAMMABILITY OF BATTERIES HAS FUCK ALL TO DO WITH THEIR CAPACITY!
Yes, I use caps, but this irks me so much. When a battery burns the energy doesn't come from the energy stored when charging it. It comes from reactions between the air's oxygen and the electrolyte ( and / or the electrode materials ). There is no direct correlation between the two. The reason people make the flawed assumption is most likely that Li-ion batter
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To put it in perspective, a Volt battery has roughly 16 KWh of energy stored. An gas tank on an equivalent sized car is roughly 10 gallons. At 36.6 KWh/gal, that's 360 Kwh of energy, or more than 22X the energy of the battery. Now, assuming that all goes up at once, which one do you want to be near? Couple that with the fact you can't easily set off a lithium battery fire with an open flame or a spark, and I know which odds I'll be taking.
Your logic is flawed!
Gasoline would need to be premixed with enough oxygen to "go up all at once." In a real world situation, this is not possible. The oxygen deficiency would severely limit the magnitude of any explosion (sorry Hollywood). The combustion could burn someone trapped in the car to death, however.
An impacted lithium-ion battery, on the other hand, could actually dump most of it's energy at once through a series of shorts. This could electrocute people and then cause an explosion (discharge
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Informative)
Is that what you think?
There's "electrical parts" all over a modern car, including around and even inside of the fuel tank.
And any gasoline leaking from a fuel tank tends to flow in a very specific direction, which might introduce it to other possible ignition sources. (I think the direction is called "downhill," and the means of propulsion is called "gravity." Please feel free to correct me if I've got these terms wrong.)
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Informative)
Learn to read: "'The agency and General Motors Co. know of no fires in real-world crashes"
The fires happened to crash-tested vehicles only
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If we applied science and we have test results ending with multiple cars catching on fire (even if delayed). Those results should either prove the car unsafe for the real world or discredit the test.
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Even more of something to read: Fires happened days and weeks after cars were crashed. Cause of the fire was determined to be that workers did not discharge the battery after crash.
For the record: it's currently a normal procedure to empty the fuel tank in cars after accidents (and testing). One of the important roles of these tests is to explore the emergency procedures with crashes of the new vehicle type. After the fire, there was a new recommendation to drain the battery in addition to draining the fuel
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Well to be honest, I don't think you will see too many crash wreckages sitting on the side of the road for weeks at a time under real world crashes.
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You will put a totaled car in your garage? Without following the procedure to drain the battery and the fuel tank?
I think you deserve the darwin award then.
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Car is safe in the crash. Car that didn't have it's battery drained is not safe after a few days after the crash. Unless you sit in the crashed car for days on end hoping for a fire, you're not going to get burned.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Informative)
Except for the reported fires????
Thankyou, I know, your're from the government and you're here to help.
Did you miss the part where it says "no fires in real-world crashes"?
How about the part where it says the fires occured "seven days to three weeks after the crashes"?
Contrast that to the very real danger of fire in gasoline powered car. Explain how this is worse, and part of some gubmint conspiracy.
Simple (Score:2, Informative)
Gasoline fires happen at the time or minutes after the accident. Battery fires happen some random time later when the driver thinks that the vehicle is safe and the accident only caused a small physical damage. And the threat of fire is not only when the vehicle is in use. The fire can be started while the vehicle is inside of the garage and there is a room above where family members are sleeping..
Not in this case (Score:5, Informative)
To have a battery penetration here, you would have to have a side intrusion into the car which extends about 2 feet in from the side of the car. Your side airbags will have gone off, the car likely isn't even drivable.
No one is going to think their car had only small physical damage with this kind of wreck.
And your statements about gas cars are also incorrect. I've followed cars on the highway which clearly were leaking gas. This isn't a fire hazard because it's been more than a few minutes since the wreck? I've seen cars just plain catch fire on the side of the road with no wreck at all.
And gas cars can catch fire in garages too.
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2012/01/gloucester_township_car_fire_s.html [nj.com]
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
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The fire can be started while the vehicle is inside of the garage and there is a room above where family members are sleeping.
Well, actually such a fire can start inside a garage even when there are no family members sleeping in the room above. In fact the risk is the same even if there is no room above the garage.
Sunday morning pedantry. Well, I have done my part. Time to wake up.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Interesting)
Several years ago I ran out of petrol going down a hill. I was able to coast into the petrol station further down the hill and put a load more petrol into my car. When I tried to start the car it would not start. I thought that it needed to pump the petrol from the tank to the engine and kept trying. What I did not know was that I had not run out of petrol, the petrol pipe had broken and the petrol was not getting to the carburetor, it was getting sprayed all over the engine and the floor. By the time the puddle of petrol finally managed to catch a spark from the starter motor the puddle had already spread under the car at the next pump. Most of the petrol station was destroyed. It was amazing to see so many people run so fast...
I do not accept that this theoretical risk of fire comes close to the real risk of fire in a normal engine...
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As the driver sitting on top of that puddle, and presumably still in close proximity to the pump which would make a nice obstacle to quick escape ... you should be fucking dead my friend.
where the hell do you live? (Score:3)
Most of the petrol station was destroyed. It was amazing to see so many people run so fast...
OK, so I know from you calling it "petrol" that this wasn't the US, but...they don't have required fire suppression systems in your country?
Here in the US, every gas station has to have an automatic fire suppression system. When they let go, it's very, very impressive...
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Maybe in your US.
Here in in my US (which we usually just call Ohio), automatic fire suppression systems are few and far between at gas stations: There's generally a fire extinguisher prominently mounted nearby, and sometimes a highly-visible EPO on the main building, and that's it.
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Woah... so you did not get overwhelmed by the smell? This happened to me once, the fuel line blew (at a connection) & I knew what it was a moment later because the fuel vapor hit me like a wall.
Another moment later the engine quit. This was on I94 in the middle of Detroit at 2:30AM, no cell phone in those days... =D
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:4, Interesting)
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The Volt is by far the best car that came out of America in recent times. They all know Chevrolet scored some seriously good car here and lots of people are driven mad about it.
Ironically, it's not being sold as a Chevrolet in Europe (they're going to call it the Opel (or Vauxhall) Ampera).
That's presumably because over here the Chevrolet brand- which was almost unknown until a few years back- is now used for (and associated with) low-end vehicles made by what used to be Daewoo in South Korea.
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These are relatively new cars and not really popular. The number of crashes they have sustained so far is too low to be representative.
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, the battery must be drained after an accident. But this isn't much different than a gas car which requires the gas tank be drained after an accident. NHTSA in fact drains the gas tanks on gas cars (including the Volt!) BEFORE they wreck them because of the danger of the gasoline.
The draining of the battery is no big deal. It won't toast the battery. In this kind of wreck the battery has sustained damage that means it must be inspected and rebuilt whether it is drained or not. Also, the car is totaled after a wreck of this magnitude anyway, so the additional expense of draining the battery isn't a big deal.
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Yes, the battery must be drained after an accident.
The draining of the battery is no big deal. It won't toast the battery.
Are you sure about that? No current battery technology suitable for use in an electric vehicle can withstand complete discharge without ruining the battery. Discharging deeply enough to eliminate the risk of fire would also destroy the battery, I would think. Is there a reliable source that says otherwise?
it's no big deal (Score:3)
There is no way you can discharge deeply enough to eliminate the risk of fire. You can only minimize it. The risk of fire is from the chemicals, and they are still dangerous and flammable even when discharged.
Lions (as used in the Volt) are not destroyed if they are discharged completely. It's not good for them, it reduces their lifespan. But doing it once (or a few times) won't end their lives noticeably prematurely.
Re:it's no big deal (Score:5, Funny)
Lions (as used in the Volt) are not destroyed if they are discharged completely.
The Volt uses lions? My god, I can see that *would* be a problem- even if undamaged, they'll generally be very pissed off and aggressive after a crash, and therefore even more likely to bite your damn head off.
Not that they're particularly safe in that respect even under normal use. No wonder GM went bankrupt if they were doing expensive and dangerous things like putting lions in their cars.
It's not good for them, it reduces their lifespan.
Having a lion in one's car is even more likely to reduce your lifespan for the reasons given above.
I propose that it would make a *lot* more sense to use batteries to power the car instead. Preferably using Titanium-Germanium technology, or Ti-Ger for short.
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I think you misunderstood. These cars are made by Chevrolet, so they are Detroit Lions.
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Ti-Ger?
Sounds Grrrr-eat! :-)
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"NHTSA in fact drains the gas tanks on gas cars (including the Volt!) BEFORE they wreck them because of the danger of the gasoline."
Do you have a reference for this? Not that I don't believe you, but if this is true, GM just got a whole load of bad press which may have set back the electric car over something that was NHTSA's fault. It's unbelievable that they wouldn't test gasoline cars and electric cars on the same footing. If they first drain the gas tank then they HAVE to drain the battery before the te
Re:So, they know of no fires (Score:5, Informative)
On average, there is another car fire in the United States every 109 seconds [nfpa.org]. (PDF warning)
Not all of them are the result of accidents. Food for thought.
=Smidge=
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that ignited starting fluid (diethyl ether) that was on the air filter
And what did we learn here? Read the directions on the starting fluid and remove the air filter before using it!
Obligatory Simpson's quote (Score:2)
"Top of the line in utility sports
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Canyonero!
Re:Not to defend GMs horrendous safety and quality (Score:4, Insightful)
In the end, the Volt turned out to be a lemon .... the battery charge does not deliver the promise (miserable) 30 miles per charge and the gas engine has an efficiency about as bad as a small SUV (~22 mpg). And for $40K that is a crappy deal. Maybe that is why GM just canceled the model.
When consumer reports tested the car, on their 150 mile trip of mixed city/highway driving they got 70mpg.
They said that the battery-only range varied from a low of 20 miles (with electric heater on) to up to 50 miles at moderate speeds with no climate control switched on. 25 miles of electric range would cover most of the typical American's commute (USA average is 29 miles per day)
Re:Not to defend GMs horrendous safety and quality (Score:5, Informative)
Unlike you, I own a Volt, so, unlike you, I don't need to lie about the numbers.
It gets 25 (winter) to 46 (mild weather) miles per charge for me. When the battery runs low and the gas engine is powering the car, it delivers 38-40 MPG depending on speed. My lifetime economy (4.75 months, 4350 miles) is 255 MPG. I'd say that's pretty good, considering my Lexus was getting 19 MPG on the same commute.
Apparently you're also not smart enough to do the math, it turns out the Volt is cheaper than the average car.
$45.5k sticker (loaded)
$7.5k tax credit (complain about this and I'll complain about the child deductions I'm funding with my six figure income)
$11k gas savings (5 years, for me)
= $27k gas vehicle equivalent (the average new car sale price in the US is ~$29k )
If you're still not convinced the Volt is a good idea, I suggest you start reading this blog http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/ [ucsd.edu]
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I don't see all the running costs there, only fueling.
and 27k car will get you in mustang/taurus territory, going for a similar compact car will net you a 17k focus sedan that will run around your volt and will use 28k fuel just before getting to the price of a volt, and after that there is still more before breaking even
please, do the math, but right. the volta is priced like a bmw and kitted like a fiat. compare appropriately.
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In the article you quoted, they said they haven't even kept up with demand. So it sounds like they are selling cars as fast as they can build them.
GM’s North American President Mark Reuss said the automaker is still filling orders and may not know until around the second quarter.
“There’s no trend because we haven’t satisfied demand,” Reuss said to reporters. “I told everybody that we’d be looking at satisfying demand right around second quarter. We’re not there yet, so I don’t know.”
Of course, it remains to be seen how well demand holds up for the remainder of the year. If there is a spike in gas prices this summer as some have predicted, the Volt should do well.
Re:No official word from GM ... (Score:5, Interesting)
GM plays fast and loose with their numbers. They had set a goal of 10,000 vehicles sold in 2011, and when they fell short (selling only 7,600) they changed the claim to 10,000 produced rather than sold. They have been building more Volts than they are selling since last August or so and they have already been reducing production. Chances are, if your local dealer sells Volts, he's got one or two sitting on the lot waiting for a buyer. Sending a car to a dealer's lot counts as a sale, even if that car never ends up in someone's driveway.
The Volt as a vehicle is not that bad - a bit pricey for what you get but that's the early adopter premium you see with anything else. GM's marketing and PR departments have handled things so poorly it's impressive they sold as many as they did. They are completely unable to be honest about what the vehicle is and what it's capable of.
Basically what I'm saying is GM's executive branch is a bunch of compulsive liars, and I wouldn't be completely shocked if they are deliberately fumbling the Volt so they can drop the technology in a slightly less inflammatory way than they dropped the EV1. I remain cautiously optimistic that isn't the case, though.
Even if it isn't a concerted effort, their heart clearly isn't behind it.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:3)
If my comment was the most asinine, then yours is a contender for most ignorant.
For starters, your little story about a bait-and-switch also makes no sense - why not sell the Volt at $40K instead of a Cruze Eco for $17K? Usually dealers try to get you to spend more, not less.
The effective MPG of the Volt is highly variable, since you do get ~35 miles of all-electric driving assuming you've charged up when you got the chance. If your trip is under ~35 miles, then you will use zero gas* (See disclaimer below)
Re: (Score:2)
if someone today came up with that we should all be driving around at 100kmp with 100L of highly flammable liquid people would say; are you nuts?
Sorry, but that's nonsense. Our ancestors used to drive electric cars, but when the ICE came along it was so clearly superior that they rapidly dumped the electric nonsense; it's taken a century for people to forget the lessons of the past and come to believe that electric cars make any kind of sense.
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They didn't do it for safety reasons! And of course the technology of batteries has changed far more than the technology of combustion engines in that century.
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because battery technology hasn't changed at all in the last 100 years. Not at all!
I take you use a horse pulled cart still? After all the very they were clearly superiour to the first automobiles, and since apparently technology never changes in your universe...
Re: (Score:2)
Eh... You don't have to buy an overpriced death trap from a 1/3 government owned "business" to buy a vehicle that doesn't rely on "big oil." There are a few electrics out there produced by companies that aren't GM.
You can have an electric car for which the testing didn't have a massive conflict of interest. More affordably (for some models), even. Why take the risk?
doesn't require big oil (Score:5, Informative)
It's is a hybrid. But you can drive between 35 and 40 miles without gas AT FULL SPEED. I have a friend who has one and drives for weeks at at time with no gas. I was with him when he drove up a several mile long grade of about 3-4% at 80 miles an hour on electricity only as part of the 32.5 drive to his house.
I don't know where you get the idea of short distances at low speeds from, but you're wrong. Perhaps you're thinking of the Prius PHEV or something else?
So the statement 'doesn't rely on a big oil corporation to be useful' is accurate.
Re:doesn't require big oil (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know where you get the idea of short distances at low speeds from, but you're wrong.
The reviews when it first came out said that it used the gasoline engine when driving at highway speeds because the electric motors weren't powerful enough to handle high-speed driving by themselves.
Here's one of the first results Google found:
http://gm-volt.com/2010/10/11/motor-trend-explains-the-volts-powertrain/ [gm-volt.com]
Which implies that it's more complex than those reviews said, so the gasoline engine will come on to help run the car in various situations, depending on what mode it's in. Like going up a steep hill at more than 40mph(!).
Re:doesn't require big oil (Score:5, Interesting)
... the gasoline engine will come on to help run the car in various situations, depending on what mode it's in. Like going up a steep hill at more than 40mph(!).
Wrong, wrong, wrong. 10-Oct-10 will live in infamy in the annals of the Volt because it's the day that people like the parent of this post misread GM's very interesting disclosure about the Volt powertrain to mean "the engine comes on at high speeds".
FOR THE FIRST 35 MILES OF RANGE, THE VOLT IS A FULL PERFORMANCE ELECTRIC VEHICLE.
"Full performance" means it can go ANY SPEED and MAX ACCELERATION under only electric propulsion. Over and over, lazy bloggers (and blog comment posters) have misread articles about the transmission to conclude that the engine comes on at high speeds or high acceleration. IT'S NOT A PRIUS. I have countless jackrabbit starts and high speed runs in my Volt to demonstrate it is most definitely not a Prius. I'm with Dan Akerson on this -- I wouldn't be caught dead in a Prius :)
Read the actual article more closely. It's a complicated car, with amazing results.
that's incorrect (Score:3)
It doesn't come on to go up steep hills at more than 40mph. You have badly misread this text.
The car slows down if you climb a steep grade at more than 40mph if the electric battery is low. Because of this they have a special "mountain mode" where the battery is not allowed to get that low. It reduces the range of the car by about 1/3rd and that's on top of the fact that you get reduced range climbing hills like any other car.
The gas engine will not come on PERIOD unless the battery runs out or if the tempe
Re: (Score:2)
Ugh, I hate the terms charge depleting and charge sustaining. So confusing. I just use them because they are the official terms.
I messed up, using "charge depleting" where I should have said "charge sustaining" in my "(the car is already in charge depleting mode)" above. The engine is only on in charge sustaining mode and the engine only drives the drivetrain directly in charge sustaining mode.
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yea I am not going to spend that kind of money when my 6 year old kia makes me put gas in it once every 3 weeks for more distance, and electricity is expensive, it just cost me 88 bucks to run 2 computers and a space heater last month, I only put 20 bucks in my car
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Electricity to run an electric car much cheaper than gas to run a gas car.
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show me the numbers where it would be cheaper to sell off a paid for car for an overpriced experiment that requires 2 bills to fuel it
ok here are some numbers
it can take upto 1400 watts during charging upto 10 hours, and I currently pay 32 cents per kw-h
its going to cost me 4.48 per day to drive upto 40 miles, 1 gallon of gas in my area is 3.12 right now and will last in my kia for a little more than 39 miles, and its needing a tune up (so it could be better)
so I could spend an extra 1.36 a day for this che
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it can take upto 1400 watts during charging upto 10 hours, and I currently pay 32 cents per kw-h
Where the fuck do you pay 32 per kw-h? I only pay 30, and I live in a 3rd world hole with a criminal for a power company.
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fuel surcharges and now they have to be extra careful about environmental shit cause they had an ash dam cave in a eat a town alive + our lovely electric company was part of a investigation cause their CEO's were taking trips to london and whatnot, eating at the finest drinking the best, and sleeping in gold sheets on the billpayers dime
fuck it was 42 cents last year! which sparked the investigation
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show me the numbers where it would be cheaper to sell off a paid for car for an overpriced experiment that requires 2 bills to fuel it
Why? That's not what I said.
its going to cost me 4.48 per day to drive upto 40 miles
No it's not. Recently a guy drove from Land's End to John O'Groats in the UK in a Tesla. 894 miles cost 20 GBP (approx $30).
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Re: (Score:2)
and blah blah whatever, these things only get about 40 miles on juice at highway speeds, maybe if I had a couple days to get to work I could do it for that
Actually, the Tesla Roadster I mentioned has a range of about 180 miles at 70mph.
http://webarchive.teslamotors.com/display_data.php?data_name=range_blog5 [teslamotors.com]
And the Chevy Volt that TFA is about is a hybrid, so it's range is no different from a conventional car. Just put more gas in at a gas station. It'll do about 33mph without using any fuel, so most journeys won't need gas. But longer journeys are no worry whatsoever.
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If you ran a 1500watt space heater and 2 150 watt computers for 10 hours/day for $88/month, that works out to around 16 cents/kwh ($88 / 540KWh)
If you put 10KWh into the battery each day to go 20 miles, that's 300Kwh, or $48 to go 600 miles.
You don't mention which Kia you have, but if you get 30mpg, 600 miles at $3.50/gallon would cost you 600 / 30 * $3.50 = $70
So you'd still come out ahead with the Volt if you're only comparing fuel costs.
But since you're only putting $20 every 3 weeks into your car, your
Re: (Score:3)
cut the space heater by half, and make that kia 40mpg, and drop about 40 cents from gas .... i would end up spending about a buck thirty more for the volt
never mind the kia is paid for, and the volt, while not offering much of anything more cost twice as much
Real experience (Score:5, Informative)
My best ever all electric range is 51.3 miles. My worst ever is 33.5.
My engine does not turn on ever unless the temperature is below 25F or the battery is at the designed lower limit of state of charge.
The car handles and drives wonderfully. I have, in 13,500 miles, rotated the tires. I will have to change the oil in a couple years. My lifetime average mpg is 158 mpg. Because I changed to a time of use schedule I have a lower electric bill now than I did before buying the car.
Hippocrates says "There are two things, knowledge and opinion, one of which makes the possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant."
Re:Well, this is going to piss off the Republicans (Score:4, Interesting)
"no real benefit other than being able to run for short distances at low speeds on the battery"
Low speeds, huh? I wish I'd known that when I was blasting down the highway earlier this evening in my Volt, purely electric. Top speed: 101 MPH*
Please mod parent down, just more of the usual misinformed opinio-crap. And if you have mod points, please look for other garbage posts like this and mod them down too. Wish I had some mod points today.
In the meantime, chew on this: http://wardsauto.com/commentary/why-innovation-dying-america [wardsauto.com]
* I didn't go that fast, I stayed down at a safe speed. 101 MPH is the published top speed of the Volt, regardless of which mode it's in.
Re: (Score:3)
Blah Blah, Republicans Bad, Volt Good...
It has to be the republicans trying to destroy it. It couldn't have anything to do with it being a lackluster vehicle with crappy specs not quite designed for the market it claims.
Protip: If I'm paying $40k for a car, I'm not in a position were "money savings on fuel" are an issue. I want to show off my environmentalism chops, and I can't do that with a jonny-come-lately Prius when full electrics like the Leaf are out.