Chevy Volt Declared Safe. Conflict Of Interest?

Just giving this a read over. Can the government declare this problem safe being it practically has a stake in GM?

"DETROIT (AP) — The government ended its safety investigation into the Chevrolet Volt on Friday after concluding that the Volt and other electric cars don't pose a greater fire risk than gasoline-powered cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began studying the Volt last June after a fire broke out in one of the cars three weeks after it was crashed as part of safety testing. Two other fires occurred later related to separate safety tests, and NHTSA opened an official investigation into the vehicle on Nov. 25.

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. The company has sold around 8,000 Volts and 4,000 are still for sale. GM is repairing the vehicles for free. NHTSA didn't order the recall, as it sometimes does after a safety investigation.

GM said Friday that NHTSA's decision to close the investigation is consistent with the results of its own internal testing. It said the steel plates will provide additional protection and minimize fire risk in the days and weeks after a crash.

NHTSA said Friday that it "continues to believe that electric vehicles show great promise as a safe and fuel-efficient option," and that based on available data, electric cars don't appear to be riskier than gas-powered ones.

But the agency said electric cars do have some specialized components, and the agency has developed guidelines for firefighters and other responders on how to handle electric cars after a crash."

The gasoline powered cars they were comparing it's safety to was obviously the Ford Pinto.

Jokes aside, I haven't really taken the time to read what the problem by the Volt is, I just know it's not exactly being upheld as the world's safest car right now.. Then again.. I don't really give the general public much credit when it comes to new technology.. You're dealing with some pretty damn big battery cells here, and any minor problem people have had with batteries in the past is going to be amplified.

I really wouldn't be surprised to find out people are doing things that are specifically warned against, and that is the problem.. Again, I haven't really bothered to look it up, doesn't concern me that much.

electric cars are still new. there are bound to be problems. but all in all, one would assume an electric car poses much less safety hazards than that of a regular combustion engine vehicle. i think that eventually when technology catches up, that these will be a much better commodity than regular vehicles. but for now until these companies work out the kinks this is bound to happen.

also, lolchevy.

if i were to buy an electric vehicle it would most definately be a Tesla.

the enemy to any electronics is heat, you add heat to an electric car and you probably will have a fire, as for an explosion via the battery cells idk.

you have a short and a fire will typically happen, but if they installed the proper measures they would be much safer than a gasoline powered vehicle, like an electrical fire foam or some *** (thinks of Demolition Man in police car crash)

To be fair, the combustion engine has been being perfected and improved upon for a century now.. In their first decade there were a lot of problems with them too.. The only reason the combustion engine itself is as safe as it is now, is because we've had so long to fix the initial design flaws.. 100 years of identifying and correcting deign flaws. A battery can be as dangerous as a combustion engine.. It's just going to take time to perfect it. (assuming it really ever gets that far.. Some of the materials used are really no more abundant or readily obtainable than oil, unless alternatives are found, we're really at this point just trading off one limited and diminishing resource for another. Only difference being whether you want that diminishing resource to be Oil or Rare-Earth Metals).

it's sad that after using it for so long it is still so inefficient...|

one of the major problems of the energy world today is to build a better battery, much better.

If we actually had an efficient battery it would make alternative energy sources a lot more viable options than they are, not to mention the possibility of harnessing lightning one day /dreams...

If I didn't already have a career path thought out and a goal to achieve I'd attempt to find a much better battery, for a better tomorrow.

Could always just tinker.. Many great men in history never sought out the course that led them to the greatness they achieved.. In fact quite a few of the men who discovered some of the basic building blocks for life as we know it, weren't really even interested unlocking secrets or inventing a technology.. It was just a passing curiosity that for whatever reason, stuck with them, and over years of just playing with this odd curiosity, stumbled upon something truly great.

If you could manage to invent a far more powerful and efficient battery though.. You'd basically have the world at your feet.. The key being the mix of more efficient and powerful.. You can build huge battery banks, but that adds to weight, and you're not really increasing efficiency, just output.

I'd rather not "tinker" with chemistry without knowing at least some what of what I was doing. Maybe before I die though...

Or if there were a way to store energy in a condensed magnetic field, I mean super condensed, while keeping transition losses to a minimum, then maybe...

there's too much resistance in copper though, maybe gold... or a synthetic

exactly my point, look at how far the combustion engine has come from what it used to be. there's no reason why electric cars won't do the same progress wise. specially with newer battery technology on the horizon.

yeah I know we already have transistors etc, but way better, and I had the idea of attempting to possibly use the earth's magnetic field to store energy in and use it, but I just think that's a bad idea.

Don't really want to go messing with the planet we live on...

But yeah we find a way to store energy efficiently we'd be set, as there's enough natural energy in the world to where we wouldn't really need "power plants"

A superconductor, which is another technology many people and companies are working on.. They do exist, they just aren't practical to use at consumer level.. Need a room-temperature superconductor, and one that can be made relatively cheaply.

some MIT kids researching this:


also thought this was interesting:

see I'll be into electrical engineering in a few years (or sooner I hope) I was thinking of attempting to build an entire electric car, while the electronics aren't entirely out of my scope of knowledge, the mechanics and design definitely are, drawing is a foreign concept to my brain so autocad is just about out...

uhh...correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't it require a team of people that specialize in entirely different things to complete a project of that size?

just sayin lol.

Not necessarily, a team of specialized engineers just makes the work go faster.. Technically you wouldn't need to really know ***about electric cars to build one.. But addressing the problems as they pop up is going to be extremely time consuming. Plus the fact that with something as complex as a vehicle, fixes for certain problems are probably at some point going to cause a problem in another aspect, and then you have to find a way to fix both problems..

typically but I like my pipe dreams.

I could see about the size of the vehicle I want and about the total weight would be and figure out the type of engine it would need to have the proper torque etc and have a person (or people) design an aerodynamic frame and a body(obviously) and design it so there's air holes to cool the electronics while still not causing drag (what I remember from studying aerodynamics).

oh the things I could do with Iron Man's computer...

And then when you finish the car, I'm assuming you need some kind of permit to make it legal to drive on public roads.

Was looking at weird cars on google after you mentioned that and found this:



Pretty cool for handicapped people >.>

probably, of course I've always had issues with "car safety blah blah" and them showing you the car smash like an aluminum can on tv.

yeah that doesn't make me feel safe, I want to go through the brick wall and drive away :D

(do realize that the first that I would attempt to design wouldn't have that ability :P )

yeah, I've seen those smaller vehicles before, for city driving a small 1-2 man vehicle is enough for a lot of persons.

most people don't need a vehicle that can hit speeds of 120mph etc

here's the sad thing that comes to mind: "the people's car"

I found this interesting. Looks like cars can be retrofitted with new
technology. Although this seems expensive to to do. 25k according to the site.

I read this and had to laugh cause the company I work for made the battery trays for the volt, and it was sketchy at best the set up we had to make them. We had to give our production set up to AGS automotive cause we couldn't keep up with 5000 parts a week. Oh did I mention our weld cell was made completely out of scrap parts? Lol

As in melted down scrap, repurpoused parts that were whole and just cut and chopped to the right specification or just random sized bits of scrap welded together?

I am so sorry to veer off topic, but...


This disturbs me greatly. As a mechanical engineer myself, what accredited school will allow students to pass through the engineering curriculum without CAD??

only in a 2 year program at the moment, not 100% sure what my next step is, possibly ODU (long distance) not sure if their program requires cad or not, I have the file of their program, when I'm done with this lab I'll check.

edit: it doesn't look like it's required.

but then again some of the course names can be ambiguous as to what they actually teach, so idk

If you are going for an engineering degree, obtain it, and do not know any sort of CAD it will be terribly difficult to find a job in the field. I would suggest you pick up a class on Pro Engineer, it's the most popular program out there at the moment, and we are making the transition to it at my workplace. Best of luck with the program, and stick with it when it gets tough. :)

Edit: typo

Bits and pieces. Was built from parts we got from like 8 different AGS plants across the states. The robots that did the welding were mostly innoprable when we got them. Had to Jerry rig most of the welding equipment to get it to work right, stuff like elastics holding the nut/bolt dispensers in the right place lmao.
Had a few problems of bad welds on studs pop up throughout our production. Since these trays are sealed units it was a major problem, But nothing alittle saulder couldn't fix.