GM, NHTSA Delayed Volt Warnings To Prop Up Sales 344
Lauren Weinstein excerpts the most interesting part of a BBC story about the safety hazards associated with the Chevy Volt — specifically, the risk that its battery pack could catch fire after even a minor impact. While it might be unsurprising that GM was reluctant to shout out safety warnings that would dampen early sales of its much touted hybrid, according to the linked story the NHTSA was as well, and for the same reason: "Part of the reason for delaying the disclosure was the 'fragility of Volt sales' up until that point, according to Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA."
What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't have the Government criticizing a Government Motors product now, can we? Especially if it's GREEN!
Ohhhh shit (Score:2, Funny)
RIP once more, electric car. Dig you up in 20 years once the fallout of this conspiracy washes away. :-(
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Informative)
This is getting blown way out of proportion.
See this article for another view: http://www.economist.com/node/21541395 [economist.com]
Specifically the last paragraph:
"What is left unsaid in all this is the fact that conventional cars with a tank full of petrol are far greater fire hazards than electric cars will ever be. Some 185,000 vehicles catch fire in America each year, with no fewer than 285 people dying as a consequence. But, then, people have been living with the hazard of petrol for over a century. Irrationally, electric-vehicle fires are perceived as somehow more worrisome simply because they are new."
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It's true. My gasoline-powered cars catch fire all the time.
You are half-right, though. From what I've read the Volt's battery is supposed to be drained after a crash to ensure it can't catch fire... which must be great fun for people who are responding to the accident.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:4, Interesting)
It's true. My gasoline-powered cars catch fire all the time.
I've only had one [kuro5hin.org] catch fire, and it wasn't even in a wreck. The difference between gasoline cars catching fire after a wreck and electric cars catching fire after a wreck is that the gas car will burn immediately, while it will take a week for the electric car. Nobody has died in an electric car fire (yet), but a lot of people have died in gasoline fires. Look at Pintos and Crown Voctorias.
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I've owned a Panther (Grand Marquis), and you wouldn't believe the abuse that thing could take. A Civic totalled itself rearending me at a stop light, managing to break the bolts retaining the plastic bumper cover.
Besides, how many of those Vics were police cruisers hit on the highway?
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true. My gasoline-powered cars catch fire all the time.
You are half-right, though. From what I've read the Volt's battery is supposed to be drained after a crash to ensure it can't catch fire... which must be great fun for people who are responding to the accident.
A more pertinent question is whether the responders feel safe using the jaws of life on an electric car. Unless every emergency responder is required to learn where the various power conduits in every vehicle are located, or unless industry standardizes locations on a vehicle, you could add a bit of extra shock when you're trying to tear someone out of the car. So far there's relatively few models and most keep all of the high current stuff all under the hood, but it's not impossible that the battery will be up front with individual electric motors per wheel, or a motor in the back, or perhaps the electric heater might be located in the passenger compartment...
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Informative)
Emergency responders have been trained with regards to where the high voltage cables run from the battery pack to the motor (or motors, as is the case with the Toyota hybrid systems). The cables are bright orange, and are automatically disconnected from the high voltage battery pack by physical contactors upon a sufficient impact.
http://barryfeinstein.com/InTheNews/2011/11/12/avoiding-electrocution-dedham-firefighters-learn-hybrid-ropes/ [barryfeinstein.com]
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That's why the issue is handled within the vehicle. Hard enough impact? Physically isolate the battery pack from the rest of the electrical system. Jaws of life to your heart's content.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh I know. Just like I know that nuclear power is actually relatively safe. But the fact is that electric cars (more specifically giant lithium batteries) are a technology that people are antsy about, and now there's been an accident (fully preventable if they followed the instructions of course), and a cover up. What do you think's going to happen?
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Informative)
This is why nuclear is a bad option. It's ridiculously expensive because of the risks, massive redundancy needed and of course spent fuel storage for centuries. It will be necessary for another 50-100 years unfortunately but we'll get off it as renewable sources and battery tech gets better. They simply don't have the risks that nuclear will always have.
You mean like hydroelectric? [wikipedia.org] (171,000 people dead from one accident, if you didn't click the link. I believe that is at least one order of magnitude more than have died, in totum, from nuclear accidents.) Other hydroelectric dams could kill at least that many again if they fail. Hydro failures are generally even more catastrophic than even the worst nuclear disasters have ever been. They also produce far more power than other renewable sources.
Solar is more dangerous than nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
It gets even stranger: more people have died from solar energy [nextbigfuture.com] accidents (mostly, falling off roofs while installing panels), than have died from nuclear accidents. Of course, ordinary facts can never overcome irrational fears...
For those who don't want to click on the link, the most dangerous (by far) is coal (including deaths due to pollution). Nuclear is the safest. The stats are based on deaths/TWh, and the authors gives lots of references.
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And yes coal is far and away the most dangerous. But that's a different danger, those dangers are from normal operation. You 'could' filter out the CO2 emissions and other pollutants and blast open pit mines everywhere and pretty much all the coal dangers go away. It would make it considerably more expensive though.
We choose not to do that because the dangers of coal are long term, not i
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1. Spent fuel for a nuclear reactor is currently still mostly fuel. At least you only mentioned centuries - after the first century or so for the waste of reprocessed fuel, it's no longer that much more dangerous than many other things you'll find in the ground.
2. CO2 sequestriation for coal power is *EXPENSIVE*. It takes something like 1/3rd the power production of the plant to do it, so they're less efficient.
3. Trivia fact: Fukishima operated safely for decades, and was an older plant than either C
Re:Solar is more dangerous than nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes coal is far and away the most dangerous. But that's a different danger, those dangers are from normal operation. You 'could' filter out the CO2 emissions and other pollutants
The irony is that burning coal has released far more radiation into the air than has been released by nuclear accidents
Fun trivial - If you extracted the trace uranium from 1 ton of coal, it can be used in a nuclear reactor to produce more power than burning the coal provides..
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The area wiped out by the Banqiao Dam accident was ~ 34 by 9.3 miles (over 300 sq miles), and created temporary lakes as large as 4,600 square miles, flooding thousands more. It would be easier to have a 100 sq mile safety zone around a nuclear plant, then to have no dwellings down-river from a dam. Especially since dams need to be built in specific areas. Nuclear plants have certain requirements too (water for cooling, for example) but are much more flexible where they can be built.
Cleanup is easier, true
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I think it is also partly the invisible nature of radiation.
You can watch a dam burst, you can see a flood coming, you can see the smoke from a chimney, and believe (probably wrongly) that you can react or avoid the consequences.
But with nuclear radiation, you don't know it is there, you don't know how much dosage you have received, and what it will do to you.
I think people fear the unknown more than the known.
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Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Insightful)
to me it isn't so much as because it's "new" but rather because it is delayed.. in a normal car wreck if you have a fire it happens then.. not 3 weeks after the car was repaired.
I'd agree there is zero worry if it takes a puncture of the battery pack to cause this as that should be caught in inspection before it is sent out as repaired. what does bother me is the chance of it happening with the battery pack only experiencing a physical shock with zero outside indicators of damage. I want to know the real % chances of that happening.. if it is 50% then we have a problem.. my bet though is this isn't really an issue..
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Funny)
to me it isn't so much as because it's "new" but rather because it is delayed.. in a normal car wreck if you have a fire it happens then.. not 3 weeks after the car was repaired.
Right, I'd much rather have the fire break out while I'm trapped unconscious and injured in my vehicle immediately following an accident.
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Yes, but now that we're all aware that there's a delayed risk of fire, that risk can be managed appropriately. I have no doubt there will be cases where a battery puncture goes unnoticed and leads to fire that kills someone later. There are also cases where fuel hoses fail, generally without prior warning, and spray gasoline all over a hot engine block. Both events are theoretically preventable, and can be managed with proper inspections, but we all know mistakes happen.
Having personally been in an acci
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I think part of the reason it was blown out of proportion was that a cover-up attempt was made. Had they come clean immediately and made the point you just made, the story would have died out almost immediately.
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It was a commuter car for the masses.
It was a Reliant Robin for the 21st century, except it cost more than a Honda Civic.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:4, Informative)
RIP once more, electric car. Dig you up in 20 years once the fallout of this conspiracy washes away. :-(
Conspiracy? Please. Try reality.
There's no conspiracy here against electric cars. Compared to gas powered vehicles, they suck. It really is as simple as that. The technology for electric cars just isn't there yet, no matter how hard you wish it. It wasn't a conspiracy that the EV1 failed, and it's not a conspiracy that newer electric cars still stink. There is no laughing fat man in an expensive suit, lighting cigars with $100 dollar bills that's preventing electric cars from taking off. Call the rest of us back when someone makes an electric car that can go as far as a gas car, as fast as a gas car, and has passenger room and a sticker price and operating costs comparable to gas cars. When that happens, people will buy them, and companies will be in one quick hurry to sell them.
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It was a conspiracy FOR electric cars that backfired. I know there's no conspiracy against them (unless I count the spewings of people like yourself, for whom extreme range is the only worthwhile trait of an automobile).
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Informative)
Be a bit more discriminating in your criticisms. Electric drive is awesome. It's way, way better than ICE. No gears, no hunting around for sweet spots in the RPM/torque characteristics, smoother power, far quieter, instantly starts, much more durable, simpler, cheaper, smaller, lighter, needs much less maintenance, and no smelly, polluting, unhealthy exhaust from a tailpipe. Railroads have been using diesel electric engines for decades, for many of those reasons. Having personally used an electric mower (plugin, no battery), I don't want to go back to the combustion engine mower. The advantages are so worth the big disadvantage of being tied to an extension cord. I've worked out ways to cope with that; it's not that bad.
The batteries are the problem with it all. The gas tank is by far the simpler, cheaper, faster, and more durable energy storage method. If we ever get batteries or fuel cells sorted out, the combustion engine will very quickly become a quaint relic of the past.
Or perhaps we could figure a way to electrify our roads. Works for subways.
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Why do you say range? Why not top speed, cornering ability, acceleration, wade depth, shinyness of paint or any other arbitrary metric?
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Because "range" is what you engage in transportation for - to get from A to B.
Speed isn't really important, because it's capped by speed limits anyway, so as long as your car can reach the speed limits, who cares?
Cornering ability is mandated by law - if your car sucks so hard at cornering, it won't get approved to drive on public roads. As long as it meets the minimum standard, who cares?
Acceleration is likewise unimportant for the actual purpose of transportation. As long as it's not totally ridiculous, h
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Range? Because I drive 600 miles on a semi-regular basis, with my family in a fully loaded sedan. No Electric Vehicle comes even reasonably close to this.
It isn't arbitrary metric, it is a real world metric. Top Speed (Assuming you mean 150 MPH, not 35MPH) is not a real world metric, when was the last time you drove your car at its rated top speed (top gear, petal to the metal)?
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IIRC something close to 90% of people need a range of less than 40 miles/day. Most people will be making 600 mile trips less than once a year and could easily be serviced by a rental or the average US households second vehicle. You could replace about half of all US cars or more with electric vehicles without preventing households from making those rare long distance trips.
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Many of which electric cars fail at too. They are poor at top speed (lower continuous peak power, typically limited by battery discharge rates and thermals) and cornering ability (heavy - look at a Tesla vs. Elise). They're way more costly, because batteries are expensive. And they're not going to get cheap, because lithium ion batteries already have economies of scale. EVs have great off the line acceleration and are quiet, but that's about all that's going for them.
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I think he meant the conspiracy in TFA. That is, the fairly scandalous cover up of a safety hazard by a government agency to shore up a company's sales.
I wonder which low life official got a corporate back hander for that one.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Informative)
Except I don't think it's true.
"Part of the reason for delaying the disclosure was the "fragility of Volt sales" up until that point, according to Joan Claybrook, a former administrator at NHTSA.
"NHTSA could have put out a consumer alert," he said, according to industry website"
A) Joan Claybrook hasn't been with NHTSA since 81
B) That blurb really makes no sense where it is in the article. It looks like it was added later. Sloppy writing, to say the least
C) The got her gender wrong. Again sloppy. Maybe a typo.
D) The writer makes everything alarmist, and intentional uses alarmist phrasing.
Conclusion: I can't really trust the author or this article.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Informative)
My primary car is an electric car, the Nissan LEAF. The price is comparable to other cars and the ride quality and low noise while driving is better than just about all vehicles out there except luxury vehicles. Fuel costs are half the price of the most efficient gas car on the market, the Toyota Prius at about $0.04 / mile compared to $0.09 / mile. Compared to your typical gas car fuel costs are 1/4 to 1/3rd the cost.
Top speed is over 90 mph, more than fast enough for any public highway and seats up to 5 passengers comfortably. Instant torque when you press the accelerator can't be beat by any internal combustion engine.
The only drawback is somewhat limited range and long recharge times, but after 6 months of ownership it's only prevented me from using the LEAF once - but with a DC quick charge station in some strategic locations it wouldn't have been an issue.
Electric cars are here now - Nissan has sold over 20,000 LEAFs so far this year - the best selling EV in the world - and they still don't offer it in all 50 states here in the US.
Will the current crop of EVs work for all people? No - and I certainly wouldn't recommend the LEAF for those that don't. There are plenty of hybrids out there that get great fuel economy and the plug-in hybrid Volt is a great way to minimize your gasoline consumption if you suffer from range anxiety.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Call the rest of us back when someone makes an electric car that can go as far as a gas car, as fast as a gas car, and has passenger room and a sticker price and operating costs comparable to gas cars. When that happens, people will buy them, and companies will be in one quick hurry to sell them.
Really? You want a new technology to match or beat EVERYTHING of the old tech right now, including the price? If everyone had your attitude, we'd still be using CRT TVs. The first plasma displays were ridiculously expensive and performed worse than CRTs (worse contrast ratios).
But over time as people began to adopt them, R&D and economies of scale improved so that their performance as well as price improved. Its an iterative process fueled by the gradual increasing support of the new technology. Electric cars cannot match ICE cars now at every metric. No new tech can, cars or otherwise.
But electric cars could easily have a place in society. Most daily driving IS short distance runs. Even most commutes are under 50 miles one way. And many households have more than 1 car. Its conceivable to own 1 electric car for the daily short runs and keep the gasoline car for the occasional long distance hauls. I think as a whole, gas consumption would be reduced significantly. I know for my situation, it would be reduced 95% at a huge cost savings.
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They might suck for you, but there are those of us (like one of the people that replied saying they have a LEAF) who would love to be able to buy an electric car today because they perfectly match our requirements.
I'm happy to admit they're not for everyone. I know people that live an hour away from the office and commute every day. One of them is in my office (here in .au), one of them is my uncle who lives in Pacifica, CA. Both of them live where they do because they like the location and don't mind the d
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Unfortunately it will take a better company than the welfare case GM to build one that is any good.
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Shouldn't cars be fusion powered in 20 years?
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Electric cars are NOT shit now
Yes they are.
and would be less shitty than ICE vehicles given a decade or two of development.
Electric cars have had more than a century of development and they're still hopelessly inadequate compared to ICE cars. That's why our great-grandparents dumped electric cars as soon as the ICE came along.
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More than a century of development? They were basically forgotten between the late 1800s/early 1900s and the '90s.
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More than a century of development? They were basically forgotten between the late 1800s/early 1900s and the '90s.
Yes, because they were crap in the 1800s and nothing has changed to make them less crap today.
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Electric cars are NOT shit now
Yes they are.
and would be less shitty than ICE vehicles given a decade or two of development.
Electric cars have had more than a century of development and they're still hopelessly inadequate compared to ICE cars. That's why our great-grandparents dumped electric cars as soon as the ICE came along.
Electric cars are shit only if you mean they are "the shit". http://www.teslamotors.com/ [teslamotors.com] Just because some companies make less than stellar electrics, doesn't mean all do. News flash, many (most) companies make gas cars that are shit as well.
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A Tesla costs more than twice as much as the Elise on which it's based without the performance. Why is it the shit?
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How are they "hopelessly inadequate"?
Do you mean "in all possible scenarios", or do you just mean in your own, limited opinion?
They are excellent for short range commuting from a home base, especially a commute with traffic, they are terrible for hauling your boat across 6 states.
Just because you personally can't see them as useful does not make them hopelessly inadequate.
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How is wanting hydrogen cars anti-environmental when they are far greener than these battery cars both to make and refuel?
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Because they are something between "far off" and "impossible." Like saying "I'm glad we got rid of this wind farm, better to work on cold fusion anyways!"
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A handful of concept cars with performance comparable to an electric. But the cars are no problem compared to the "hydrogen economy" they require.
Re:Ohhhh shit (Score:5, Interesting)
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How is wanting hydrogen cars anti-environmental when they are far greener than these battery cars both to make and refuel?
Hydrogen powered cars are a pipe dream primarily due to the poor volumetric energy density. Per pound, it's about 3 times more energy dense, but even at dangerously high compression it takes up 6-times more room. You simply can't safely store enough energy in the vehicle to get a decent range. Think a leaky battery is bad, try popping a contain at 10,000 psi. I won't even get into the lack of an existing distribution infrastructure.
Hydrogen (compressed at 700 bar = 10,153 psi )
123 megajoules/kg
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Hydrogen doesn't "escape through solids" any quicker than gasoline evaporates out of your tank
Depends on the tank (and gas cap seal) I suppose, since it escapes faster than helium:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium#Gas_and_plasma_phases [wikipedia.org]
Really? Show me a good electric car at a price and performance comparable to the equivalent gasoline car. Show me a good electric vehicle that doesn't take hours to charge. Please, do. It's O.K, take your time.
Do I get to compensate for the additional cost of gas that the ICE car requires? If so, I'll put forward the Mitsubishi i, which can charge to 80% in half an hour with a quick charger and costs in the low-$20k range. Compare with any other tiny economy 4-seater.
Failure then (Score:2)
Depends on the tank (and gas cap seal) I suppose, since it escapes faster than helium:
Oddly a gasoline tank with holes in it will leak too. Imagine that, you need a tank that holds the material you are trying to contain.
Do I get to compensate for the additional cost of gas that the ICE car requires?
I'll put forward the Mitsubishi i, which can charge to 80% in half an hour with a quick charger
Fail. When you need a car now, 1/2 hour is unacceptable. You may as well take the bus.
Compare with any other tiny
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Show me a good electric car at a price and performance comparable to the equivalent gasoline car.
Well, to be fair, Hydrogen cars are going to be 'electric'. You don't BURN the hydrogen, you use a fuel cell.
This is one issue most people conflate. 'Electric' vs 'Hydrogen' is like 'Internal Combustion' vs 'Gas'. They aren't always the same things. We need more cars like the Volt in the sense that the propulsion is electrically powered. We can provide that electricity now via on board gas generators and switch to batteries or hydrogen fuel cells when they mature but we need to get the cars 'runnin
Can we get a /crackpot bin for crap like this? (Score:2, Insightful)
How does a crackpot theory like this make the front page? What's next JFK assassination theories or little green men tucked in freezers in Area 51?
Just a little bit of professional editorial work, that's all I ask.
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Calling this a "crackpot theory" is just plain naïveté. All of human history, including American history, is rife with this type of corruption.
Re:Can we get a /crackpot bin for crap like this? (Score:5, Informative)
However you spin this "crackpot theory", it remains that the Obama administration has a peculiar list of priorities which often show up in ugly ways.
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No, I'm a real person, not an astroturfing drone. I just happen to be a real person that is tired of crap conspiracy theories. This is supposed to be a geek site, not an x-files are real site!
Re:Can we get a /crackpot bin for crap like this? (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary is only referencing a BBC story. You don't get anymore mainstream than the BBC.
Slashdot is a news aggregator, and you can't really blame them for taking headline tech stories from probably the largest news service in the world.
government should have sold its shares already (Score:4, Interesting)
and took the loss to get it off the books. Then perhaps we could have been freed of these shenanigans. I know, I know, yeah it would have tanked the share price and cost other investors money but those investors purchased their shares knowing full well that government had no long term investment need.
Instead we see politics as usual. From having GE (no taxes, many WH meetings) agree to buy a large number of these cars, we have the Toyota witch hunt earlier this year (even NASA's help could not find fault), and we have the battery issue where three batteries caught fire (one three weeks after a wreck, one a week after a simulated wreck, and one hours after a simulated wreck)
We have GM sitting on nearly thirty billion in cash, hell they should buy their shares back. Oh wait, they are sitting on it because there is a fear they won't be able to properly fund the pensions for certain unions.
The reason this battery issue is important is not just to those driving, but to those in the accident with these cars and those responding to the accidents. Whether they are first responders or the wrecker crews. I would have to assume there is a large amount of technical documentation for hazardous waste clean up, hell we freak out over diesel spills can you imagine full penetration of one of these battery packs?
Another Administration and no real change; unless you count whose pockets the money goes in, it always comes out of ours.
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can you imagine full penetration of one of these battery packs?
We're getting pretty close to rule 34 [xkcd.com] territory with that statement.
Fireproof, I guess (Score:2)
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Usually when you crash your car and it's going to catch fire it happens relatively soon. With the Volt it can look fine after a crash and then a few weeks later burst into flames in your garage.
The Adobe! (Score:2)
The cute little car that's made out of clay!
Excuse me? (Score:2)
Just where does it say "a minor impact?" For the battery to start a fire, it has to be punctured, and that is no "minor impact." In addition, the fires that occured in the NHTSA test happened days and in one case weeks after the crash test.
Compare this to the infernal fireball that you get seconds after you puncture a gas tank.
The only place a Volt will catch fire is in the scrap yard after it has been totaled provided that some moron didn't discharge the battery before throwing it on the scrap heap.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Informative)
Compare this to the infernal fireball that you get seconds after you puncture a gas tank.
Dude, you should watch less action movies.
Hint: in the real world, gasoline cars rarely explode when you fire a pistol at them.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, you should watch less action movies.
Hint: in the real world, gasoline cars rarely explode when you fire a pistol at them.
Not only that, but even shooting a full tank with tracer rounds will not make the tank explode. The heat and pressure needed to make a tank of gas explode is found more commonly in Michael Bay films than it is in an auto accident. Unless of course everyone started driving Pintos again
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The problem, as I understand it, is that gasoline isn't very flammable in liquid state. Yes, you can get it to burn, but it's kind of hard to do that. In its gaseous state, however, nicely mixed with O2, there's a strong propensity for going boom (to paraphrase Marvin the Martian). Liquid gasoline in a tank isn't much of an explosion hazard. Finely misted or vaporized, and appropriately dispersed gasoline is another issue entirely.
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Anything more-or-less flammable when powdered can become really nasty once dispersed in air. Gasoline has the properties of being
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Dude, you obviously haven't studied crash safety.
Let's look look at a famous crash test from the 1970's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgOxWPGsJNY&feature=endscreen&NR=1 [youtube.com]
I don't mean to single out the Pinto. It was, in fact , typical of many 1970's cars which had fuel tanks mounted behind the rear axle. Cars today are much safer.
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But certain cars explode easily when they're in an accident. Ford's Crown Vic and Pinto, one of Chevy's pickup trucks. As to the 1/4 tank of gas, it won't explode but when it leaks all over the pavement and there's a spark there's no "boom" but there certainly is a WOOSH. Personally, I'd rather be killed instantly in an impact or by shrapnel than slowly roasted over a gasoline fire.
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Compare this to the infernal fireball that you get seconds after you puncture a gas tank.
Dude, you should watch less action movies.
Hint: in the real world, gasoline cars rarely explode when you fire a pistol at them.
There are quite a few auto accidents that involve puncturing the gas tank and the leaking of said fuel that don't involve fire. Just like standing behind your car door won't protect you from gunfire, busting the gas tank doesn't automatically mean a fireball. IIRC, I've read before that most auto fires were caused by either electrical problems or lubricants on/in the engine block catching, not the gas tank itself. Even electric cars have lubricants, and of course, they darn sure have electrical systems.
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Nonetheless, giant fires do happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrollton,_Kentucky_bus_collision#NTSB_Summary [wikipedia.org]
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Nonetheless, giant fires do happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrollton,_Kentucky_bus_collision#NTSB_Summary [wikipedia.org]
According to the link, it took 4 minutes before the bus was fully engulfed and that a big part of the problem was lack of emergency exits (since the front door was damaged). I think anyone can agree that given minutes a vehicle can be filled with fire, but not in seconds like Howard Roark suggests.
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Not so. For a battery to start a fire (your words), it need not be punctured. All you need to do is draw more current than the wiring is capable of carrying. Wires heat up, and then you get a fire. However, if you discharge the battery at a rate greater than the battery is designed for it is possible that it may explode or catch fire. Generally they just swell up.
And you do not always get a fireball when you puncture a gasoline take either - an ignition source MUST be present to ignite gas.
Double standards (Score:5, Interesting)
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As hard as it may have been to reproduce. The error did exist.
I experienced it myself. Not from pressing down a petal, but as I lifted my foot UP from the petal, my Prius began to accelerate.
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Toyota. Funny name that. Almost sounds... foreign. Not like General Motors.
Of course, Chevrolet is a French name.
What's that other little American transportation related saying? Something about Boeing?
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A there was a problem. Toyota even fixed it.
Joan hasn't been involved with the NHTSA for 30 years. Also, I can only find what appear to be an out of context quote.
Electric Pinto? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Cool, another Pinto, but electric this time. I'm sure the story is overblown, but anything that stores energy is going to be a fire risk.
Must be why we've heard so much about all those Soapbox Racers with their stored kinetic energy going up in flames.
Oh, wait...
Strat
Just so you know (Score:2)
Joan ClayBrook was head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981
30 years ago.
So,it's an opinion from someone who has no insight to the details.
Re:sales dampened themselves: the car sucks (Score:4, Informative)
I hear Europe has a ton of diesel vehicles a ton with much better fuel economy. We can trust GM to not screw up diesels right? I mean how hard can it be. People have been making diesel engines for a hundred years.
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I hear Europe has a ton of diesel vehicles a ton with much better fuel economy. We can trust GM to not screw up diesels right? I mean how hard can it be. People have been making diesel engines for a hundred years.
I'm not sure whether you're implying that American car makers just suck in any case, or if you're making that case that American car companies are suppressing electric car sales. Since so many are assuming the later, I'd like to address that argument in the context of your example.
OK, assume for a second that A)Europeans make better cars in general, and B)European diesel cars prove a conspiracy by American car companies to stifle non-gasoline car sales.
Where are the European electric cars, then? Why aren't
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Yeah, but with a little work they can. AND, they will still be more economical. Also a hell of a lot more reliable.
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VW, Mercedes and BMW would take issue with that (incorrect) assertion. The sole reason most manufacturers don't sell their diesel cars in the US (this includes GM and Ford) is the perception that Americans won't buy them. A lie that should have been put to rest by the success of VW with their newer common-rail TDIs.
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Re:sales dampened themselves: the car sucks (Score:4, Informative)
You can put out fires with diesel - it doesn't like to burn at atmospheric pressure.
I drive a turbo diesel minivan that gets 53 mpg (44.1 US mpg) and find it very nice to drive - the performance stigma that has been attached to diesel has been mostly eradicated with modern engine designs and clever turbo and engine management computers. You get similar performance to petrol engines but much better mpg and you can tow yourself along in traffic by just lifting the clutch. The extra torque is lovely.
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With the addition of spew carcinogens out the pipe. Yes, even in ultra low sulfur mix.
Citation needed since you're full of shit. Diesel produced more carbon in the output (the black cloud you sometimes see) but it has far less toxic components than burning gasoline. That's why diesels don't require a catalytic converter.
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This is according to the plans of the Big 3 in trying to protect themselves from foreign imports, and is a direct harm to the consumers and breathers in the US.
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European diesel vehicles can't pass US environmental standards.
False. The current diesels on sale in European models *do* pass the US environmental standards.
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How did the sales make themselves wet?
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GM badly bungled the execution of this vehicle, making a tin-can low quality econobox into a $40K car that nobody wants.
They should never have let this guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F [wikipedia.org] - design the thing
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Is GM, a company that's been around over 100 years, truly this incompetent? Or is this whole progression -- design, execution, tax credits, coverup, part of a larger plan?
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Canyonero!
YEE-AH!
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Same issues occured when the auto industry 1st got it's feet wet. This is new-tech AND for certain is the next place to go in terms of automobiles.
Electric cars are not new tech. They are tech we abandoned a century ago because the ICE was vastly superior.