GM wants to focus on fixing the reputation of its Chevrolet Volt plug-in vehicle
By Andrew, 24 Jan, 2012. 0 Comments
2011 Chevrolet Volt
Just as federal regulators have ended their investigation into a battery fire, General Motors Co. is focusing on fixing the reputation of its Chevrolet Volt plug-in vehicle. On Wednesday, a panel of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform committee will listen to the testimonies of GM CEO Dan Akerson and David Strickland, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The panel wants to know what their response is to a Volt catching fire on June 6 three weeks after it was subjected to crash tests. NHTSA ended its probe last week as it concluded that electric vehicles are not more likely to catch fire than other models.
An auto analyst -- Alan Baum, principal of Baum & Associates, an automobile-industry analysis company in Michigan -- said that GM would need to repair the image of the Volt. He also said other automakers that offer electric vehicles would have to overcome more obstacles in order to boost sales. He compares it to a report of a person committing murder but the news is retracted the next day with just an apology.
GM spokesman Greg Martin said that the decision of the NHTSA to shut down its investigation was made according to the results of its internal testing and assessment. The NHTSA started to investigate the Volt on Nov. 25, over 5 months after the incident of the tested Volt catching fire after the tests. Government and GM investigators determined that the fire started when the battery coolant leaked in relation to the simulated rollover crash. Volt’s first-year sales suffered after the fire became known. Even Nissan Motor Co.'s Leaf felt the impact of the allegations. These cars are the first electric vehicles offered to the mass market after President Barack Obama established a target of 1 million electric vehicles being on U.S. roads by 2015. [source: Autonews]
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