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I happened to be flicking channels on the tv yesterday and caught a story on the Volt. They said that at least 33 Volt owners have already asked for replacement vehicles. Considering how few Volts have been sold, 33 is a fairly significant number. They also said that GM is considering redesigning the battery.
I have a good design idea for GM:
Last edited by Wilson513; 06-18-2012 at 10:02 AM..
What is surprising here is that people are surprised. After the rash of exploding notebook computers a few years back, people might have thought about the wisdom of trying to run a car on the same kind of batteries that can detonate your laptop. As John Hockenberry wrote in a Wired article in 2006, "The technical term for these bizarre incidents is thermal runaway. It occurs when the touchy elements inside a Li-ion battery heat up to the point where the internal reaction accelerates, creating even more heat. A sort of mini China Syndrome of increasing temperature builds until something must give. In the case of a laptop flameout, the chemicals break out of their metal casing. Because lithium ignites when it makes contact with the moisture in the air, the battery bursts into flame." Hockenberry predicted that things would only get worse, as more is demanded of a battery technology that is at its practical limits.
Ever since there have been automobiles, there have been people who have fixated on electric cars. They've been predicted to take over the market nearly every few decades since the turn of the last century. Like diets that work, they're better seen as "tomorrow's technology of tomorrow."
I don't understand what the big fuss is about a couple batteries exploding in extreme, mythbusters level of hypothetical testing.
Thought experiment:
let's say that in the early 1900s when cars were brand new, battery powered cars won out over gas car and turbine cars and coal powered cars. The batteries got better every few years, and by 2011 they were really good and efficient, but we were running out of, who cares..., lithium. Batteries started to become too expensive, so people turned to other existing technologies to try to make a better car.
So GM takes a battery-powered car and puts a spiffed up, but unrefined (compared to electric, with its 100 years of advancements through R&D) new gasoline engine in a car instead of the standard electric motor.
EVERYONE THINKS THEY ARE INSANE because they are putting 20 gallons of EXPLOSIVE LIQUID that is what they make NAPALM out of in a car WITH MY KIDS IN IT! They also expect us to go back to the stone-age and start mining the earth for explosive liquids that can eat through some plastics, are fatal if swallowed, will ignite if you answer your cell-phone around them, etc. This liquid is so dangerous you can't even have a refilling station at your house.
And guess what happens every once in a while when one of their gasoline prototype cars gets in an accident. IT STARTS ON FIRE.
.....................
I think people forget that normal cars are BOMBS FULL OF NAPALM. We ruin the environment driving them, If you think of the "alternative" as the norm for a second, and consider the norm as a possible alternative IT SOUNDS STUPID to have gasoline tanks in your car or in an enclosed space like a garage.
I give the Volt 24 months. It will be a classic in out time because it is DOA. GM will cancel sales on the Volt within two years. I said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merc63
They are selling at GM anticipated rates, and the fire hazard is blown way out of proportion (most people have no problem driving a rolling gasoline bomb)
I'm cornfused. Are the sales still on track or has something changed?
Wait? Is that a picture of one of the "melted" cords? Is it me or did this guy plug his volt into a $1.99 3 way splitter from home depot? The cord probably didn't melt it was likely the splitter running higher amperage through it then it was designed.
There is a reason why Christmas lights with plugs on either side have fuses so when idiots use things improperly a fuse blows before a fire starts.
I cannot believe anyone would plug a volt into something like that. Hell same thing could have happened with a golfcart.
Sent from my autocorrect butchering device.
Also cords liquifying from heat? What happened to these people's breakers?
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