Troubling NHTSA/GM Response to Chevy Volt Fires

National Legal & Policy Center ^ | December 1, 2011 | Mark Modica

[jazusamo]

GM has been saying they'd meet their goal of 10,000 in the sales of the Volt for in this year.

In Business Week it was just announced they sold 1139 Volts in November for a total so far this year of 6142. They better step up their December sales if they're going to make it.

Volt sales

[E. Pluribus Unum]

But let Toyota stub their baby toe and NHTSA is all over them.

[WayneS]

Troubling NHTSA/GM Response to Chevy Volt Fires

"Fires? WHAT fires?"

[jazusamo]

Exactly. They gave Toyota fits for months, hurt their sales badly and then said nothing was wrong.

[SERKIT]

Oil leak in the ocean: Stop all off-shore drilling ASAP.
Nuke plant emergency/urf quake/tsunami: Stop all nuke development.
Stuck accelerator on Prius: Have NASA fix it.
Government Motors Volt/Dolt fires: ....crickets....

[Jack of all Trades]

I wonder if GM engineers are banned from listing “fire” as a potential failure effect on FMEAs. Thermal incident sounds so much nicer.

[CGASMIA68]

hard to sleep at night with one of these potential bombs in the garage

[WOBBLY BOB]

They’re NOT “fires”. GM calls them “thermal incidents”.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[jazusamo]

Yep, and that thermal incident last June not only burned up the Volt but three other vehicles. :-)

[cableguymn]

There are 42 used ones on cars.com and many more on other sites.

How many of them where bought by dealers and used for the rebates?

How many where sold to non government agencies?

[blueunicorn6]

The new VOLT song on their ads - LIGHT MY FIRE

[Daaave]

Cadillac is proud to announce production of the new standard in extended-range electric vihicles.

The Cadillac ELR Coupe is built on the Voltec platform that also powers the Volt.

[jazusamo]

Good questions. Modica, the author of this article exposed the scam of dealers buying from Volt dealers and taking the tax credit.

GM said they have no control over it and it’s technically legal if the person buying from the second dealer doesn’t take the tax credit again.

Of course there was no space on the tax credit form for a vin number. Don’t know if that has changed.

[cableguymn]

http://youtu.be/_h5AOWL0fRE

at least this one did not burst in to flames when it failed.

[jazusamo]

Two months ago or so some GM official said he’d guess that Cad/Volt base price at about $57,000, I’d bet money that’s way too low.

[Charles Martel]

The new VOLT song on their ads - LIGHT MY FIRE

It's a shame, you know... Chevy missed the perfect opportunity to resurrect the Nova model name.

[blueunicorn6]

PBS probably threatened to sue.

[Mark Modica]

Jaz, I checked draft for 2011 form. Field for VIN is there, hopefully as a result of my suggestion. I spoke to an auto journalist back when the story broke who claimed IRS knew of the issues. Journalist did not want the info publicized.

[jazusamo]

Thanks for that info. Looks like IRS took care of their goof but didn’t really want their goof to be known by everyone. Can’t say as I blame them. :-)

That was good work exposing that scam and probably saved taxpayers a fair amount of money in possible double tax credits on a single Volt.