GM to replace 120-volt charging cords on Chevy Volt

General Motors said on Thursday it will replace the 120-volt charging cords for most Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid cars.

The exchange affects all 2011 model plug-in electric hybrid Volts and some 2012 models, GM spokesman Randal Fox said.

He did not know the total number affected, but said it was fewer than the more than 11,000 Volts sold so far. The car sells for just under $40,000 before federal subsidies of $7,500.

Yahoo Autos first reported the swap, citing consumer complaints about overheating cords. However, Fox said the exchange was not to address overheating.

"It's just an effort to offer a more consistent charging experience," Fox said. "It's not a safety recall. It's more of a customer-satisfaction program.

"We made some enhancements to the design to add some durability and reliability," he said. For example, GM increased the cord's cable size to enhance durability, he said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation on Nov. 25 into the safety of the Volt's battery pack after its own repeated tests uncovered fire risks.

The fires occurred after NHTSA crash tests or other tests where the car's lithium ion batteries were purposely damaged.

NHTSA closed its probe in January without finding any defects and expressed satisfaction with GM's fix to better protect the lithium-ion battery pack by adding steel reinforcements and other steps to prevent coolant fluid from leaking and triggering a fire.

Some felt the probe was unnecessary, but the Volt has received outsized attention despite its small sales totals as many Republicans have criticized the car's sales and the federal subsidies its buyers receive.

GM idled the Volt assembly plant in Michigan for five weeks due to weaker demand.

GM CEO Dan Akerson in January said the Volt got "disproportionate scrutiny" because it had become a surrogate for election-year politics and commentary on Obama administration policy.

GM has showcased the electric car as the centerpiece of efforts on fuel efficiency and cutting edge technology.

Volt owners will be notified of the exchange in the next few weeks and as they bring in their cars for the battery enhancement they will also receive the new cords, Fox said.

The new cords will not change recharging time and the exchange does not affect the 240-volt cords, he said.

Chevy's Volt draws GOP scorn as campaign heats up

Republican Lutz angered over 'lies' about the car, damage to GM

Ever since it became known that the plug-in hybrid car's batteries had caught fire weeks after government crash tests, the Volt has become the whipping boy of Republican politicians. Conservatives have equated General Motors Co.'s Volt with everything from government bailouts to radical left-wing environmentalism.
"Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag," GM CEO Dan Akerson said during a Congressional hearing on the Volt in January. "And that, sadly, is what the Volt has become."
Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faulted the Volt for its lack of space for a gun rack. Front-runner Mitt Romney called it "an idea whose time has not come." American Tradition Partnership Inc., a conservative group, referred to Volts as "exploding Obamamobiles."
Akerson said all the trash talk about the Volt has been pinching sales. Obama's challengers, though, see it as an effective way to resonate with their voters.
Republicans buy Silverado pickups and other Chevrolets in greater numbers than Democrats do, said Art Spinella, who studies new-vehicle buyers as president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore.
While Chevy customers tend to lean conservative, less than 14 percent of Volt buyers so far this year identify themselves as Republicans while about 53 percent call themselves Democrats, according to CNW survey of 1,416 people. Buyers of the Chevrolet brand as a whole were 37 percent Republican, 22 percent Democrat and 41 percent independent.
Disappointing sales
Politics aside, Volt sales have been a source of disappointment for GM. The Environmental Protection Agency gave it a 95 mpg rating for city driving, less than half the 230 mpg rating GM had anticipated in 2009.
After the battery fires became public in November, 2011 sales fell short of Akerson's goal and following slow sales in January and February, GM decided to stop making the cars for five weeks. While the government's investigation found the Volt to be as safe as other vehicles, they are complicated and expensive for a small car at nearly $40,000 before a federal tax credit.
Nissan Motor Co.'s Leaf electric car missed its sales targets last year, too, raising questions about the size of the market for technology-laden fuel-efficient vehicle.
BOB LUTZ BLOG ON FORBES.COM: The Chevy Volt, Bill O'Reilly And The Postman's Butt
Republican bashing
It's impossible to know to what degree political rhetoric is hurting Volt sales, but Akerson isn't alone in believing the numbers would look better without the Republican bashing. Chevrolet dealers in the U.S. sold 7,671 Volts last year, missing GM's target of 10,000.
About 1,600 Volts were sold in the first two months of the year, a pace that doesn't match Akerson's plans to deliver 45,000 in the U.S. this year. At least part of that gap is a result of attacks on the campaign trail, Spinella said. Buyers from the political center to the right, "will not buy a car that has anything at all that they perceive being associated with the administration," Spinella said.
While the Volt accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the world's largest automaker's sales last year, it is getting heightened attention because "it's a hallmark car," Akerson told reporters in San Francisco this week. After the announcement last week that work would stop for five weeks at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant where the Volt is made, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, posted on Twitter about it with the hashtag "#ObamaonEmpty."
The Volt, introduced a month before Obama said he would run for president, can go more than 30 miles on electricity before its gasoline engine kicks in and powers a generator to recharge the battery. The car has a range of 379 miles with both electric and gasoline power combined.
Lutz outraged

Bob Lutz, the former vice chairman at General Motors who helped develop the Volt, said he's angered that the car has become politicized.
"I don't mind criticizing Obama, I don't mind criticizing the Democrats and, you know me, I think global warming is a huge hoax perpetrated by the global political left," Lutz said. "But when it comes to starting to tell outright lies to advance your political purposes and damage an American company that is greatly on its way back, hurt American employment in Hamtramck, Michigan, I just think it's totally outrageous."
Lutz, a Republican, said he voted for former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in the Michigan Republican primary in part because former Massachusetts Gov. Romney wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times in 2008 headlined "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" about his opposition to a GM bailout.

Obama's role
After President George W. Bush extended emergency loans to GM's predecessor, Obama's administration managed its $50 billion bailout. The U.S. still holds 32 percent of the GM shares, which have gained 26 percent this year after falling 45 percent in 2011.
Obama has embraced the Volt's fuel-saving technology and said it's his choice for a new car once he's no longer president.
"It was nice," he told a UAW audience on Feb. 28 about sitting in one. "I'll bet it drives real good. And five years from now when I'm not president anymore, I'll buy one and drive it myself."
U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who owns a Chevrolet dealership in Butler, said he doesn't sell the Volt at his store because it's too expensive for his customers, who would be better served with a cheaper Cruze. While it may be an engineering marvel, it's too far out for his customers, he said.
"It's still just not a viable alternative to the market that I serve in western Pennsylvania," he said. "I just don't have people coming in to buy that car."
Social issues

The Volt not only personifies the bailout for Republican candidates, it also plays to other controversial issues such as class and environment. On the campaign trail, for example, Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker, has peppered his stump speech with comments about the Volt, including during a stop Feb. 17 caught by C-Span.
"The average family that buys it earns $170,000 a year and this is Obama's idea of populism and in his new budget he wants to increase the amount given to every Volt buyer to $10,000, which is an amount which would allow a lot of people to buy a decent secondhand car but it wouldn't be an Obama car," Gingrich said to cheers in Peachtree City, Ga.
"But here's my point to folks: You can't put a gun rack in a Volt. So let's be clear what this election is all about," Gingrich continued. "We believe in the right to bear arms and we like to bear the arms in our trucks."
The Volt "can do a lot of things," including tote a gun rack, responded Selim Bingol, vice president of GM's global communications, on a company blog. "But if you are looking for a vehicle for your next hunting trip, it may not be your first choice."

GM will stop making slow-selling Volt plug-in for 5 weeks

General Motors Co., missing sales goals for the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, plans to halt production of the sedan for five weeks beginning later this month rather than discount the high-technology cars. GM will stop making Volts at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant from March 19 until April 23, Chris Lee, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail March 2. The factory had ramped up to full-speed production Feb. 6 after the New Year's shutdown. While sales of the Volt in February more than tripled from a year earlier to 1,023, the rate is below what's needed to meet Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson's goal of 45,000 deliveries in the U.S. this year. GM missed its target of 10,000 Volt sales last year, finishing 2011 with 7,671 deliveries. "This move is to keep proper inventory levels," Lee said in the e-mail. GM executives have said publicity surrounding a two- month federal investigation into the safety of the Volt following a fire publicly revealed in November had hurt the car's sales. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in January that the Volt poses no more fire risk than other cars. "Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag," Akerson said during a Congressional hearing on Volt in January. "And that, sadly, is what the Volt has become."

GM shares

GM shares have gained 30 percent this year through March 2, after falling 45 percent in 2011. The company surpassed Toyota Motor Corp. as the world's largest automaker last year when it earned a record $9.19 billion. The U.S. Treasury Department sold 28 percent of GM in its November 2010 initial public offering and still holds 32 percent of the automaker's shares, acquired as part of the Obama administration's $50 billion bailout. The U.S. wants to sell for at least the $33 a share IPO price, people familiar with the matter have said. GM sold 1,626 Volts through the first two months of the year in the U.S. Detroit-based GM planned to make 60,000 Volts this year for worldwide distribution, with three-quarters of them earmarked for the U.S. market. Akerson promised in January that GM would "match production with demand." The model, rated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as getting the equivalent of 94 miles (151 kilometers) per gallon of gasoline, starts at $39,195, excluding destination charges, and qualifies for a $7,500 U.S. tax credit.

Insufficient demand

"The fact that GM is now facing an oversupply of Volts suggests that consumer demand is just not that strong for these vehicles," said Lacey Plache, chief economist for auto-research website Edmunds.com. "The price premium on the Volt just doesn't make economic sense for the average consumer when there are so many fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars available, typically for thousands of dollars less," she said in an e-mail. News that GM planned to reduce Volt production resulted in further criticism about the vehicle. "Even as gas prices continue to climb, President Obama's attempt to manipulate the free market and force consumers into purchasing electric vehicles like the GM Volt has failed despite the use of taxpayer dollars to prop up production," U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement.

GM's blueprint for Volt 2.0

Volt teardown shows GM designed car for upgrades

The Chevrolet Volt stands as the most heavily promoted -- and harshly scrutinized -- vehicle from General Motors in decades. And that's just version 1.0.

Amid the debate, one aspect of the Volt has escaped the notice of fans and critics alike: the roadmap for potential upgrades GM left buried deep inside.

A bolt-by-bolt, surgical deconstruction of the Volt attended by Reuters without the involvement of GM showed how the plug-in hybrid was designed for relatively quick upgrades such as a longer driving range under electric power.

By leaving what amounts to a blank slate at the heart of the Volt's complicated electronic controls, GM has cleared the way -- if the Volt succeeds -- for the quick improvements more common in consumer electronics than the slower-moving auto industry, analysts said.

The glimpse of GM's ambition for future versions of the Volt comes at a make-or-break moment for the vehicle, designed to provide 40 miles of pure-electric driving range before a gasoline-generator kicks in to keep it rolling.

CEO Dan Akerson sees the Volt's electric-drive technology as an area where GM leads rivals like Toyota Motor Corp. and has pushed to drive it into other vehicles so it can start to make money for the U.S. company.

The Volt is one of the first mass-market electric cars. It differs from its closest rival, the Nissan Leaf, by having a gasoline-powered engine to provide additional driving range once the battery is spent.

Toyota has a competitor to the Volt, a plug-in version of the Prius, coming later this spring.

GM has a lot riding on the success of the $40,000 Volt because of its status as a "halo" car meant to lure consumers to the Chevy brand and prove a once-stodgy automaker can be cutting-edge.

The Volt has been on sale in the United States-since December 2010, but only about 9,000 have been sold. A now-closed U.S. safety investigation after battery fires had threatened to overshadow the car's positive publicity and derail GM's plans to take it to overseas markets including China and Germany.

Analysts who watched the Volt's dissection in a suburban Detroit warehouse said GM left unused space on its circuit boards for more computing power to improve performance in future models. The Volt design also suggests a development plan for other GM electric vehicles, they said.

"They're reserving a lot of this real estate for future development so that they can easily put more components on here if they want to," said John-Scott Thomas, a senior engineer at UBM TechInsights, holding a circuit board from the Volt's battery pack.

Opening the battery

Over three days, engineers for Munro & Associates took apart the Volt at the consulting firm's Troy, Mich.-based warehouse headquarters. They catalogued every step of the process, removing almost 600 parts, including doors and seats until they reached the car's heart -- its T-shaped, 400-pound battery pack.

These kinds of teardowns are standard behind closed doors in the industry as automakers attempt to reverse-engineer rival vehicles, but Reuters was invited by UBM and chip industry publication EE Times, which performed a similar deconstruction in 2007 on Toyota's Prius, the top-selling hybrid car credited with lifting the automaker's reputation for fuel economy.

GM engineers and a key supplier acknowledge they had the future in their plans from the beginning with the Volt.

"This heavy emphasis on advanced electronic systems management was a deliberate program priority," said Bob Lutz, GM's former vice chairman and one of the executives who championed the Volt's development in 2006 when GM was under fire and slipping toward bankruptcy.

The Volt's circuit boards point to the next steps in the vehicle's evolution, said analysts at the teardown. They also expect GM to apply Volt lessons to future vehicles like the all-electric Chevy Spark planned for 2013.

"This is, without a doubt, the most advanced board I've seen General Motors put out and it's got room to grow," Munro CEO Sandy Munro said. "This is hot stuff."

Holding up a circuit board with 32-bit Freescale Semiconductor chips from the Volt's inverter, UBM's Thomas called it "more of a development board. This is their first pass.

"There are places here where you can see that it looks as though you should be able to put an integrated circuit and there's nothing there," he said. "They might already have plans to add that in at a future date."

GM officials say they are already working on improvements. "We do want to try and design more performance in the car, maybe get a little more EV range for our money," chief Volt engineer Doug Parks told Reuters.

Double the firepower

The Volt is already chock-full of technology, sporting about 20 Freescale chips or double the number in a more typical car with only an internal combustion engine, Mamta Patel, manager of Freescale's GM team, said in an interview. Freescale and Japan's Renesas Electronics hold about two-thirds of the $23.6 billion global auto chip market.

Freescale executives said GM engineers were conservative with the Volt layout as the automaker raced to bring the plug-in hybrid to market.

"They didn't have as much time to do as many redesigns," Freescale auto field engineer John Cotner said. "Risk reduction was a more important factor than it is in a lot of vehicle design."

Cotner said Freescale and GM for at least 18 months have been looking at the next generation of technology and going to fewer, smaller modules in electric vehicles. Freescale and GM officials declined to say whether Freescale chips are part of the Spark battery.

Parks agreed GM played it safe with the Volt design since the technology is still new and GM wants future batteries, for instance, to be more refined and efficient.

GM has repeatedly defended the Volt's safety since U.S. safety officials launched the investigation in late November studying the risk of battery fires.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed its probe last month, saying the car was as safe as its gas-powered peers and the agency was satisfied with GM's plans to strengthen structural protection for the lithium-ion battery and to prevent coolant fluid leaks that could trigger a fire.

The end of the probe and GM's fix have not quieted congressional Republicans, some of whom have decried the federal $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles.

GM has not backed away from its support of the car and executives say the Volt was not rushed into production.

"It is the most significant step ever in GM's history to give customers a choice beyond oil, a technological 'moon shot,'" GM's Akerson said in a letter published in several newspapers last month after NHTSA closed its probe.

GM will apply lessons learned from the issues linked to the NHTSA probe, Parks said.

"You can be assured that on Spark (battery electric vehicle), we're going to make sure we do lots of testing and let batteries sit around in cars after crash tests and make sure we don't have any coolant leakage," Parks said.

More detail on the Volt teardown can be seen at UBM Electronics' website dedicated to the car, www.driveforinnovation.com.

Chevy Volt fire probe is closed, NHTSA says

U.S. safety regulators said today that they've closed an eight-week investigation into the Chevrolet Volt, concluding that the plug-in hybrid's battery doesn't pose a significant fire risk following a crash.

In a statement, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it "does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles."

The agency said that modifications intended to reinforce the Volt's 435-pound lithium-ion battery pack that General Motors announced on Jan. 5 should "reduce the potential" of the pack catching fire in the days or weeks following a crash.

In November, NHTSA opened an investigation after two incidents in which the Volt's battery pack either caught fire or emitted sparks in the days or weeks following crash tests.

An earlier battery fire occurred in June, three weeks after the agency completed side-impact testing on the Volt.

GM reaction

In a statement, GM said NHTSA's decision to close the investigation "is consistent with the results of our internal testing and assessment." The automaker reiterated that the change it's making to protect the battery pack "is intended to make a safe vehicle even safer."

The agency's clearing of the Volt helps GM avert a potential hit to its image. The automaker's executives have held up the revolutionary car as a symbol of innovation and fresh thinking at the post-bankruptcy GM.

Despite broad praise for the car, U.S. sales of 7,671 Volts last year fell short of GM's goal of 10,000 units.

GM executives cooperated with NHTSA's investigation but have maintained that the Volt is safe. Company executives say the voluntary fix will make the car "safer" by reinforcing the steel surrounding the battery pack to prevent it from being punctured during a crash. It also will add a sensor to the battery pack to monitor coolant leaks.

GM is asking its 8,000 Volt customers to visit their Chevy dealership to have the work done. Dealers will be ready to perform the work starting in February, GM said.

GM said that about 250 Volt owners have taken GM up on its offer to provide loaner vehicles or to buy back the car to quell any safety concerns during the probe.

Testimony still to come

NHTSA said it still is unaware of any real-world Volt crashes that have resulted in a battery fire. It said the agency took the "unusual step" of opening the investigation because it wanted to "ensure the safety of the driving public with emerging [electric vehicle] technology."

A U.S. House panel hearing is scheduled on Wednesday to scrutinize how GM and regulators handled the investigation of the fire risks. GM CEO Dan Akerson has agreed to testify.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is also expected to hear from David Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

PRESS RELEASE: NHTSA Statement on Conclusion of Chevy Volt Investigation

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released the following statement today regarding the conclusion of its safety defect investigation into the post-crash fire risk of Chevy Volts (PE11037):

Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed its safety defect investigation into the potential risk of fire in Chevy Volts that have been involved in a serious crash. Opened on November 25, the agency's investigation has concluded that no discernible defect trend exists and that the vehicle modifications recently developed by General Motors reduce the potential for battery intrusion resulting from side impacts.

NHTSA remains unaware of any real-world crashes that have resulted in a battery-related fire involving the Chevy Volt or any other electric vehicle. NHTSA continues to believe that electric vehicles show great promise as a safe and fuel-efficient option for American drivers. However, as the reports released in conjunction with the closure of the investigation today indicate, fires following NHTSA crash tests of the vehicle and its battery components—and the innovative nature of this emerging technology—led the agency to take the unusual step of opening a safety defect investigation in the absence of data from real-world incidents.

Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles. Generally all vehicles have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash. However, electric vehicles have specific attributes that should be made clear to consumers, the emergency response community, and tow truck operators and storage facilities. Recognizing these considerations, NHTSA has developed interim guidance—with the assistance of the National Fire Protection Association, the Department of Energy, and others—to increase awareness and identify appropriate safety measures for these groups. The agency expects this guidance will help inform the ongoing work by NFPA, DOE, and vehicle manufacturers to educate the emergency response community, law enforcement officers, and others about electric vehicles.

For additional information on the Volt investigation and others, visit www.SaferCar.gov.