Pushing the Panic Button:  Why the Perceived Volt Fire Fiasco is an Industry Problem
Aaron Bragman, IHS Automotive

In recent weeks, it has come to light that there have been a handful of post-crash test vehicle fires with General Motors' new extended-range electric car, the Chevrolet Volt.  At the time of this writing in mid-December, details were still being investigated by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and GM, who by all accounts are working at a fevered pitch, hand-in-hand, to determine why one Volt's battery pack caught fire three weeks after it underwent an extreme side-impact test – a test that then involved putting the car on a rotisserie post-crash, rotating it upside-down to see if anything leaked, and then parking it in a lot for weeks, undisturbed, without draining its powerful lithium-ion battery of its stored charge. Three weeks after it was crashed, it caught fire. Subsequent attempts to duplicate the situation were unsuccessful for months, until GM crash-tested battery packs themselves, and was able to duplicate the fire in one instance.  There have been no incidences of consumer problems, and surveys have shown Volt owners to be actually some of the most satisfied customers on the market. 

Yet the media, which has been looking for an opportunity to connect electric cars to electric fires for a long time now, picked up on the fears of a public still largely ill-informed about the nature of electric cars.  Any house fire that had a Volt or a Nissan LEAF in the garage was immediately front-page news, regardless of where in the country it occurred, in the odd chance that the car was the culprit.  EVs are big black boxes, they do not work like normal automobiles do, and they may as well run on magic as electricity, for as much as the majority of the public understands their operation.  That ignorance on a market-wide scale has shown up in the U.S. Congress as well, where the Volt crash test has now been used as a political tool by some to further bash "Government Motors" and the thus-far successful government rescue of the American auto industry.  Proof can be found on right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh's website, where the image of a Volt in flames is transposed with a modified Obama campaign logo.

And this, the irresponsible politicization and media-generated hysteria surrounding the very real engineering issue faced by the Volt, is extremely serious.  It is serious in that its implications for our industry are potentially huge — the EV industry is still in its nascent infancy, and just about everything to do with EVs is still largely uncertain and unpredictable.  What is the real public demand?  What price is too pricey?  What range is too short?  How many seats does a successful EV require?  All of these uncertainties were known well before questions began being raised by uninformed parties as to vehicle fire safety – now we can add those questions to the pile for EVs.  Given the massive investment at the OEM and supplier level in this technology however, it is the industry's responsibility as much as GM's to become vocal about the realities of EVs, instead of allowing perpetuation of myths and fears.  Realities such as the risk of dying in a fiery explosion in an EV versus a gasoline-powered vehicle (carrying 100 lbs. of liquid explosive) might be somewhat different.  If our industry remains quiet, and allows ill-informed fear mongering to overtake the push toward electrification of the market, the effects will be widespread – and not just limited to General Motors.

Aaron Bragman can be contacted at Aaron.Bragman@ihs.com.