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Will Lappy Fires Burn GM's Volt?
The Chevy Volt, which is set to roll onto American roads in 2010, has been met with cautious optimism so far. But a spectacular new laptop fire in South Korea has apparently been raising safety questions for the vehicle. You see, the laptop and its battery were manufactured by LG, one of two companies behind the development of the Volt's battery packs.
Edmunds.com Green Car Advisor tells us that concerns over thermal runaway in lithium-ion batteries, which the Volt will have in spades, has caused at least one automaker to hold off on the technology.
Recurring incidences of lithium-ion battery fires in laptops is what led Toyota Motor Corp. to delay introduction of the new battery chemistry for its hybrid-electric vehicles – most notably the best-selling Prius – it was reported earlier this year.But the Volt – and by association, its potential battery suppliers – is particularly under the microscope because of GM’s full-speed-ahead charge to develop the flashy plug-in hybrid in record time.
This has also affected the airline industry. Starting New Years, the TSA instituted new rules for carrying spare lithium-ion batteries for your gadgets in checked luggage.
Luckily, it appears that battery packs from Compact Power, an LG subsidiary, and A123 Systems are different from laptop batteries in some fundamental ways. And new, more automated manufacturing processes will minimize the most common cause of exploding batteries: contamination.
Update: Wired's Autopia blog reports that GM has been stress testing early versions of the Volt's batteries and so far things are looking good. Thermal runaway doesn't appear to be an issue thus far.
Before you start talking about li ions, perhaps you'd better learn what's what. LG makes many, many batteries for many different purposes. The
batteries for the GM Volt neither look nor act like laptop batteries. No other automaker is avoiding electrically propelled auto because of fears of thermal runaway (although Toyota used it for a while as an excuse for not continuing their plug-in program, which they have now resumed, I might add), because, quite frankly, no one is worried on thta score since we've moved past the 1st generation li ions batteries (now obsolete for automotive appliacations). Perhaps the guy who wrote this article should learn about current battery technology before picking up his pencil and making a fool of himself. Both battery packs developed for GM's VOLT are not (and virtually cannot) subject to likely thermal runaway. There is no absolute guarantee that it will never happen, but gasoline fires haven't stopped any automaker from using gas engines, now have they?
Whoa there! Just encouraging some discussion on the subject. GM would never allow a LiOn death machine to hit the road, that's a given.
You'll find no bigger fan of the Volt if/when it hits Chevy dealers. Provided, of course, that GM keeps the quality/design momentum going ('08 Malibu, Caddy CTS...).
Exploding laptops, though, not a fan :)
I think the laptop perception that is going to sink the Volt is the lifetime of the battery. We have a decade or more of data to show that NiMH batteries can last a long time in hybrid vehicles; we have no long-term data about Lithium Ion batteries. If buyers are aware of the different battery types, they probably won't be afraid of explosions, they will be afraid that the $10,000 battery pack in their Volt won't last more than 5 years. Batteries are the least-reliable and most difficult issue with hybrid cars; and the Volt is much more dependant on batteries than a non plug-in hybrid.
I have my doubts that a Volt will be more successful than a Prius. I don't know how much a Volt will cost, so I don't know how much the extra battery capacity in the Volt will cost. Assuming the extra cost is $8000 (the Volt is supposed to cost $30,000 and a Prius can be had for $22,000), and gas costs $3 a gallon, you could buy 2667 gallons of gas for the extra cost of the Volt battery. The Prius can easily go 120,000 miles on that amount of gas; and since the Prius is a PZEV vehicle, burning gas in a Prius is just as green as driving with grid-charged batteries.
GM better develop very cheap and reliable batteries if they hope to convince people to buy a Volt rather than a Prius (or any other PZEV vehicle with good mileage).
"Assuming the extra cost is $8000 (the Volt is supposed to cost $30,000 and a Prius can be had for $22,000), and gas costs $3 a gallon, you could buy 2667 gallons of gas for the extra cost of the Volt battery."
Gas will not remain at $3.00 a gallon so your point in time cost analysis is flawed. Even if gas did not rise above the $3.00 mark, I will buy a car like the Volt that will remove the need to buy any gas for my daily commutes. Why would I pay a price premium for the car? Because I do not want to double fund a war. I do not want troops being treated like the slavery era where a class/group of people has to give their lives so this country (USA)and Europe can have stable gas prices so thoughtless people can drive gas hogs. Why would I want to fund enemy Oil states that seek our destruction? In the early days of the war there was conversation about what citizens could do to help with the war. The answer is buy plug-in hybrids, convert our transportation system to electric. Pity, our leaders couldn't point us in that direction. We have no leaders.
The above is part of the reason why I will buy a plug-in like the Volt no matter where gas prices are at.
It's a moral, security and good stewardship issue.