Monthly Archives: January 2012

Enhancing the Volt

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By Mary Barra
GM Senior Vice President Global Product

I wanted to share some developments with you about our response to the NHTSA investigation into the Chevrolet Volt resulting from a fire several days after a severe crash test.

If you’ll remember, NHTSA began testing the Volt battery after one of the vehicles it crash tested in May caught fire three weeks after the test. Testing and analysis revealed the fire was the result of a minor intrusion from a portion of the vehicle into a side section of the battery pack. The intrusion resulted in a small coolant leak inside the battery, approximately 50 ml (one-quarter of a cup) of fluid.

Over the past few weeks, GM engineers have completed development and validation on a set of proposed enhancements and shared them with NHTSA staff.

We ran a series of internal tests and all successfully resulted in no battery pack intrusion or coolant leakage, thereby eliminating the chance for a post-crash electrical fire for this test condition. Continue reading →

Ten Facts About GMC

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Get to know a little bit more about GMC, one of GM’s longest-running brands.

  • The GMC name turns 100 years old in 2012. In 1912, Rapid Motor Vehicle Company was merged with two others – Reliance and Randolph – to become GMC.

 

  • On August 1, 1909, a Rapid F-406-B – a GMC predecessor – was the first truck to reach the 14,110-foot summit of Pikes Peak.

 

 

  • If GMC was a standalone manufacturer, it would be the tenth-largest automaker in the United States in terms of total vehicle sales from January to November of 2011.

 

 

  • GMC built some of the world’s earliest electric vehicles from 1912-1917. These trucks had single-digit model names, each denoting load capacity, from one-half-ton to 12 tons.

 

Continue reading →