Chevy Volt update: Congress wants more; others notice shift to nanophosphate li-ion cells

The heat is rising and the cause isn’t a crashed battery pack catching on fire.

As part of the hearing by a U.S. House’s subcommittee hearing on the Chevrolet Volt’s post-crash fire at a NHTSA test facility earlier this year, three Republicans have sent a letter to General Motors CEO Dan Akerson asking for more details on just what happened between the original crash test (which took place in May and June) and the first public discussion about the incident (which didn’t come until November). The heart of the matter: “In light of the public outrage over Toyota’s delayed disclosure, why did GM fail to disclose safety deficiencies with the Volt for five months?” GM is being asked to respond by December 21. Merry Christmas!

In other “news,” people are noticing that GM is using “less volatile” nanophosphate lithium-ion batteries from A123 in the upcoming Spark EV. The reason this is getting traction now is that this chemistry is less likely to
spark
burn than what’s in the Volt. This change was announced in early October and it must be bittersweet to A123, which lost out on supplying batteries for the Volt back in 2009 to LG Chem’s cells that use lithium metal oxide/manganese cells.