GM Recalls the Electronic Chevy Volt Due To Battery Fire Issues

January 6, 2012 – The U.S. taxpayer has already subsidized the Volt by $250,000.00 tax dollars per car. And now this. Thanks president Obama! According to reports GM is issuing a recall for their electronic model vehicle the Chevy Volt, due to battery fire issues.

General Motors has issued a recall for their Chevy Volt, which advises the owners of the electronic hybrid to return the cars to the dealers for repairs. The repairs according to GM will lower the risk of battery fires. Government crash testing last year, prompted an investigation into the fires and caused GM engineers to look for a fix for the risk of batteries catching on fire.

General Motors announced Thursday that they are recalling 8,000 Chevy Volts that are on the roads in the United States and another 4,000 that are still currently for sale. The car maker says that the electronic cars are covered under the “customer satisfaction program”.

This program is basically a recall, but allows the General Motors to recall the cars without federal monitoring and bad publicity that can happen when a carmaker recalls vehicles. The Chevy Volt did not sell as widely as the carmaker thought it would, but it gives them the image of being carmaker concerned with being green. This gives GM a good reason to recall the Volt and fix the issues.

According to General Motors North American President Mark Reuss, the plan is to add steel plates to protect the three Volt batteries that during last years government crash tests caught fire. General Motors Product Development Chief Mary Barra stated that adding the steel spreads the force of the crash over a larger area. General Motors and government testing of Chevy Volts that have been reinforced in crash tests worked. Four Volts were used in the testing, which included testing by the National Highway Safety Administration.

The NHTSA stated that the fix should work properly and lower the risk of battery fire. Critics believe that the NHTSA is going easy on GM, since the government owns 26.5 percent of the company. The Obama administration has backed the sale of the electronic cars and is urging car buyers to consider the electronic cars to reduce dependency on foreign oil.