New Battery Warranty for Chevy Volt Owners
The Chevrolet Volt is giving its extended range electric vehicle customers a great deal with an eight year/100,000 mile (whichever comes first) warranty for its lithium-ion battery. The battery pack has some 161 components, nine modules and 288 cells. The warranty is offering coverage for all the parts. The battery is basically made up of Chem. cells by LG but almost 95% of other battery components have been designed and are manufactured by GM. The thermal management system, electric drive system and the charging system also come under the warranty coverage.
Essential warranty features:
As per the standard warranty, the Volt is capable of operating in diverse climates – from low -13 °F to a high of 122 °F and driving conditions; a fully charged battery over a range of 340 miles a fuel tank supplementing the lithium-ion battery. Monitoring is done for optimal battery functioning – safely, smoothly and continuously.
Various tests including “Shake, Bake and Roll:”
The battery had undergone quite a few tests like for corrosion, impact, water submersion, crush and penetration and swings in temperature from one end to other end of the spectrum and the special “Shake, Bake and Roll” drive cycles. There are some thousands of tests and conditions met by the team in developing and validating the batteries.
Setting a precedent:
Validation has been done by the engineers for over one million hours of testing for each of the battery components. The warranty clauses look so good and attractive that almost all the other manufacturers would have to offer competitive deals to attract customers.
Changing over from petroleum dependency:
As Micky Bly, Executive Director, GM Global Electrical Systems puts it, “Our customers are making a commitment to technology that will help reduce our dependence on petroleum. In turn, we are making a commitment to our customers to deliver the highest standards for value, safety, quality, performance and reliability for an unprecedented eight years/100,000 miles”.
Bright future for EV/PHEV users:
This warranty from GM is greatly encouraging for the EV/PHEV users as much as the Nissan’s effort at fixing the price for EVs/PHEVs at a low point that will hopefully result in more people opting for EV/PHEV in the future. Especially if these vehicles keep up performances level with the promises meted out by the manufacturers, more people will gladly become EV/PHEV users.
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July 26th, 2010
“capable of operating in diverse climates – from low -13 °F to a high of 122 °F ” – this might be ok for California and Florida, but is not good for the Northern States and Canada where it commonly gets to -30 °F and even much colder than that.
July 26th, 2010
Range, reliability, price, and ease of use is what will ultimately make or break the EV market. However, if one’s carbon footprint is a deciding factor, the prospective buyer will need to know the source of the grid’s electricity. If it is coal, you’ve succeeded in only substituting one source of pollution for another.
Here is a link to a video clip I used in my class recently on Toshiba’s new Super Charge ion Battery (SCiB): http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/video/62961F73A3BD49C3CC2574D5006C22BF
The battery is scalable well beyond the realm of laptop battery. SCiB’s could become the battery of choice for EVs.
August 7th, 2010
Isn’t GM the same bunch of clowns “Who Killed the Electric Vehicle”?
August 10th, 2010
“Isn’t GM the same bunch of clowns ‘Who Killed the Electric Vehicle’?” No, this is Obama Motors, they run by politics, not by market forces or technology.
August 16th, 2010
So I think an eight year old or 100,000 km warranty very well. Maybe this helps the heel of the vehicles is increased significantly and the market is growing faster.
Regards from Hamburg ( Germany )