General Motors Scheduled To Investigate Chevrolet Volt's Role in Fire At Barkhamsted Home

lol... no.

Toyota owns company that builds batteries, period. They already installed lines for 100k/year of Li-on batteries.

What does battery chemistry have to do with factory anyway?

 

So you are going to be putting lithium electrolyte in your mouth?

Frankly, I have no idea what Li-ion batteries chemistry is AFTER it has been through a fire (I was merely answering the question asked). Do you?

"If overheated or overcharged Li-ion batteries may suffer [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_runaway"]thermal runaway[/ame] and cell rupture. In extreme cases this can lead to combustion." - wikipedia

 

Oh look, Ad hominem arguments. Cool.

Since you didn't answer my question, I will assume you are at least as ignorant as I on the subject of the chemistry of Lithium ion batteries which have been exposed to a fire.

 

I can only assume it is still primearth ev. Toyota owns 80% and panasonic I believe owns the other 20%.. Toyota upped their stake when panasonic bought sanyo for lithium technology. The batteries in the production packs may be using some of this sanyo technology but details are not known yet.

It was in answer to the perception that toyota was not lithium because it is unsafe. Lithium chemistries are safe. Toyota has a vested interest in Nimh and owns those factories. They could be converted but this costs money. If toyota was not vertically integrated with PEV switching costs would be much smaller.

On the other topic, I can only assume that damaged lithium batteries can smolder once they are damaged. Just like gasoline, batteries should be made safe after a fire. I assume that the volt's batteries are not the cause of the original fire.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011...did-not-cause-garage-fire/UPI-61741303249138/

 

so you are suggesting that toyota is putting false info out there so to protect their investment? thats beyond ridicilous... Toyota already has largest capacity to produce li-on batteries out there .

you are also suggesting that toyota has to invest more since they already have nimh producing factory? Thats also quite wrong - imagine an engine building plant. Is it cheaper to build one from 0 to to change existing one to build different model engines?

also fact both GM and Toyota are using "lithium-ion" batteries does not mean anything at all... from chemistries to battery pack design, they could be totally different.

 

I doubt.. there is a circuit breaker after all. If load exceeded 15amp it would click off.

 

I agree, that's just ridiculous. It takes time and planning to engineer, test and secure lithium supply for mass production.

My understanding is that something went wrong with Toyota's lithium plan. It is not the lithium chemistry they picked. It was tested and proven. The thing that went wrong was the last step - mass production. I think it turned out, automotive grade lithium battery cost does not scale down much with mass production.

With the challenge from the lower cost Honda Insight II, I believe Toyota decided to stay with NiMH and delayed one year to introduce the Gen3.

 

I didn't mean to piss in your oatmeal, but how do you know about this huge capacity. AFAIK Nissan, LG, and JCI-saft all are producing more lithium automotive battery packs each month today. Nissan is building more capacity than any other battery maker. Can you point to the press release saying Toyota has this capacity. I am not even sure if tesla or toyota will actually produce more lithium kwh capacity in toyota cars next year. Tesla is providing them for the rav4.

I'm not sure what your question is. Yes toyota will need to spend more to produce lithium batteries than continue to produce nimh packs. They have repeatedly said this in annual statements and press releases. Yes, it is often easier to switch suppliers than to take a hit on current investment. This is one of the problems with vertical integration. Vertical integration makes companies adapt to changes slower. GM used to be the slowest and most vertically integrated company. They have been forced to change this.

Absolutely. But it is ridiculous to believe the old statements from Toyota, given their change in direction. I do not believe that the LG chemistries are unsafe. GM, Hyundai, and Ford are using them. I will change this opinion based on facts, but not on old Toyota statements that they have since changed.

Absolutely it takes time. What is ridiculous?

Nissan, Tesla, and GM have disagreed with Toyota on pricing. All have said their costs are much lower. Recently with the Sanyo aquisition, toyota now says they can greatly reduce costs by 2015. So from this we can assume toyota's in house development was as toyota was saying. We should not take their past statements about costs or reliability to apply to other battery manufacturers.

I'm not sure what that has to do with lithium being safe. It had to do with toyota's own costs and reliability. WSJ said that Toyota found some problems in development. This could have to do with manufacturing process and/or chemistry. I can not substantiate that story, but here is a tidbit from a little later explaining toyota would be buying lithium from a future partner.

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/toyota-will-buy-lithium-batteries-sanyo-26026.html

panasonic has since bought sanyo. If Panasonic EV had great confidence in their design and were expanding this much why not just add another 10K lithium capacity as part of the upgrade?

Why do you think the volt battery exploded causing the fire?

 

1. It is cheaper for Toyota to start lithium-ion production than for GM. Wait, GM does not produce their own batteries anyway... so cross that.
2. Toyota is first automotive company in the world that has moved to buy their own supply of lithium. Yes, they have formed JV with mining company.
3. Toyota's own reliability goals have nothing to do with GM. This has been track proven for last 30 years.
4. Toyota has consistently stated that it doesnt make sense to use li-ion for standard Prius due to various issues including costs.

Lets just compare new Civic Hybrid with lithium batteries and Gen3 - which gets less mpg and costs more?

5. Toyota has started their own production of lithium ion batteries with 100k capacity per year, which no other manufacturer can match:
UPDATE 3-Toyota to make lithium batteries for hybrids-Nikkei | Reuters


p.s. I am not convinced that the fire was started by Volt at all... I was surprised that it rekindled 5 days later, from battery pack and I find that extremely serious issue.

 

If that is the case, it will be very easy for a rookie fire marshall to determine.

 

spwolf,

You seem to not be checking what toyota actually has been saying and doing. I googled for the historical unsafe article.

Toyota Delays Next Hybrids on Safety Concerns - WSJ.com

The article also clearly says that gm is using different technology, and this problem at toyota gives gm a chance to get the volt out first. Toyota had been planning the prius phv for end of 2010 and slipped it.

Toyota has consistantly said that their cost is $1200/kwh. GM has consistantly said their purchased cost is under $800/kwh. Do you think toyota is lying about their costs? Nissan and GM goals for the near term are costs bellow $600.

Um, ok, they have expanded into another business outside their core competency. What does this have to do with the actual batteries.

yes, but you are saying that toyota's problems are gm's. GM picked the best supplier it could find. Toyota has had problems. Why would you attribute these problems to gm.

see historical article above. Toyota did say and design the gen III for lithium. It ran into safety concerns with its design according to the article above, and had to redesign and delay the introduction. Most analysts assume the generation IV prius will be lithium. Your own facts say that toyota is trying to build lithium capacity.

The volt and leaf are different than the civic. don't confuse them or battery cost. Nissan is building capacity to build 500,000 larger battery packs a year. Google is your friend. You should not assume that toyota is ahead of everyone else when they themselves say they are not.

What is serious? Smoldering pack from old fire. It needs to be investigated, but gasoline cars blow up all the time. The fire department needs to make sure everything is out. No one got hurt so we can let everyone take their time to investigate what really happened. Now do you have a quote from toyota saying the lg or nissan packs are unsafe or unreliable?

 

Yes, it was supposedly tested in the fire but Volt failed in this real-world test. I have not review Volt's emergency response guide. It'll be interesting to see the current procedure in the case of fire.

 

austingreen - you are referring to some article which is factually wrong, and makes general references to lithium safety.

Gen3 Prius was certainly not supposed to launch in 2008 and that article would be first we ever heard of them using li-on for it... before that, they would have had to start factory for their batteries too which they started talking about in 2010...

You are also putting Toyota and GM on the same level field, which IMHO is wrong. Toyota sold over 3million hybrids, GM sold few thousands. Toyota owns their technology, builds their own batteries, GM buys off market.

Toyota's own concerns with longetivity and reliability is due to different set of standards compared to other manufacturers which is time and time again proven with Prius.


Toyota is currently 5-10 years ahead of everyone else. Stop reading the PR's and look at facts - numbers of cars on the road. Wake me up when GM ships 100,00 Volts.

 

it is pretty dangerous if it can rekindle 5 days later... thats very different from nimh and from gasoline.

whats next - every new hybrid will have their own set of rules and guides for emergency response? There is no way fire depts will be able to deal with that.

 

It's an assumption that it was completely extinguished after the first fire.

 

Well what can I say to that. This was AFAIK the context of the quotes from toyota about lithium being unsafe. They quickly backed away from that. But in context they were only talking about one specific PEV chemistry, not the batteries in general and not GMs batteries, which they were not involved in.

As to lithium never being mentioned in the gen III here is just one of the priuschat threads

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...ium-batteries-in-next-generation-hybrids.html

Here is the refering article

Toyota Confirms 2009 Model Lithium-Ion Prius -- No Talk of Plug But Promises of More Power
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_10/b4024075.htm

Now these are puffery from the CEO from toyota, so they never officially took orders, but toyota was definitely saying lithium. Toyota never said GM's lithium or lithium in general was unsafe.

Further I don't believe there is any evidence from this accident that says that the GM batteries did anything more than smolder as the result of a fire.

 

GM "scheduled to investigate."

When? You would think this is a matter that would get their immediate attention. I know the thread heading is now several weeks old ... but is there an update of findings?

 

You need to wait one more month.

Cause of garage fires involving Chevy Volt to be revealed in about a month — Autoblog Green