At the time GM Volt executive Tony Pozawatz assured me “we do more tests to our cars and especially the Chevy VOLT than anyone could imagine including some pretty severe potholes on our Milford Proving Grounds and other very difficult road surfaces.”

Whether by coincidence or not, GM decided to put out a highly-produced one minute 30 second video on none other than…pothole testing the Volt (see below).

Here we actually get to see the fascinating Belgium block and pothole test roads at GM’s Milford proving ground.

The track provides “rough road input on various grades,” says a GM engineer.  She goes on to note that since the Volt is really “a giant computer”, its really important to see how rough roads affects the electronics.

The Volts do three laps per cycle and about 200 cycles per test on the track.  The engineer says if the Volt could withstand that, “it could withstand anything you can see on the roads today.”

Let’s hope so.

Besides robustly holding its own on rough roads the Volt is apparently also very endearing.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time in VOLT IV’s lately,” Posawatz tells GM-Volt.com. “The car is very easy to fall in love with and holds great promise.”

We can’t wait to find out.

As the car is technically a mule or prototype, it is not production-ready and has had some issues.  A month or two ago it began popping loudly into neutral whenever the accelerator was floored.  The power electronics control unit was replaced and after that it  almost never happened (it happened one more time). So I’m gentle with the accelerator.

The other day I was driving to work and went over an unexpected construction zone pothole.  The car was jostled and suddenly it went into neutral.  After that it could no longer be put into drive.  Despite turning it on and off and moving the shifter in and out of drive neutral and park several times, that was it, dead.  A tow truck was called and off it went to the dealership for a MINI “flying doctor” to come and repair it. After a few days I found out it was the power electronics control unit again which was again replaced.

This made me immediately realize the importance of extensive testing of new electric cars over rough road conditions, potholes and the like.  With new technology electric cars there may be cables that can simply come out stopping the car dead in its tracks.  Fickle electrical connections andsensitive electronics may be more vulnerable to these effects than mechanical combustion powertrains which have been road-tested for a hundred years.

I reached out to Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz to see how carefully GM was evaluating pothole effects on the Volt prototypes.

He responded graciously:

We do more tests to our cars and especially the Chevy VOLT than anyone could imagine including some pretty severe potholes on our Milford Provings Grounds and other very difficult road surfaces. As you know, the car quite easily navigated up and down Pikes Peak, through the hills of West Virginia as well as Death Valley during the hottest part of the summer (it was 118 degrees when I called once to check on the team).

So although there may be a lot of new electric car startups on the horizon, the Volt may well have as another advantage GM’s long heritage of specialized quality control testing facilities and expertise.  As has been said before, they must get this one perfect.

This extremely blissful absence of gasoline exploding violently in steel chambers is a fringe benefit of EVs.  I can say as a daily EV driver it is indeed a pleasure.

There has long been consideration though to give EVs artificial sounds, primarily for the purpose of notifying the visual impaired, elderly, and children that a car is approaching.  An increase in pedestrian accidents coming from EV mass adoption is the concern.

GM has given this issue some thought too and as per Volt executive Frank Weber,  the Volt will be equipped with a pedestrian alert that is driver-activated.  It will emit pleasant warning sound when a lever is pulled.

Nissan, however, appears to be taking a different path.

According to a report, Nissan sound engineer Toshiyuki Tabata who used to work on making gas-powered cars quieter, is now working on sound effects for his company’s upcoming pure electric 100 mile range LEAF.

“We fought for so long to get rid of that noisy engine sound,” said Tabata, “With electric cars, we took a completely different approach and listened to composers talk music theory.”

Apparently the sound Tabata came up with is “beautiful and futuristic,” and resulted from consultations with Japanese composers of film scores.

The resulting sound is reminiscent of the flying cars known as ‘Spinners’ found in the 1982 film Blade Runner, it is a high-pitched metallic whir.

Nissan presented the sound to the NHTSA on September 3rd, and although no federal guidelines yet exist, the automaker may equip the LEAF with the sound when it launches in the US at the end of next year.

The sound would start as soon as the car is turned on and would go off above 12 MPH.

“We don’t want to destroy the brand of the electric car,” said Tabata. “We want to have something that will enhance its image.”

Source (Bloomberg)

You can make out the sound of a Spinner in the video clip below:

I asked him if there are any special considerations about the Volt and its high power battery getting exposed to water, such as in a flood, or accident where the car gets submerged.

Lance advised me that the battery pack is, although not hermetically sealed, sealed to be maximally waterproof. Special attention is given to the connection between the high voltage lines coming out of the front of the pack to the inverter, and these are sealed especially well. The pack also has the means of detecting water seeping into the pack allowing it to shut down.

Lance described one way the EV-1 was water tested. GM actually put a working EV-1 inside a large vat of sea-water, because it contains electrolyte and in theory one could drive into it.

Once the car was in, it was turned on and the seawater was gradually added. There was an extensive system of monitors including current detectors placed over test dummies in the seats, and noxious gas detectors.

As soon as the water level reached the battery, it shut down. There were some crackles and pops sounds, but in the end no significant current flowed into the dummies.

Will this be applied to the Volt?  We’ll have to wait and see.

Below is a new video GM released along the same theme showing the Volt IVer prototypes getting soaked in a test chamber. This of course isn’t to test the battery’s safety underwater but to check the final Volt design for leaks so that they can be fixed.

Q: Are you on schedule with the mules?
A: “Yes we’re on schedule.”…”The definition of what kind of mule is ready when I’m not going to define.”..(SF) “We will definitely let you know when its ready.”

Q: Are you planning to lease the battery? Is it still on the table?
A: (TP) “No decisions have been made one way or the other. Remember we have leased vehicles before, such as Project Driveway..There are all kinds of ways to make sure the technology works.”..”We are exploring a lot of different ideas and alternatives. That’s where we’re at in the program right now” ..”Were intrigued with the ideas of replaces a petroleum or gasoline bill with a different energy bill”..”How to transact that, it could get a little dicey or complicated.”..”Uncertainty around the battery itself, how much does it cost, how much is it worth, is there a secondary market around it”..”These are things enough people are interested in because of the interest in probing the different areas, were collecting a lot of data.”..”There has been no decision made, were investigating the alternatives. It is frankly fraught with a lot of tricky stuff.”..”Some seeds have been planted about the idea we are taking to some people we are not privy to discus at this time.”

TP: “Imagine this…Let’s say you’re driving the Volt and a message comes on saying you have to check out the battery. You have not noticed any driving or performance issues. But you bring it in to the dealer. One of the quandaries were in is this. Do we let the well-trained technician open the battery up, you sit there and wait, does he have the right tools and diagnostic equipment OR does he pop the battery out give you another that’s there and sends yours back the central expert center to Denise’s engineers who looks at them and works with the supplier, appropriately reconditions it and the batteries ready again. Or do you really always have to have that same battery always with you, like an engine is to a car now? This is an example of the type of things we’re studying.”

Q: Will you make the batteries swappable so that if a better technology comes along or if a Project Better Place-like program arrives the car could participate?
A:(DG) “Your battery will always be serviceable. Always. You just slide it out and put another back in.”

Q: Your going to design it that way?
A: (DG) “I have to. Easy to slide out and in by a trained technician. And we’ve learned a lot about how to service batteries.”

Q: Are you training first responders to car accidents on dealing with the batteries?
A: (DG) “Yes.Yes.Yes. In fact I have an engineer whose only job is vehicle safety for first responders. He spoke to federal agencies (recently) about safety in high voltage vehicles, and did a wonderful job.”

Q: Where are the charging ports going to be, and will there be one or two?
A: (TP) “We are thinking about it, and are very close to finalizing our decision on that matter.”..”It will be one or two, not three or four (laughter)”

Q: What are the barriers to sub-7 second 0 to 60 time, and why are you picking 8.5 seconds?
A: (TP) “We are still in the general 8.5 vicinity, what we ultimately settle on may vary slightly from that.”…”A really really important point to note is 0 to 60 has become a sort of de facto standard although very few people really do 0 to 60″..”One of the things, Lyle, you can help us with, and we’re going to help develop the metric, is with us, it’s really your initial acceleration because of the instantaneous torque you get from the electric system, now whether its a 0 to 30 time or a seconds to 0.2 G’s. We think thats a much more practical everyday, real world measurement.”..”We want your readers and your community to understand that one of the advantages of an electric vehicle are in the launch feel, launch performance”..”8.5 seconds is a nice car”..”We’ll have instantaneous torque”..”Our vehicle will be low (to the ground) and very very aerodynamic from the perspective of aerodynamic benchmarks.”..”Now, could we make it faster? Perhaps for future versions.”..”Remember the first objective we have is the 40 miles EV range”..”thats the primary objective, we can’t lose site of that”..”We have to do the first car right..it has a mission and a purpose..If we can achieve that mission, were very confident that other spinoff opportunities and choices will become available. It’s nothing prohibitive”

OK. There was one more interview that came out of the Traverse City CAR event. Sam from AutoblogGreen got to talk to David Vieau and Rick Fulop, CEO and co-founder/business chief respectively of A123. The full transcript of his interview is here. My comments are in parentheses. The video above is of a nail being driven through an A123 cell.
A few key pieces of information can be garnered:

• They mention that they are working with Continental on the Volt and with Cobasys for the plug-in VUE
• They are extremely confident about their technology being an excellent fit for the Volt
• They are still tweaking the cells, Continental is doing the packaging
• As GM has said, working pack this year
  (IN FACT 8 to 10 WEEKS FROM NOW!)
• li-nanophosphate can get over 7000 sin it’s life, laptops do 700
  (7000/365 = 19.2 years)
• They knocked the idea of fast-charging (ie fill the cars battery in 10 minutes). Although their cells might, the electric grid infrastructure couldn’t handle it.
  (I agree, I’m willing to wait 6 hours)
• Swapping out batteries is not realistic due to the complicated electronics, packaging, and safety issues.
  (these are High Voltage!)

There continues to be talk and concern in the blogosphere about sitting on top of a massively powerful electric motor, and the resultant exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). There is some weak epidemiological data in the literature for certain risks. An intriguing study from 1998 can be found here.
This study examined the incidence of Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) among electric utility workers and found a significant increased likelihood of the disease. Since the cause of ALS remains unknown, we must give this some thought.

Perhaps some research must occur before this car goes mainstream, but as of now this data and concern remains speculative.
I have invited the senior author of this study, Dr. Loomis to give us his comment right here on gm-volt.com. Check back and look for it!

The second item of concern I have heard about is EMFs. EMFs generally refer to magnetic fields which are generated around a flowing current. We have no evidence that magnetic fields are harmful to the body.