Tagged: chevy volt

Michigan native and GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is drawing fire from Michigan Democrats for remarks he made on a radio program this week.

At the very end of a radio interview Romney called the Chevy Volt “an idea whose time has not come.”

There was little context for the remark, but Democrats seized on it. They say it’s part of a pattern of Romney “rooting for the US auto industry to fail.”

More subpoenas issued in Wayne County probe

The FBI has issued more subpoenas in their investigation into Wayne County government. The FBI's investigation was launched last October following an uproar over a $200,000 severance payment given to former Wayne County development director Turkia Mullin.

The Detroit Free Press reports the latest subpoenas are seeking the following information:

- Records for the county's purchase of the Guardian Building, an Art Deco masterpiece that officials spent tens of millions of dollars renovating before moving in 2009.

- Contract and payment documents involving Destination Marketing Group, a Plymouth-based tourism marketing firm that had a county contract to talk to at-risk teens about mental illness.

 -Contracts and e-mails related to the county's dealings with three vendors of Health Choice, the county's health insurance program for small employers and working people.

Snyder says he was bullied after signing anti-bullying bill

After signing the state's first anti-bullying legislation into law yesterday, Governor Rick Snyder reflected on how he was bullied in school. More from the Muskegon Chronicle:

Gov. Rick Snyder is famously “one tough nerd,” but he said Tuesday that wasn't always the case.

“I was a victim of bullying,” Snyder said just after signing into law a plan requiring schools to develop anti-bullying policies, surrounded by families of children who took their lives after being harassed.

“While I didn't experience it to the same degree as these families, I was bullied because I was a nerd. I was beaten up in elementary school and middle school. I was pushed around in high school and even in college.”

Coolant leak cause of Volt battery fires?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Chevy Volt battery fires after some of their test vehicles caught fire weeks after crash tests. Now a source says the Volt's coolant system was likely the cause of these delayed fires.

From the Associated Press:

The liquid solution that cools the Chevrolet Volt's batteries is the likely cause of fires that broke out inside the electric car after government crash tests, a person briefed on the matter said...

The coolant did not catch fire, but crystallized and created an electrical short that apparently sparked the fires, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the findings are not final.

Recently, GM's CEO Daniel Akerson said the company would buy back Volts from any owners who think the cars are unsafe.

NEW YORK (AP) - The top executive at General Motors says the company will buy back Chevrolet Volts from any owner who is afraid the electric cars will catch fire.

CEO Daniel Akerson told The Associated Press Thursday that the cars are safe. But he says GM would buy back the vehicles to keep customers happy. Three fires have broken out in Volts after side-impact crash tests done by a federal safety agency. The fires happened seven days to three weeks after the tests.

Akerson also says that GM could recall more than 6,000 Volts now on U.S. roads, if necessary, and fix them once the company and safety regulators figure out what caused the fires.

GM says no Volts involved in real-world crashes have caught fire.

Chevrolet kicks off the Woodward Dream Cruise weekend with a parade of classic Chevy vehicles alongside 50 Chevy Volts - GM's modern flagship electric car with an extended range gas engine.

Chevy is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

Spokesman Rob Peterson says fifty Volts will cruise quietly down Woodward Avenue on battery power – alongside some classic Chevys with their big V-8 engines.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - General Motors Co. will add 2,500 jobs at a Detroit-area factory that now makes electric cars, investing $69 million so the plant can make two new Chevrolet sedans.

The factory, which straddles the border between Detroit and the small enclave of Hamtramck, now makes the Chevrolet Volt and its European counterpart, the Opel Ampera.

But GM announced on Wednesday that it will upgrade the factory so that it can run around the clock making the new Malibu midsize car and a revamped version of the aging Impala large sedan.

About 1,200 of the jobs will be new hires, since GM still has to recall about 1,300 laid-off workers in the U.S.

But in Michigan, which has among the highest unemployment rates in the nation, 1,200 new jobs is big news.

GM announced on May 10 that it would create or keep about 4,000 jobs by investing $2 billion in 17 factories in eight states.

The Detroit-Hamtramck announcement adds to previous expansion announcements in Bowling Green, Ky.; Toledo, Ohio; and Flint and Bay City, Mich.

"Filling this plant with new work is very satisfying because GM is dedicated to helping rebuild this city," Mark Reuss, the company's North American president, said in a statement.

GM said last week it would shut the plant down for four weeks starting in June, reconfiguring it to increase Volt and Ampera production from 16,000 cars per year to 60,000 next year in order to meet strong demand.

The shutdown also will let GM add equipment to build the 2013 Malibu midsize sedan at the plant starting next year. The car also will be built in Kansas City, Kansas.

In addition, GM said it will build a long-overdue new version of the Impala at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant.

GM will stop producing two other big cars at the factory, the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne, later this year.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gives the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf top ratings for safety in crash tests.  The results could ease any lingering concerns people might have about the safety of electric cars.

Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, says the results show that customers don't have to trade safety for environmentally friendly electric cars.  And the heavy batteries in the cars actually make them safer.

"We can have environmentally friendly, green vehicles and not give up the safety advances that we've made in the bargain… Even though they are small cars in their dimensions, they are considerably heavier than other small cars weighing as much as some midsize or even large cars.  And that is a safety advantage."

Car companies say the huge batteries inside electric cars shut down in the event of a crash to greatly reduce the risk of an electrical fire.

Both the Leaf and the Volt cost more than most similar sized small cars. But Rader says as the price of gas goes up, and the cost of producing the cars goes down, electric cars will become more economical.