Volt's Latest Bad News-Couched as Good News

Who gives a 100k bumper to bumper warranty?
I know Toyota backs up their cars with a powertrain warranty thats 60% of the miles gm gives, and doesn't provide any rental cars for free like GM does. Whats that say about Toyota?

 

Volt is dirtier than Prius by one class? How can the inferior outdated NiMH have 10 years / 150k miles warranty in Prius and the latest gen superior cover only 8 years / 100k miles?

It will be interesting to see how long Hyundai is going to cover Sonata hybrid battery. Both will come from LG.

 

Actually, to qualify as a PZEV in California, by the CARB rules they must offer a 15 year warranty on the emission control system.

Drive Clean

 

It is certain GM cannot give 10yr/150K warranty on the Li-ion battery, the omission not to apply for AT-PZEV is on purpose to bypass the warranty requirement.

 

Chevrolet Volt Battery Warranty Details and Clarifications

 

hyundai battery chemistry is different from gm's they use lithium polymer. The warranty will be at least 10 year 100k miles like the rest of the car. Toyota does not give those of us in non-carb states the benefit of the big warranty, but charge us the same price. I would be surprised if hyundai did not meet or exceed the TCH warranty on all parts.

 

So gm either does not have a fuel efficient car Or a decently for got to apply
Definitely not a confidence builder

 

So gm either does not have a fuel efficient car Or a decently for got to apply
Definitely not a confidence builder

 

Its the CARB rules, and they are the same for everyone. The big incentives for car companies kick in, in 2012 to get at-pzev. I think gm was building in a lot of battery failures into its pricing of the volt, and decided to shorten the warranty and drop the pricing. The CARB rules penalize hybrids by calling batteries part of emissions control. When the prius was the only game in town, this only raised the price. But the rules have slowed the introduction of plug in hybrids and advancing the technology. If you look at that 2012 date, you will also notice that toyota, ford, and hyundai will all start selling plug in hybrids in that year.

I'm not disappointed in GM, I rather expected the warranty to be less than 10 years. I wasn't about to buy a volt anyway. It seems the biggest complainers about the volt warranty are prospective leaf buyers, and it is extremely unlikely that the leaf since it is not a hybrid will have a hybrid like 10 year 150,000 mile warranty.

 

How so ? Where is the penalty ?

 

I don't understand how a battery warranty causes emissions to go bad. GM is partially responsible for putting this arcane rule in. If you read the toyota press releases you will realize they would have quite likely already had a lithium powered plug in prius if not for the warranty concerns. During the first years of prius importation the cost of possible battery problems were included in the price of the prius. No matter what hill says, this is how parts suppliers and auto manufacturers work. I should know, my father works for a supplier, and I have done manufacturing consulting to car companies.

Note that now that hyundai is showing off their lithium polymer sonata to the press, toyota has suddenly stopped saying that lithium is not ready. In fact they are going to use it in the redesigned TCH. Competition is forcing them to take a warranty risk on the newer better technology. This passes a cost to customers that would not be there if not for the arbitrary carb rules.

Given that battery failure is statistical, and higher and hot states, it is no wonder that in Texas Toyota doesn't give a 150,000 mile warranty. I'm not in a carb state. I do think its counter productive to give politicians in California all this power. First CARB mandated the electric car, then it killed it, then it made hybrids more expensive.

http://nissan-leaf.net/2010/06/21/nissan-leaf-warranty/

 

You may have a point about getting customers back. But a Toyota owner can't really knock GM about warranty on new cars.

Gm provides a free rental car if repairs last over a day, Toyota does not.

Gm give an extra 40,000 miles on the powertrain than Toyota.

The only car company that beats gm 5 year 100k warranty is Kia/Hyndia 10 year 100k . I think they are doing a good job standing behind their product.

Also you say GM is only backing their batteries with a 100k warranty, thats all Toyota does for me. And from what i gather there is a bigger risk for the volt than the prius battery. Some people will drive only using the battery, so a 100k warranty is pretty good.

 

Excuse me ? You are forgetting the auto company litigation that *forced* the CARB change, my high rpm spin friend.

I find your arguments against a 150k warranty to be BS. It just forces GM to put its money where its mouth is. Novel idea for them.

 

Please refresh my memory of the facts. IMHO CARB set the initial rules because GM's smith had a car, and they decided to subsidize it. Later they changed the rules. One reason others have presented was that CARB's chairman Alan C. Lloyd, had joined the California Fuel Cell Partnership. CARBs rules always favored big auto companies and tended to thwart entrepeures. If you read the quote I gave from the leaf reporting, carb claimed the non-competitive rules for warenty were so poluting lead acid batteries didn't end up anywhere. Ofcourse if you check with any of the producers of these batteries they A) will pay money for spent batteries as the materials are valuable and B) Don't produce one that will reliable hold all its charge for 10 years. So the rule keeps out Lead acid hybrids which we could have had cheaper years ago.

GM is now living with the non-competitive rule they helped get into CARB, well bad for them, but really bad for us.

If the lawsuit you are refering to is the one that the bush administration joined in, this was after CARB had already killed the electric car and shifted to hydrogen. CARB lost the lawsuit because they were trying to mandate cafe standards, which is the federal governments responsability and rightly so. The congress finally raised cafe standards against Big auto and big union objections in 2007. Outside of CARB and during big bad bush administration, Nissan developed the leaf and tesla developed the roadster. The leaf is really based on government incentives, but the new car company did it the free enterprise way. Free enterprise seems to be one thing that carb is severely biased against.

 

The 10/150 PZEV warranty rule is indeed stupid - in that current technology doesn't allow that. This is like saying all HDTVs should have 10 year warranty - in which case that industry wouldn't have taken off.

I think what CA should do is to pro-rate the warranty towards their carb calculations. That way there is some incentive to give longer warranties - but not mandates for an unusually long warranty.