Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative, Green, Plants/Manufacturing, Recalls/TSBs, Chevrolet, GM, Saturn
Doh! Battery leakage hurts GM hybrid production
As much as General Motors would like to sell more hybrids, we'd imagine it would be pretty tough to do so without having the batteries on hand. It turns out that since December of last year, GM has had to recall some nine-thousand battery packs produced by its supplier, Cobasys, which were due for installation in mild hybrid versions of the Chevrolet Malibu, Saturn Vue and Saturn Aura. The culprit was reportedly an internal leak in the pack which caused the entire unit to be inoperable. This setback hurts even more in the face of record gasoline prices and the resultant record sales of hybrid vehicles.
Chevrolet plans to begin production of the 2009 Malibu hybrid on June 23. Cobasys says that it has resolved the leaky battery problem and that current units are shipping without defects. Unfortunately, some damage has already been done, especially for the Saturn brand, as sales of the hybrid version of the Vue have gone down from 2,683 units by this time last year to just 326 units thus far this year to go along with just 69 retail sales of the Aura hybrid.
[Source: Detroit News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Hiphop-destroyer8000 8:53AM (6/03/2008)
hybrid cars are for pussy-ass sissy's, and hippies.
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FrankTheCrank 9:14AM (6/03/2008)
Down with haters!
Blake 9:14AM (6/03/2008)
And you came to that conclusion all by yourself?!! Good boy! Who wants a treat? I bet you do! Yes you dooo! That-a-boy!!!
ML 10:04AM (6/03/2008)
Well . . . I'm neither. My budget is getting to the point where I can't afford to drive a 400hp V8 engined car. And a hybrid is starting to look pretty good, especially if performance remains reasonable along with high mileage.
rav3 10:06AM (6/03/2008)
...and computers are for people over 18 years old so get out of daddy's office.
Did a Prius beat your Civic again?
Disgruntled Goat 11:08AM (6/03/2008)
Don't feed the trolls.
Ahmed 8:56AM (6/03/2008)
These are fake "pully" hybrids. Thats why sales went down, not because of this recall.
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TBlueMax 11:54AM (6/03/2008)
For those that didn't bother to read the article, this bit of news is about Cobasys, a battery supplier, providing a bad batch of batteries to GM for use with their hybrid vehicles, and the actions/consequences as a result of correcting this supplier part defect.
Now please, feel free to ramble off-topic at your leisure.
tanooki2003 8:59AM (6/03/2008)
See this is why I will continue crusade to buy foreign. If the educational systems in elementary, middle school, and high school can't churn out some passionate and knowledgeable students that actually won't feel totally lost when going to some of our country's finest colleges then I will stick with foreign products.
The US needs MORE talented and smart engineers who can actually beat the foreign competition, not just trying to measure up. It's not enough to measure up anymore because you have ooopsies like these that can cost companies like GM a lot of headaches.
By the way before any of you think I am flaming GM I am actually flaming the Cobasys manufacturing company located in Springboro, Ohio and the corporate office located in Orion, Michigan.
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Shawn 9:11AM (6/03/2008)
Yes! Why bother "crusade" for human rights or end poverty when you can crusade for others to buy cars manufactured at a specific origin based on your sociological analysis.
Stupid me just buy cars that I like instead of trying to make a social statement. When will people learn to be smart like you.
Brill 9:19AM (6/03/2008)
every company outside the US has never made a mistake. in fact, i bet you have never made a mistake at your job.
tanooki2003 9:46AM (6/03/2008)
Nobody said that everyone else was perfect. The perfection comes from learning from the mistakes instead of being a repeat offender. If you known some of the other unadvertised boo boos Cobasys had made in the past prior to this big blunder you will understand why it's crucial to correct actions like these before they become public instead of making the public the beta testers.
Think about it this way you won't change the rules in baseball for a batter to swing again after the third strike would you? You won't pat a repeat DUI offender on the back and tell them to not to do it again. If Cobasys wants to be a big player in the hybrid industry then they need to straighten up their acts, quit sweeping blunders under the rug, and hire better engineers.
tanooki2003 9:03AM (6/03/2008)
Well GM I guess it's time to once again utilize the same strategies as Toyota is using as well as obtaining your batteries from the same source as where Toyota obtains them from.
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FrankTheCrank 9:17AM (6/03/2008)
I don't get this...
GM is the BIGGEST car company in the world. And they can't get this Hybrid thing right? They should be leading the market in this segment.
And speaking of Hybrids, how about getting away from Hybrids completely and going FULL ELECTRIC?? It's been done in California...
Why are the auto makers so afraid of going full electric? Why not just offer it and see how it does? The market is clamoring for such a form factor....they won't even give it a chance.
C'mon, innovate for God's sake!
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tanooki2003 9:21AM (6/03/2008)
Remember one of the reasons behind this lack of innovation has to do with the oil companies. How else can they profit.
zamafir 10:01AM (6/03/2008)
x2. has any other automaker had this problem? I don't recall having read it before. Though it would be fun to have you're volt leaking all over the place 3 years from now... or four... or 5... what's the magic date today?
Jason 10:34AM (6/03/2008)
It was a problem with supplier, not GM.
tekdemon 6:14AM (6/04/2008)
Well, the problem is that GM is very late to the hybrid game, since Toyota started working on their technology a very, very, long time ago and have had time to make sure that their cars are as reliable as the old-school gasoline variety.
Unfortunately since GM has to rush into the hybrid marketplace it not only has super-expensive hybrid technology (since they haven't had a decade to bring costs down), but you also end up with stupidity like this. This isn't the only problem that's reared it's head with GM hybrids (they do not have a reliable reputation, and anybody who thinks otherwise is drinking some serious Lutz Kool-Aid), and it's extra unfortunate since it'll just scare people off from GM hybrids when they hear about leaking batteries and bizarre hybrid system errors, etc.
And Jason, it's still GM's fault that they don't friggin' QC their suppliers properly for something like this. If they're not sure about quality they should bring battery production in-house or work VERY closely with their battery supplier to make sure everything is up to spec.
It's not like GM's some new car company that doesn't know better, they've obviously dealt with suppliers and had problems many times before.
Hiphop-destroyer8000 9:19AM (6/03/2008)
I'm just giving my opinion, you can disagree but I dont care
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Ian B. 10:06AM (6/03/2008)
Excellent American 'opinion'. The 'me first, I don't care about you' attitude. Welcome to the degradation of this country.