A/W: Volt recalled due to CO poisoning risk!

[kevm14]

That sounds terrible! Another GM quality miss, right?

http://autoweek.com/article/recalls/che ... dailydrive

The issue stems from the possibility of carbon monoxide build-up in enclosed spaces when Volt drivers forget to shut off the car, which can happen when the driver accidentally leaves the car on while it's in electric mode.

Leaving the Volt powered up in electric mode will eventually drain the battery and the gas engine will kick in.

"If the gas engine runs for a long period of time within an enclosed space, such as a garage, carbon monoxide could build up," GM said.

Functionally, this is no different than leaving a regular car idling. But the psychological issue is that in EV mode, the gas engine doesn't run until the battery is run down so some dumbasses left the ignition in run, and let the car run in a garage...until the gas engine kicked in...wtf.

[kevm14]

Ok, so here's the real use case for the issue:

Driver parks car (which has been in EV mode) in garage.
Puts car into park.
Does NOT shut off ignition
Leaves keys in car
Stays within close enough range that car detects keys and happily remains "on"
Eventually the battery runs out of juice and the gas engine starts up, as designed.

This really is operator error though.

[kevm14]

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/109 ... ide-danger

I guess it's sort of an indication of where society is going in general. Unless it's a message on our cell phone, everything else is ignored. Yesterday, I watched a girl buried in her cell phone cross the parking lot unaware that she was in front of traffic. She could have got mowed down, but at least it would have been posted on Facebook.

And by continuing to cater to these people, we're not helping anything.

Ironically, one way to "fix" this is to have the car text you every 60 minutes. "Hey stupid, your car is still running. Sign into your OnStar app to get another 60 minutes."

[kevm14]

The car already warns you that you've done this. And GM was just a little bit snarky about it in their statement.

“If a driver exits the vehicle and inadvertently leaves the vehicle ‘on’ by failing to react to cues and warning chimes emitted by the vehicle, the vehicle’s high-voltage battery will drain after a period and the gasoline engine will begin to run.”

It chimes continuously when you open the driver door if still on

[kevm14]

Evidently this happened to Toyota in 2011.

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/toyota-su ... e-1.452799
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2 ... death.html

Except they never recalled anything.

Ironically this is the same as what caused most of those unintended acceleration deaths: people that are new to keyless ignition.

[kevm14]

2014 and 2015 Volts already implement the 150 minute maximum idling time feature, so they're just updating the older models with the same software. Hmm.