[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
VOLT VEHICLE FIRE: WHAT DID NHTSA KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY AFFAIRS,
STIMULUS OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT SPENDING
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 25, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-111
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
73-448 WASHINGTON : 2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government
Spending
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chairman
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York, Vice DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Ranking
Chairwoman Minority Member
CONNIE MACK, Florida JIM COOPER, Tennessee
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho JACKIE SPEIER, California
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on January 25, 2012................................. 1
Statement of:
Akerson, Daniel F., chairman and CEO, General Motors......... 39
German, John, senior fellow, the International Council on
Clean Transportation....................................... 88
Strickland, David L., Administrator, National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration...................................... 9
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Akerson, Daniel F., chairman and CEO, General Motors,
prepared statement of...................................... 41
German, John, senior fellow, the International Council on
Clean Transportation, prepared statement of................ 91
Jordan, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Ohio, staff report...................................... 71
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio:
Letter dated June 29, 2011............................... 60
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Strickland, David L., Administrator, National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, prepared statement of............... 11
VOLT VEHICLE FIRE: WHAT DID NHTSA KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?
----------
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus
Oversight and Government Spending,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Jordan
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Jordan, Buerkle, DesJarlais,
Kelly, Kucinich, Davis, Connolly, and Maloney.
Also present: Representative Cummings.
Staff present: Michael R. Bebeau, assistant clerk; Robert
Borden, general counsel; Molly Boyl, parliamentarian; David
Brewer and Ashley Callen, counsels; Drew Colliatie, staff
assistant; John Cuaderes, deputy staff director; Linda Good,
chief clerk; Tyler Grimm, professional staff member;
Christopher Hixon, deputy chief counsel, oversight; Seamus
Kraft, director of digital strategy and press secretary; Justin
LoFranco, deputy director of digital strategy; Mark D. Marin,
director of oversight; Kristina M. Moore, senior counsel; Laura
L. Rush, deputy chief clerk; Jeff Solsby, senior communications
advisor; Sharon Meredith Utz, research analyst; Rebecca
Watkins, press secretary; Nadia A. Zahran, staff assistant;
Jaron Bourke, director of administration; Claire Coleman,
minority counsel; Ashley Etienne, minority director of
communications; Jennifer Hoffman, minority press secretary;
Adam Koshkin, minority staff assistant; Lucinda Lessley,
minority policy director; and Mark Stephenson, minority senior
policy advisor/legislative director.
Mr. Jordan. The committee will come to order. We will start
with our opening statements and then get right to our first
panel. Administrator, we appreciate your being here today.
The delayed public notification of serious safety risks of
the Chevy Volt raises significant concerns regarding the
politicized relationship between the Obama administration and
General Motors. The Obama administration intervened and forced
the company to participate in a politically orchestrated
process. The result was that GM emerged as a quasi-private
entity. To this day, the U.S. Government still owns 26 percent
of the company.
In addition to a significant ownership stake in the
company, President Obama has used this unusual blurring of
public and private sector boundaries to openly tout the results
of this partnership as a top accomplishment of his
administration, creating a dynamic where the President is
politically reliant on the success of General Motors. Most
recently, this relationship was touted at last night's State of
the Union address. The President has backed this support with
taxpayer dollars, providing $7,500 tax credits for the purchase
of the Volt and other electric vehicles, as well as billions of
dollars to support the domestic production of batteries. In
addition, total Federal, State and local governments have
subsidized the production of the Volt to the tune of estimates
between 50- and $250,000 per vehicle sold.
The question before this committee is to what extent this
conflict of interest has influenced the way in which this
administration has approached its duty to inform consumers
about the apparent risks that the GM Chevy Volt can catch fire.
While it remains to be seen whether GM has received special
treatment during NHTSA's investigation of the Volt fire, it is
clear that the administration has tremendous incentives to
protect the political investment it has made in the company and
the vehicle. In the face of that political dependency, it is
deeply troubling that the public notification of the safety
concerns related to the Volt were inexplicably delayed for 6
months, a period of time that also coincides with the
negotiation over the new fuel economy standards.
It is also troubling that during a subcommittee hearing,
this very subcommittee, in October 2011, where Mr. Strickland
was directly asked to respond to Members' concerns about the
safety of advanced vehicle technologies, he did not inform the
committee of the Volt battery fire. This information was very
germane to the questions asked of Mr. Strickland and certainly
would have been of interest to committee members.
But for a resourceful Bloomberg reporter who reported on
the fire in November 2011, it is unclear whether NHTSA would
have ever made news of the Volt fire public. It appears that it
was this story that prompted NHTSA to acknowledge the fire's
occurrence and later to open a safety defect investigation.
In addition, the subcommittee is also concerned about the
preparedness of NHTSA to regulate electric vehicles. In his
2011 State of the Union address, President Obama set the goal
of one million electric vehicles on the roads by 2015. Despite
the government's strong encouragement of this technology, there
was a fundamental lack of knowledge at NHTSA about how to
handle an electric vehicle after it has been involved in a
crash. This fire risk associated with the lithium-ion
technology is well-known, yet the engineers at NHTSA failed to
drain the charge from the battery, creating the hazardous
situation which ultimately led to the explosion. It appears
that this lack of knowledge was caused by a lack of
preparation.
According to documents obtained by the committee, NHTSA
only inquired about manufacturer's post vehicle crash
procedures in September 2011, 4 months after the Volt fire.
This evidence strongly suggests that the Agency had not paid
sufficiently close attention to the unique safety concerns--
excuse me, safety risks associated with the Lithium-ion battery
technologies in cars before the Volt fire occurred. This lack
of knowledge of how to respond to an electric vehicle fire is
unnerving. It also prompts questions about whether or not this
administration is promoting the rapid distribution of electric
vehicles like the Volt before we have done our homework and
understand how the risks associated with these vehicles should
be addressed.
I look forward to hearing the testimony of Mr. Strickland,
Administrator of NHTSA, and I hope that Mr. Strickland is more
forthcoming today than he was when he last appeared before us.
I also look forward to the testimony of Mr. Akerson, the chief
executive officer of General Motors.
With that, I now yield to my friend and colleague, the
ranking member, Mr. Kucinich from Ohio.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding
this hearing, and I always appreciate the opportunity to work
with you. Today, we again welcome David Strickland, the
Administrator of the National Highway Safety Administration
before our subcommittee.
At two other recent hearings, this subcommittee heard
testimony from the Department of Transportation officials on
first-time regulations proposed by the Department related to
standards for vehicle fuel efficiency and then on the number of
hours truck drivers can work between mandatory rest periods. At
those hearings, the majority criticized the Department of
Transportation for considering stricter regulations, claiming
they were harmful to business and the economy.
Today, by contrast, the question is whether the Department
of Transportation was strict enough in its regulatory oversight
of one product, the Chevy Volt electric vehicle by General
Motors. The title of today's hearing is ``What Did NHTSA Know
About the Volt Vehicle Fire and When Did They Know It.''
A very detailed 135-page final report by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], on its
investigation into the Volt battery fire incident which was
made public on Friday provides detailed answers to the question
this hearing seems to ask. GM has also provided extensive
documentation of meetings and information it provided NHTSA
pursuant to its investigation into the causes of the Volt
battery fire that occurred after crash testing.
Based on what we know so far, NHTSA's new car assessment
program appeared to do just what it is intended to do, catch
potential safety concerns with new cars before they become a
risk to consumers, and General Motors appeared to do exactly
what we hoped it would do.
Even before NHTSA determined whether or not there was a
real safety issue, it designed improvements to the Volt to make
its battery better protected from risk of intrusion or fires.
So far we have seen no evidence to support the implication that
NHTSA has allowed politics to guide its decisionmaking. And I
understand my chairman raising that question, because there are
safety issues here at risk.
Considering that in the last few months, there have been
efforts by the majority to defund programs that support the
development of technologies for electric and alternative fuel
vehicles and other proposals to take away tax incentives for
purchasing electric cars, I am concerned that an effect of this
hearing could be to undermine technology that is critical to
both protecting the environment and ensuring the success of the
U.S. auto manufacturing industry, as well as to generally have
an adverse effect on U.S. economic competitiveness. It would be
very bad, I think, for our economy to do anything that would
try to demolish the potential for electric vehicles.
As we established at the hearing this subcommittee held on
the proposed fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission
standards, clean vehicle technologies protect public health by
cutting air pollutants, smog and climate change pollution.
Additionally, developing clean vehicle technologies for
battery, electric and hybrid cars has grown jobs on the
assembly line and supported the recovery of the domestic
automotive industry. We don't want to be buying lithium-ion
batteries from China in 5 years when we can develop the
infrastructure and skills to make them here in the United
States. And we want to build cars here in the United States
that are attractive to consumers in other countries. The
President talked about that yesterday in his State of the Union
address. This is where electric and other clean vehicle
technologies have already established market share.
Now, let me be clear: I am well-known as a consumer
advocate. I support early public disclosure of safety risks,
and I hope and expect that NHTSA consistently works as quickly
as possible to make intelligent assessments of any safety risks
and to disclose them to consumers as soon as possible.
Mr. Chairman, in a meeting that I had yesterday with the
General Motors CEO and chairman, I told the gentleman of the
same concerns for early disclosure and transparency, the kind
that we know that we didn't have with Toyota. So we have a
obligation to ask these questions, and we also have an
obligation to rely on facts as they are. And as the majority
wanted to work with me to craft stricter laws mandating them, I
might join them.
I hope this committee's activity on this issue, and I just
want to be very clear on this, that I wouldn't want this
committee's activity on this issue to discourage companies like
GM from continuing to innovate and advance technologies that
will ensure U.S. competitiveness. And while it appears that we
have different opinions with respect to whether the Chevy Volt
is a fiery failure or an innovative success, at least it
appears we have an agreement that there is a proper role for
government to play in regulating business and ensuring public
safety.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let us proceed.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.002
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for his statement and for
his great work on the committee.
We now would yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Kelly.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Strickland, thank
you for being here today.
My concern has nothing to do with General Motors. General
Motors has a history of building the most wonderful cars in the
world. And I go back to the days when former President Bush
made a statement and said if we could just start--if General
Motors could just start building cars that were relevant, they
wouldn't have their problems. And at the time, they were the
leading manufacturer and seller of vehicles on the planet. So
sometimes there is a disconnect between what we say and what we
do.
My concern today is not so much with General Motors,
because my association with General Motors goes back to 1953
when my father became a dealer and back to the early 1930's
when he was a parts picker in a General Motors warehouse and
had the opportunity to move forward with not only his life, but
our family's in establishing a dealership and being somewhat
successful, the combined efforts of a lot of people over those
years.
My problem today has to do with your agency, and certainly
it comes down to a question of trust. And one of the things
that I see all the time, whether I am in Washington, DC, or
back home in my district or whether I am in my dealership, is
can I trust you? Can I trust you to do what you said you were
going to do? Can I trust you to do the best thing for me and
have my best interests all the time? And it is about trust. We
know that you can spend your whole life building trust, and one
misjudgment, one false step, you can destroy an entire legacy.
Certainly the passing of Joe Paterno last week we saw a
gentleman who spent his whole life establishing a legacy and
lost it in the last 2 months of that life.
Now, with your agency, the formation of it was to protect
the public and to work in their best interests. When I look at
the definition of trust, assured reliance on the character,
ability, strength or truth of someone or something. One in
which confidence is placed. Firm reliance on the integrity, the
ability or the character of a person or thing. It deals with
custody and care. Something committed into the care of another.
And that is where the disconnect comes.
I have no problem with General Motors because General
Motors acted very quickly once your agency let them know what
happened. If we were to look at some of the slides, if we
could, slide 11 and slide 12 if they are available.
Now, this happened with the car that you folks tested, and
I want to find out when you look at the timeline, when did you
let General Motors know this? Because General Motors has not
had that problem out on the highway with these cars. We only
had it in the testing. But, again, it comes down to that trust.
Whose best interests were you acting in? Certainly it
wasn't the American public. And it was with a manufacturer who
has a 100-some year history of building the best products in
the world when it comes to transportation. Why not get on the
phone and ask them?
Now, my association with General Motors is very strong. I
am not a Volt dealer, and I am not a Volt dealer only because
the Volt does not appeal to people in my marketplace. And I
have some other things that I will bring forward later on, but
I have to tell you, I really am disturbed with the fact that
this happened so early on, and yet the full disclosure of it
happened by chance from a reporter, not from the Agency that is
out there to protect the public.
So we ask then why is this erosion of trust there? Why do
people no longer trust Congress? Why do they no longer trust
our form of government? Why do they no longer trust things that
have taken years to build? And it comes down to incidents that
cause them to question what it is that happened.
So I am hoping today, because we talked to you earlier on,
what did NHTSA know, when did it know it, and when did they let
General Motors know that? My friends at General Motors have
always been very responsive. They have always acted very
quickly in the best interests of the public and those people
that they serve. I understand that. What I don't get, why so
long? And my question comes down very frankly, is the
commitment to the American public or is the commitment to an
administration whose agenda is we are going to get to green
technology one way or the other, and I don't care if we have to
use the Department of Defense to get there, I don't care who we
have to use to get this alternative energy, and I am all for
it, by the way. But when the market is ready for the science,
it won't have to be subsidized. It will go on its own.
So I am hoping today that we can talk with this and talk
about it in an open forum so the American public can again have
the trust that it needs to have in the people that they send to
represent them, in the agencies that were formed, at least in
the beginning, to protect those folks that rely on us, and not
to protect an agenda or to push an agenda forward that I quite
frankly think that some day we will use electric cars. But
going back to the beginning, the problem with electric cars was
always where do you store the energy source and how efficient
is it and how economical is it and how do you drive that?
So I am here to hear what you have to say. As we looked at
what happened in these cases, it didn't happen with any, but
there was no loss of life or limb, nobody was injured. I just
wish you would have called GM the same day you found that out,
because they would have--they would have, I guarantee you,
within 48 hours had the same fix that they ended up with.
So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman for his insightful
opening remarks.
Administrator Strickland, the rules of the committee
require us to swear in our witnesses. If you would please stand
and raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Jordan. Let the record reflect that the witness
answered in the affirmative. The floor is yours, Mr.
Strickland. You have done this before. You get 5 minutes, give
or take a few seconds, and we are pretty lenient with that. So
fire away.
STATEMENT OF DAVID L. STRICKLAND, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL
HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Strickland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning
Ranking Member Kucinich and members of the subcommittee. I
appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today on the
status of the Volt question.
Mr. Chairman, I have done this before, but, of course, I
forget to hit the button.
I am pleased to share that we have recently closed our
investigation without finding evidence of an unreasonable risk
to safety. Before I discuss the events that led to this
determination, I would like to establish some context.
One way we reduce traffic deaths and injuries is by setting
and enforcing standards for motor vehicles. We test many of the
vehicles on the road to ensure that they comply with these
standards. However, the fact that a vehicle complies with all
of the standards does not necessarily indicate the absence of
an unreasonable risk to safety.
The Agency's ability to investigate and determine whether
such a risk exists is key to getting defective vehicles
recalled and remedied. It is within this context that the
Agency undertook the preliminary fact-finding task which led to
the formal investigation of the Volt.
To be clear, the first priority and the core mission of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is safety. I
have the honor of leading more than 600 professionals who
collectively have one goal in mind--to help the American public
get to their destination safely every single trip.
When we learned of the fire at the MJA test facility in
June, we had no relevant real world data to help us assess the
safety risk and no clear understanding of how the fire began.
The Agency took numerous unprecedented steps to ascertain the
real world risk of Volt owners and passengers and then to
isolate the root cause of this incident to determine if a
defect existed that posed unreasonable risk to safety.
The technical team at NHTSA, working in collaboration with
the Department of Energy and Defense, used every second over
the past 6 months to provide the data needed for the Agency
decision, and they delivered in an innovative and expert
fashion. If at any time during this period I had any notion
that an imminent safety risk existed to the American public, I
would have ensured that the public knew of that risk
immediately.
We at NHTSA rely on data to drive our decisions. As I noted
in my written statement, we undertook several Volt crash tests
in an attempt to replicate the June incident. In addition, the
Agency reviewed all the crash reports in the field involving
Volts. We found no reports of post-crash fires. We looked at a
variety of data sources, including all relevant early warning
reporting data and vehicle owner questionnaires. The Agency
found no indication of a post-fire crash risk in the Volt, nor
were we able to recreate the June incident at the vehicle
level.
Despite the initial negative results and the lack of real
world events, we decided to continue investigating at the
component level and shared our initial thoughts with the public
on this in November. NHTSA engineers analyzed the Volt to
understand what caused the penetration into the battery
compartment. We then created new component level testing
procedures and designed and constructed completely new and
unique test mechanisms to replicate the intrusion that occurred
during the May crash test.
In mid-November, NHTSA tested three Volt Lithium-ion packs
by damaging the battery compartment and rupturing the coolant
system. On November 24th, one of the battery packs that was
tested a week earlier caught fire at the testing facility,
burning the shed that housed it. The next day, NHTSA opened a
formal defect investigation of post-crash fire risks in Volts.
It is important to note that the Agency rarely opens a
defect investigation without data from real-world incidents. By
taking this uncommon step, NHTSA sought to ensure the safety of
the driving public. In response to the defect investigation, GM
proposed a field fix to mitigate intrusion by adding a
reinforcement collar around the battery compartment. Our
technical team reviewed and tested the remedy and confirmed
that there was no intrusion into the battery compartment, no
leakage of coolant and no post-impact fire. As a result, we
have concluded the Agency's investigation and found no
discernable defect trend.
NHTSA continues to believe that electric vehicles show
great promise as a safe and fuel efficient option for American
drivers. Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe
that Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of
fire than gasoline-powered vehicles. In fact, all vehicles have
some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash.
However, electric vehicles have specific attributes that
should be made clear to consumers, law enforcement, emergency
response communities and tow truck operators and storage
facilities. NHTSA has been working with the Department of
Energy, with assistance from the National Fire Protection
Association and others, to develop guidance to help them
identify vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries and to take
the appropriate steps in handling these following a crash.
We have also been working with the manufacturers to develop
appropriate post-crash protocols dealing with lithium-ion
battery powered vehicles.
Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for this opportunity, and I
am now happy to answer questions from the committee.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Administrator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Strickland follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.007
Mr. Jordan. Let me just start with the timeline. Give me
the date you first learned at NHTSA of the fire concerns of the
explosion that took place in the test.
Mr. Strickland. I was notified and the Agency was notified
on June the 6th of 2011.
Mr. Jordan. And was this the same time that you, along with
the EPA, were working on finalizing, maybe not finalizing, but
negotiating the CAFE standards?
Mr. Strickland. There is lots of work that goes on between
the Agency----
Mr. Jordan. But isn't it true you were working on
negotiating the CAFE standards----
Mr. Strickland. We were working on the CAFE standards at
that time, that is correct.
Mr. Jordan. And isn't it true that the proposed CAFE
regulations rely heavily on the sale and deployment of
vehicles, electric vehicles like the Volt?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely that is not true. Actually, by
statute, NHTSA is forbidden from actually using electric----
Mr. Jordan. But don't you count on reaching--to get to 54
miles per gallon, don't you count on the sale of these kind of
vehicles, this kind of technology in the future helping to
reach those standards?
Mr. Strickland. There are several vehicle technology
pipelines to achieve this, and frankly, most of the
manufacturers are using internal combustion engines to achieve
those standards.
Mr. Jordan. The proposed rules specifically talk about
electric vehicles. The administration has talked heavily about
this vehicle. So it is certainly true that these were included
in getting to that standard.
Mr. Strickland. For NHTSA's CAFE regulations, it is illegal
for us to consider electric vehicles as part of our technology
mix. So therefore, we look at the technology pipelines that are
available to the manufacturers to comply with our standards and
therefore, we are very satisfied that the standards can be met,
as are the manufacturers.
Mr. Jordan. Certainly the EPA is counting on this.
Mr. Strickland. There are several technology pipelines that
can be used to achieve the standards.
Mr. Jordan. Got it. Got it. We got it. And isn't it true
that the administration has heavily touted vehicles like the
Volt as alternative vehicles that could help meet or surpass
the fuel efficiency targets?
Mr. Strickland. The Obama administration believes in
American innovation, and anything to help support American
manufacturing innovation is something that is a keystone----
Mr. Jordan. Is it fair to say this administration feels
pretty strongly about technology like this helping to get to
these standards, helping with the future of the automobile
industry?
Mr. Strickland. The Obama administration feels that
electric vehicle technology shows great promise.
Mr. Jordan. Now, when did you testify before Congress on
the CAFE standards, do you remember?
Mr. Strickland. I believe I was before you, Mr. Jordan, in
October of last year.
Mr. Jordan. October of last year. Okay. So you were aware
of the safety concerns when you were developing and negotiating
the CAFE standards?
Mr. Strickland. There was no safety concern on the part of
the Agency at the time regarding the Chevrolet Volt because we
were still in the process of figuring out the root cause and
whether this posed an unreasonable risk.
Mr. Jordan. But let me just--when you came in front of
Congress, when you came in front of this committee, that
picture Mr. Kelly had shown had taken place, correct?
Mr. Strickland. That is correct, yes, it had.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. All right. So you were aware of the
safety concerns when the President announced on July 29th of
last summer the negotiated agreement on the CAFE standards?
Mr. Strickland. There was no conclusion about whether there
was an unreasonable risk to safety posed by the Chevrolet Volt.
We were still in an investigation posture.
Mr. Jordan. I know that. I am just asking, you knew about
it?
Mr. Strickland. I knew of the fact that----
Mr. Jordan. Wait, wait, wait. You knew about that picture--
--
Mr. Strickland. I knew of the fact that the Chevrolet Volt
was involved in four vehicles catching fire----
Mr. Jordan. You knew about that picture, that explosion,
when you came in front of Congress. You knew about it when the
President talked about the agreement with the manufacturers on
the CAFE standards, correct?
Mr. Strickland. We knew of the incident on June the 6th,
yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Obvious question: Why didn't you tell us?
Well, one other point. If you recall during that hearing, Mr.
Kelly and Ms. Buerkle asked specific questions about the Chevy
Volt and about safety concerns and about reaching these
standards, and you didn't feel it was appropriate to let us
know that there was an explosion with pictures like that?
Mr. Strickland. There was no Agency decision as to whether
there was an unreasonable risk to safety in the Chevrolet Volt.
My understanding is Mr. Kelly and the vice chairwoman was
asking me about mass reduction in the CAFE standards. They made
no question about----
Mr. Jordan. Just think about it. We are talking about
safety. We are talking about CAFE standards. You know that
there has been a safety concern with the battery in the Volt
leading to an explosion, leading to a fire, and you don't think
it is appropriate to tell Congress?
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Jordan. Let me ask you this question: But for the
reporter at Bloomberg, would you have ever told us?
Mr. Strickland. Of course we would.
Mr. Jordan. Really?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely.
Mr. Jordan. You waited that long. You testified once before
Congress and didn't tell us, but once the reporter breaks the
story, then you let everyone know?
Mr. Strickland. When the Agency was prepared to make a
decision as to what the steps were in the protocols and whether
we were going to make a decision as to the risk of the Volt, we
would have clearly disclosed it.
Mr. Chairman, I want to make one point here: I wake up
every morning in this job with one purpose and one purpose
only, to make sure that I keep as many people safe and healthy
as possible. That is my only goal. That is my only goal for my
600-staff working with me.
Mr. Jordan. Then why did you wait----
Mr. Strickland. The bottom line being, it is our
responsibility to be deliberate and careful.
Mr. Jordan. Let me ask you this: Why did you wait 6 months
before you started a formal investigation? Why did you wait 6
months?
Mr. Strickland. It took every second of that time for our
technical team and our engineers to figure out----
Mr. Jordan. Let me ask you this: Then here is the
inconsistency I don't get as well. You started the formal
investigation 6 months after that picture, 6 months after you
had done some other tests in the interim, and when did you
officially say that the Chevy Volt is okay and officially
cleared it from any safety concern? When did that happen?
Mr. Strickland. We will definitely refer you to the
timeline, Mr. Chairman. But basically----
Mr. Jordan. Wasn't it just last week?
Mr. Strickland. We concluded the investigation last week
once we had finished all of our work. Actually we finished our
observation of the last Volt vehicle.
Mr. Jordan. One other thing. You waited 6 months. November
25th is when you started the formal investigation, correct?
Mr. Strickland. We opened a formal investigation when the
final battery caught on fire and consumed the shed.
Mr. Jordan. So you opened a formal investigation on
November 25th?
Mr. Strickland. That is correct.
Mr. Jordan. You officially cleared to GM just last week,
last Friday, if I am not mistaken.
Mr. Strickland. That is correct.
Mr. Jordan. Last Friday.
Mr. Strickland. That is correct.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. But on December 6th, Secretary LaHood
said the Chevy Volt is safe, there is no problems. So how does
that connect? If you didn't start--you waited 6 months after
you saw pictures like that before you started a formal
investigation. You didn't finish and clear it until last
Friday. But between November 25th when you started it and when
you cleared it last Friday, the Secretary of Transportation
says the Volt is fine.
Mr. Strickland. The Chevrolet Volt was safe to drive and
the Chevrolet Volt had been safe to drive this entire period.
As I said, Mr. Chairman, our responsibility is to figure out
whether there was an unreasonable risk to safety and whether
there was an imminent risk. That did not exist. We did,
however, we were trying to replicate the post-fire crash----
Mr. Jordan. But do you see how Members of Congress and
frankly the American public could see some inconsistencies? You
don't start a formal investigation until after a 6-month time
period from when the explosion occurred, and then you don't
officially clear it until 2 months later, but in between when
you start it and when you officially clear it, the Secretary of
Transportation says it is fine?
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman, in our investigatory
process----
Mr. Jordan. And in the interim, before you started the
formal investigation and know about it, you are developing the
CAFE standards, but you can't share the information with
Congress, let alone the American public. So people say what is
going on.
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Jordan. That is why Mr. Kelly made his opening remarks
like he did, because he thought what is going on?
Mr. Strickland. And we are very happy to explain in great
detail exactly every moment that we worked on this
investigation. Every investigation there is preliminary work
that takes place. Every time we open a formal investigation,
there is preliminary fact-finding that takes place. It was 6
months of preliminary fact-finding for us to be able to get to
the point where we felt that we should open a formal
investigation. We don't simply take these matters. We have over
40,000 vehicle owner complaints every single year about safety,
and we investigate the same one----
Mr. Jordan. I am over time, and I want to get to my friend
and colleague, Mr. Kucinich. But let me just ask, were you
concerned--I mean, here is the bottom line, I think. Were you
concerned about if you told us last summer, or excuse me, told
us in October, about what was going on, that you would impact
sales of the Volt and/or impact the negotiations on the CAFE
standards? That is what we want to know. Were you concerned
about that, and is that why you weren't square with us? Is that
why you had to wait for a reporter to break the story?
Mr. Strickland. I was square with you. Every day I talk to
victims of traffic crashes, every single day. My first priority
is to make sure that we reduce injuries and fatalities due to
traffic crashes. That is the only thing on my mind every single
day. I don't have any other consideration.
Mr. Jordan. I just want to be clear. So your decision not
to share information with Congress when you were in front of
Congress and you knew the information and we were talking about
that subject, your decision not to share that information has
nothing to do with your concern about the sales of the Volt and
the administration's involvement in promoting the sales of the
Volt and nothing to do with the negotiation of the CAFE
standards at the same time?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely not. It would be irresponsible
of me to disclose anything unless we made an agency decision.
Mr. Jordan. I will yield to the gentleman from Cleveland,
Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator Strickland, I am going to have a series of
questions, and I would ask that your answers be brief and, of
course, true.
Mr. Strickland. Yes, ranking member.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, the fire occurred on June 6th, and as my
colleague points out it wasn't until November that NHTSA's
follow-up testing confirmed that this was not an isolated
incident. It does seem like a long time.
What we need to know, Administrator Strickland, is whether
there was a valid reason for so much time to pass or whether,
as the majority has concluded, or has at least offered, that
NHTSA was acting in a politically motivated manner. So the
first question is, what was NHTSA doing between June and
November that required such a long internal investigation?
Mr. Strickland. Thank you for the question, ranking member.
In June, once the fire was discovered after the fact, sometime
over the weekend, and we were notified, we had absolutely no
notion of what the source of the fire was. There was three
other vehicles around it. It could have been arson, it could
have been one of the other vehicles, it could have been a
number of factors.
So we had to go out, figure out what happened at the scene,
hire additional contracting expertise, fire investigators and
folks like that, and then begin the work to actually figure out
what happened on the scene. That also included crash testing
other Volts to see if we could actually replicate what happened
out there----
Mr. Jordan. Was there a second crash test?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely. There were actually several.
Mr. Jordan. Did that second crash test produce an impact
into the battery or a fire?
Mr. Strickland. It did not.
Mr. Kucinich. And did NHTSA develop a mechanism to damage
the battery pack directly in order to test for fire risk?
Mr. Strickland. Yes, sir, that is exactly what we did. We
were not satisfied with the fact that we could not recreate the
incident at the whole vehicle level, so we took the
unprecedented next step to do a component level testing, and we
had to actually create a whole new system and mechanism in
order to recreate that.
Mr. Kucinich. So you created the circumstances under which
the fire could occur. This wasn't created independently through
the vehicle, an intact vehicle, without you having to
essentially rig it to go on fire, is that right?
Mr. Strickland. That is correct, ranking member.
Mr. Kucinich. So is it correct that NHTSA intentionally
damaged the battery compartment and intentionally ruptured the
coolant system to try to reproduce the fire, is that correct?
Mr. Strickland. That is correct.
Mr. Kucinich. Was this fire difficult for NHTSA to
reproduce?
Mr. Strickland. Actually, it was.
Mr. Kucinich. Why?
Mr. Strickland. Because there are several issues in terms
of getting through the sub-structure of the vehicle in order to
get a certain percentage of intrusion into the battery. But not
always simply intruding into the battery. We had to replicate
the exact angle, the exact depth, the exact force of the impact
in order to do that. We wanted to take this component level
test and make it as close to the real world circumstance that
we create in the test as possible. That took a tremendous
amount of engineering.
Mr. Kucinich. So you went to extensive efforts to try to
replicate the fire.
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely.
Mr. Kucinich. Is that a normal procedure at NHTSA?
Mr. Strickland. That is absolutely not. The reason why we
undertook these steps is because we feel that advanced
technology vehicles, and especially with anomalous
circumstances as what happened in June, we need to know full
answers in order to make the decision to protect the American
public.
Mr. Kucinich. Did GM ever request that NHTSA keep the
information from your internal testing and your efforts to
replicate a fire? Did GM ever ask you not to disclose that or
make it public?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely not.
Mr. Kucinich. Did anyone in the administration who is your
superior ever ask you to fail to disclose information relating
to NHTSA's replication of the fire?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely not. It is my expectation, it is
the Secretary's expectation, it is the executive office of the
President's expectation, that I do my job to lead this Agency.
Mr. Kucinich. What would you do if someone did come up to
you and say, hey, you know what? We have these issues out here
with the technology, we have issues out here with CAFE
standards. What would you do if that did happen?
Mr. Strickland. I have a higher moral obligation to the
American public. I would properly disclose any risk if it
proved to be an unreasonable risk to safety, period.
Mr. Kucinich. Does NHTSA always keep initial internal
investigations confidential prior to opening a formal safety
defect investigation?
Mr. Strickland. Like all agencies, we have pre-decisional
work to be done.
Mr. Kucinich. Why?
Mr. Strickland. Because we handle confidential business
information, proprietary information, and, frankly, it doesn't
serve the American public for us to make a non-deliberative,
uncareful decision about something that poses a safety risk.
Mr. Kucinich. So what are your statutory obligations with
respect to alerting the public to safety risks?
Mr. Strickland. If we find that a defect we believe pose an
unreasonable risk to safety, we would initiate a recall process
with the manufacturer. We would ask them to undertake a recall.
Mr. Kucinich. So hold on a minute. So in your view, before
an unreasonable risk to safety is identified, NHTSA does not
have a legal obligation to inform the public of isolated
hazardous incidents that may occur until it is determined to be
an unreasonable risk to safety?
Mr. Strickland. We have no obligation. But clearly, before
we even make that decision, if we feel that there is an
imminent risk, we will always inform the public through
consumer advisories and other methodologies.
Mr. Kucinich. Let's move from the testing laboratory to the
real world. It is my understanding from the chairman and CEO of
GM who I met with yesterday, there are approximately 8,000 of
these vehicles on the road. Are you familiar with those
numbers?
Mr. Strickland. That is correct. I think there is around
6,000, I think, Volts on the road right now, if I am not
mistaken, plus or minus.
Mr. Kucinich. Okay. And have you ever received any reports
or accounts of any real-world crashes that would seem to
parallel the safety testing that you did internally?
Mr. Strickland. None.
Mr. Kucinich. Has anyone that you know ever been hurt in a
Chevy Volt vehicle and those reports came back to you
specifically related to a fire risk?
Mr. Strickland. It is my understanding there has been no
injuries or fatalities due to post-fire crashes in Volts.
Mr. Kucinich. Who on your staff tracks that?
Mr. Strickland. We have an entire office called the Office
of Defects Investigation, and that is their responsibility to
track all vehicle reports, also early warning reporting data as
well through that particular recall office. There is an entire
team that does it and they do a fantastic job. They review over
40,000 complaints every year.
Mr. Kucinich. So you follow the crashes, you follow the
accidents, you follow incidents, you follow lawsuits that
products----
Mr. Strickland. We have lots of information that comes in
to help us make defect investigation decisions. All of those
things that you listed, ranking member, we do look at.
Mr. Kucinich. Would you drive a Chevy Volt?
Mr. Strickland. Not only would I drive it, I would drive my
mother, my wife and my baby sister with me along on the ride.
Mr. Kucinich. And you would have no concerns about the
safety of the vehicle?
Mr. Strickland. None.
Mr. Kucinich. And will you continue to maintain a study of
the Volt with respect to your internal circumstances that
produced the fire?
Mr. Strickland. We treat all vehicle investigations and all
vehicles on the road the same way. While we do thorough
investigations, it is our obligation to always watch the fleet.
So while this investigation may be closed, we will always be
looking at not only the Chevrolet Volt, but any other vehicle
in terms of possible risk, safety risk to the public.
Mr. Kucinich. One final question, Mr. Chairman. You know,
you went to great length to describe the circumstances under
which you created the fire. Could you tell this subcommittee
how likely is it in the real world that those circumstances
could actually be replicated as a practical matter?
Mr. Strickland. Well, I will have to get back to you on the
record for the specific technical difficulties in recreating
the crash in the real world, but it is my understanding it is
very, very, very rare.
Mr. Kucinich. Have you assessed it mathematically?
Mr. Strickland. I am not sure if my staff has or has not
done that.
Mr. Kucinich. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you. I
think it has been a very useful interchange here. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan. Again, I will make the quick point though,
certainly it is very rare. We understand that. But the fact is
it happened, and it happened at a time when you were
negotiating CAFE standards. It happened at a time when you were
coming before Congress and you didn't tell us about it. That is
the point.
So let me just ask you this question: When did you first
let the public know that there might be a concern that there
was, in fact, an explosion that caused a fire with the battery
in the Volt? What was the first date NHTSA let the public know
there might be a concern?
Mr. Strickland. My understanding is we first informed the
public in November.
Mr. Jordan. What date?
Mr. Strickland. I have to take a look at my timeline
specifically.
Mr. Jordan. Was it before or after the news report from
Bloomberg News came out and talked about this issue?
Mr. Strickland. I believe it was concurrently. But bottom
line being our agency actually assisted the reporters in
getting that story actually factually correct. So we fully
absolutely worked with those folks to make sure that there was
proper details and context of the work that was ongoing and
what happened back in----
Mr. Jordan. So you first released the information to the
public after you knew there was going to be a news report about
it?
Mr. Strickland. We were in a pre-decisional posture----
Mr. Jordan. The news report took place on November 11th.
When did NHTSA officially say something about this concern?
Mr. Strickland. We responded on the 11th, but we were also
in a pre-decisional posture. We were close to making those----
Mr. Jordan. But for the story, when were you going to tell
us?
Mr. Strickland. Fairly soon. We were actually in the
process of doing that.
Mr. Jordan. Fairly soon?
Mr. Strickland. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. But not until--I mean, the way it worked
out is not until a news reporter broke the story?
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman, it is my responsibility--I do
not disclose to the public anything that we find that we don't
have proof that it is a unreasonable risk to safety.
Mr. Jordan. Let me ask you one more question before
yielding to Ms. Buerkle or Mr. Kelly. Is it customary for the
Secretary of Transportation to comment on the safety of a
vehicle while there is a formal investigation going on?
Mr. Strickland. The Secretary of Transportation was fully
aware of the work that was going on, and he made the statement
because it was based on the facts provided to him by this
Agency.
Mr. Jordan. But that is not what I asked. I said does he
normally do that? In other investigations, does the Secretary
of Transportation, while you have a formal investigation going
on, does the Secretary of Transportation make a comment about
the safety of the vehicle? Not any comment, but a thumbs-up
comment. Is that a normal procedure for the Secretary of
Transportation?
Mr. Strickland. The Secretary, my understanding, was asked
a direct question and he gave a direct answer based on facts.
Mr. Jordan. Has it happened before? Is this the first----
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman, you know the Secretary very
well. When somebody asks the Secretary of Transportation a
question, he answers. That is what he does.
Mr. Jordan. Did Mr. LaHood know at the time he was asked
the question and he gave the answer that there was a formal
investigation going on?
Mr. Strickland. He was very aware of all the work that was
undertaken by the Agency at that time----
Mr. Jordan. So our Secretary of Transportation knew you
were investigating this vehicle, was asked the question about
the safety of the vehicle, comments and says it is fine, and--
--
Mr. Strickland. The Secretary knew about the----
Mr. Jordan. And yet that answer was given 6 weeks before
you formally said it was fine.
Mr. Strickland. The Secretary knew of all the facts and the
details as to whether they pose an imminent threat----
Mr. Jordan. Doesn't it seem at least a little unusual?
Mr. Strickland. No, it wasn't unusual. The Secretary is
asked questions like that all the time and gives an answer. He
did it for Toyota. He did it for Toyota.
Mr. Jordan. We have a picture of a car, an explosion that
took place. You wait 6 months to start an investigation. Two
weeks into the investigation, the Secretary of Transportation
is asked a question about the safety of the vehicle and he says
it is great. Even though you haven't concluded the
investigation, and you think that is normal?
Mr. Strickland. The Secretary was aware of all of our pre-
fact-finding work and enough to make a conclusion on his own
supported by the work of the Agency that there was no imminent
risk to Volt drivers regarding this issue, and the Secretary
answered directly. He does it all the time.
Mr. Jordan. Okay.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that what the
witness has done with respect to his own experience is to
communicate the manner in which the testing occurred and that
in his considered judgment there was no risk to the consumers
and that the Secretary of Transportation with his understanding
that was communicated through his own questioning determined
that what you said was consistent with what he believed to be
the facts.
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, the option we always have, and I would
suggest it would be very interesting for this subcommittee,
would be to invite Secretary LaHood, if we have any doubts
about his position, which I do not, but the chair certainly is
free to do that.
Mr. Jordan. Well, I appreciate the ranking member's
response. I would just say that I know the ranking member's
commitment to safety. He has an amazing track record.
Mr. Kucinich. We share that.
Mr. Jordan. An amazing track record in his years of public
service. But I would ask you, Mr. Kucinich, don't you think it
is a little strange that when there is a formal investigation
going on, that the Secretary of Transportation comments and
says the vehicle is safe, it is fine, you can drive it.
Mr. Kucinich. I would say, first of all, you and I share
the concern about safety.
Mr. Jordan. Don't you think it is a little strange?
Mr. Kucinich. You and I share the concern about safety. But
it may be that the Secretary, and I don't know unless we invite
him, so we can only speculate, it may be he was concluding
based on information that he received from NHTSA, and it wasn't
an off-the-cuff assessment that was just driven by hope, as
opposed to material fact.
Mr. Jordan. I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Strickland, just to be perfectly clear, I do not
question why you get up in the morning and what is in your
heart. I get up every morning with the same purpose that you
do, to serve the American people. Believe me, I was a lot more
comfortable in my showroom back in Butler, Pennsylvania, than I
am sitting here today, and I am sure you are a lot more
comfortable sitting where you sit every day than you are here
today.
But the question does become, because, you know, when it
comes down to it, perception is reality. And we constantly
fight these perceptions that are out there. Whether they are
real or not, that really has nothing to do with it, because at
the end of the day, it is how did the public perceive that. So
when we come down to these things, I have to tell you, I have
some slides here, and I have a problem with this. I have been
involved in a lot of vehicle launches, and slide 14 that we
have, if we can pull that up.
Usually most product launches that I have been to, there
are people that show up. And in this one, if you look in the
upper left-hand corner, there is Secretary LaHood with EPA
Administrator Lisa Jackson. In the middle is President Obama
himself. On the right side is Secretary Chu of Energy. Down in
the left-hand corner is Labor Secretary Solis and Steny Hoyer.
Then you go to the other side, there is Labor Secretary Hilda
Solis. So this is an unusual launch.
The reason I bring that up is because of the disconnect
between what your Agency does, because your mission statement
back in 1970 when the Agency came into existence was to save
lives, prevent injuries and reduce traffic-related health care
and other economic costs.
So I look at this and I say, you know what, the
stakeholders are all in this launch. This is a halo car, not so
much for General Motors, but for this administration. This has
nothing to do with the Chevy Volt or the Nissan Leaf or
anything else. For me it comes down to taxpayer dollars being
used to subsidize a product that this administration has
decided should go forward.
Believe me, if General Motors thought this was a good
investment, they would have launched it themselves many, many
years ago and would have said you know what, we can make money
with this, because their real commitment is to the shareholders
and the stakeholders in the company. Right now the government
has a big hand in that, do they not?
So, I think we can agree that there is a mutual benefit
here for not only, not only the administration, but General
Motors, but on a very, very small scale. Because when you look
at the number of cars we build every year and we sell every
year, this is not going to have a dramatic impact on a carbon
footprint or the sales of General Motors products.
I go back to I sell a lot of Chevy Cruzes. Do you know how
many taxpayer dollars are subsidizing that car? None. You know
why? The market loves it. They love it. It is affordable, it is
economical, if is safe. It is everything that the American
public wants. That is why we are the leaders in the industry.
We have always been able to do that.
So I come down to these things. Again, I don't question
what is in your heart. I would never question your integrity.
But when you look at these timelines, as you go back and forth,
every once in awhile there may be something, you say, well,
that was kind of a coincidence. But when it is time after time
after time after time, and what did you know and when did you
know it and when did you share it with General Motors and when
did you share it with the public, and when all these people are
weighing in, and certainly they show up for the launch, and I
am sure they stayed for the lunch, but you have to understand
that the American public is demanding from us today, more than
anything else, integrity. Say what you mean, mean what you say.
If you are truly protecting our lives and protecting our
best interests, if you are looking at all the costs involved,
both health care and economic, then why so long? Why so long? I
think that is what the chairman keeps referencing, and I think
Mr. Kucinich feels the same way, and we all do. We all do.
So it is hard for me to sit back and look at this and think
that, my gosh, there was a rush to judgment with Toyota. I have
friends that sell Toyotas. And I have watched this Congress
bring members of the former GM board in and excoriate them for
bad business practices. Now, keep in mind, this is an outfit
that is running $15 trillion in the red, and they are telling
General Motors, you guys don't know how to run your business.
They say, okay, thanks, I think if I am going to hire somebody,
I probably won't go to you guys.
But we bring Toyota in, we embarrass them in front of the
world. We roll this out very early. When did we go to Toyota
and say, listen, you know what? We have run these tests. Now,
it took us 6 months to let the public know there is an
acceleration problem. We didn't do that, did we?
I mean, there was a real timeline problem here. And when
you compare the two, I am not talking about General Motors and
Toyota, I am talking about electric vehicles, whether it is the
Chevrolet Volt or the Nissan Leaf or anything else that is out
there, if these cars are so great and so marketable, why could
do we have to subsidize them so heavily?
In my State of Pennsylvania, in addition to $7,500 tax
credit from the Federal Government, Pennsylvania throws another
$3,500 at this car. That is $11,000. I have sold a lot of cars
in my lifetime, and the only time you put a SPIF on a car is
when it won't move on its own.
Why are we using taxpayer dollars to do this? Certainly if
the corporate average fuel economy doesn't have anything to do
with this, I don't know how old you are, but I go back to the
dates they actually launched it. It was about dependence on
foreign oil. It had nothing to do with carbon footprint. You
didn't have to get the DOD involved in this to come up with the
idea that, you know what, if you build a car that gets better
gas mileage, the people that actually pay for these cars and
buy them and have to put fuel in them will probably go to a
vehicle that, in the long run, is cheaper to run. General
Motors has done it all our lives. They have done it since day
one. That is why we have always led the world.
But I got to tell you, when you look at this, I really am
concerned, and I mean this sincerely. Your Agency dropped the
ball on this, sir. And when I look at the dialog back and forth
at about when this stuff came to light, there is a timeline
that needed to be addressed. And to go back to your own mission
statement, stabilize and prevent injuries and reduce traffic-
related, health care and other economic costs, I think there is
also another investment here, and that is the one that took
precedence over what your initial mission statement is.
So I don't know that you can answer any of those questions.
I don't know it is so much a question as a statement. Because
we are both members of the same organization. We are trying to
do the best thing for the people that we represent.
Mr. Kucinich. Would my friend yield?
Mr. Kelly. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. You may have been out of the room when I made
this statement, and I just want to make sure that the record is
clear. I did make the observation, and it seemed like a long
time, but what I tried to do in the course of the questioning
is to give Mr. Strickland the opportunity to testify whether
there was a valid reason for so much time to pass, and I think
that, in my view, he did effectively make a case why it took so
long. But I just want to make sure----
Mr. Kelly. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Kucinich. Sure, of course.
Mr. Kelly. Were the same standards used when we had the
acceleration problems with the Toyota?
Mr. Kucinich. I think it would be good to ask Mr.
Strickland that question.
Mr. Strickland. Every investigation is different, every
investigation has different facts and every investigation has
different needs in terms of our pre-fact-finding work at the
technical level.
Mr. Kelly, I appreciate the question and I appreciate your
statement, that you are absolutely right. The American people
send folks like me their faith to make sure that the decisions
that this Agency makes are the right ones, and our process is
one that we have to prove an unreasonable risk to safety before
we can take any formal action against an auto maker for them to
remedy that particular problem.
Mr. Jordan. Will the gentleman yield? I just want to be
clear, Mr. Strickland. Your testimony is each investigation is
different and unique, is that correct?
Mr. Strickland. They are. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. So you are saying that with the Volt, the
General Motors vehicle, you took a different tact, a different
approach than you did with the Toyota vehicle?
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Jordan, I meant that technically. Every
investigation at the technical level is a different problem. I
was trying to clarify that.
Mr. Jordan. Let's be clear. When you testified just a few
seconds ago, you said each investigation is unique. So it is
truthful, it is factual that you did a different type of
approach with the Volt and General Motors than you did with
Toyota?
Mr. Strickland. We take different technical approaches
because they are different problems. We took the same process--
the process that----
Mr. Jordan. The fact is the taxpayer-subsidized auto
manufacturer got a different approach than the non-taxpayer
funded auto manufacturer. That is what you said.
Mr. Strickland. No. Mr. Jordan, I said at the technical
level every investigation is different; different technologies,
different problems, different issues, different levels of how
much we know about a particular technology pipeline. But we
treat, and I want to underscore this, we treat every
manufacturer the same. We hold them accountable for the safety
every single day----
Mr. Jordan. There is no way that statement can jive with
what you just said 2 minutes ago. You said each investigation
is unique and different, and now you are saying we treat each
manufacturer the same. Did you wait 6 months before you told
the public on concerns with other manufacturers? I don't think
so. So that is the concern the American taxpayer has. You have
just stated it right here in the last 2 minutes. That is the
concern the American taxpayer has.
Mr. Strickland. The American taxpayer, Mr. Jordan, expects
us to do the right job every single time in finding safety
defects, and they want to make sure that when we make a
decision that a reasonable risk to safety exists, that we act
proactively.
It does not serve the American people with the number of
complaints we get every single year--Mr. Jordan, what you have
basically outlined in this situation would mean that this
Agency would have to outline 40,000 defect investigations every
single year to treat everything the same.
Mr. Jordan. No, I am not outlining anything. You answered
Mr. Kelly's and Mr. Kucinich's questioning by saying each
investigation is unique and different, and all I am doing is
saying so GM got treated different than Toyota did.
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Jordan, I am not going to get my words
minced. In terms of process, we treat every manufacturer the
same. At the technical level, we have to take every
investigation with the same set of facts, and there is
different technical issues, and we treat those uniquely,
because different cars have different problems.
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman from Cleveland is recognized.
Mr. Kucinich. I just want to make sure to follow up on what
the chairman said. Did you pull any punches with GM because
they are taxpayer-subsidized, or did you go into the science to
try to see if there was any way you could replicate a fire?
Mr. Strickland. We pulled no punches. We treat this
investigation the way we treat every investigation. If we have
a question----
Mr. Kucinich. So GM is not going to get a pass because
there is a subsidy.
Mr. Strickland. No, absolutely not. The core of what we do
every day is driven by data, science and engineering.
Mr. Kucinich. And the data and the science was different
because you were studying in Toyota something different in
terms of acceleration, as opposed to with the Volt, you were
trying to replicate to see whether or not there was a fire that
could be created under laboratory circumstances.
Mr. Strickland. That is correct, ranking member.
Mr. Kucinich. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Jordan. I would just point out too, when the
investigation of Toyota took place, we weren't negotiating the
CAFE standards. We didn't have administration officials going
out to Toyota plants taking pictures in the cars, talking about
the need to do certain things and have certain kinds of vehicle
sold. We didn't have this huge investment in green technology.
So, again, I come back to what the Administrator said. That
is the point here. He is under oath. He is testifying. He said
that they are different and unique investigations each time,
and I just asked a simple question, was GM treated different
than Toyota? And based on what this Administrator said, that,
in fact, was the case.
Mr. Kucinich. My friend, he spoke to the relevant
underlying technical facts of what they had to look at. There
are different problems. That is how I took it. Is that what you
meant?
Mr. Strickland. That is what I meant, ranking member.
Mr. Jordan. I am sorry, I took Mr. Kelly's time. Mr. Kelly,
you have a few minutes left and then we will move to the next
one.
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Strickland, let me just say something to
you, okay?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely.
Mr. Kelly. There is a difference between the two of us. You
were actually appointed and I was elected.
Mr. Strickland. That is true.
Mr. Kelly. And Mr. Akerson is going to be here pretty soon.
You are getting a little bit of a flavor of when I go back home
and we have town hall meetings what it is like. So as much as
it may seem like it is an easy thing, that we can actually walk
and chew gum at the same time, I am going to tell you, people
ask you questions that are really trying to get to the heart of
the problem. And I do want to--again, this is not to attack you
personally. This is not about anybody's personality. This is
about performance. And this is a standard that we have to be
held to, both you and I, for the American public.
So as we go forward in this, I just hope we are
understanding this. And I am going to show you something, just
so you know. Because, you know, most cars are 12 volt
operation. You know this is a 300 volt and also has a 12 volt.
Now, do you know, I have techs that have been trained in this,
because the concern was always about safety. Do you know what
our guys do? Do you know what are some of the essential tools?
One of the things--I brought some gloves today, okay. The
first thing you got to put on is this cloth glove when you're
going to disconnect or unhook the battery, okay. Then the next
thing you got to do is--this keeps the moisture down, which,
you know, you don't want to have your hands wet when you're
working around electricity, especially 300 volts. Then you got
to put on the rubber glove. Then on top of that, you've got to
put on a leather glove. So this is a three-prong process. And
this is all designed to protect the technicians that are
working on this car. And I don't know that you know this, I
don't know if you've seen this procedure before. There was one
other essential tool that was debated early on. Do you know
what it was.
Mr. Strickland. No, sir.
Mr. Kelly. It was an insulated shepherd's hook. Now, that's
the same hook that the Lord refers to a lot about the Good
Shepherd pulling one of his flock back out of a problem it was
in. So if you're a technician and you're working on a Volt and
you happen to hit a live wire, 300 volts which does have a
little bit of effect on your ability to sustain life, you grab
the insulated shepherd's hook and you pull your comrade off the
car.
So I want to make sure that we understand where we're going
with this. And the responsibility that you have to the American
public and the responsibility that we all have to the American
public is the same thing: to protect them from health care
costs or economic costs related from an injury.
So I'm going to take off the gloves. And I don't dislike
you. I admire you for what you're doing. I want you to travel
with me sometime back in the district and meet some of the
folks that I represent.
Mr. Strickland. I would love to.
Mr. Kelly. As we go forward, there is no doubt that we're
going to continue to look at this, but as Mr. Jordan said,
perception is reality. We have created now a question of trust,
not only here in this body, but also with your agency, because
now the American people got to start to wonder. So why did they
do it, what happened, when did it happen, when did they let
General Motors know about it, and was it in the best interest
of the public or was it in the best interest of the
administration?
Mr. Kucinich. Will my friend yield for 10 seconds?
Mr. Kelly. I will, Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. I would say that we're fortunate to have you
on this committee because your expertise in automotive is
wonderful to have here. But I would also submit that the
question isn't whether GM was dealing with the kind of gloves
you're talking about, but whether or not NHTSA treated GM with
kid gloves.
Mr. Kelly. And I will tell you this. It's a matter, Mr.
Kucinich, of protecting people from harm, and in this case I
think we're protecting the administration more than we are the
American public.
Mr. Kucinich. You and I agree on the safety issues.
Mr. Kelly. And we both like each other. I know that's a
hard thing for most people to understand. And we don't fight
around here all the time.
Mr. Jordan. The ranking member of the full committee has
been extremely patient. I want to give him as much time as the
gentleman. Do you want 10 minutes?
Mr. Cummings. I probably won't need that much, but thank
you very much.
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. First of all, Mr.
Strickland, Administrator Strickland, thank you very much for
your testimony this morning. When I listened to your testimony
and I listened to yesterday's comments from the GM head, Mr.
Akerson, and I combine what I've heard this morning with what
he had to say, I have some simple words for you, and it is that
I believe you.
Mr. Strickland. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. A lot of times when we look at circumstances
from this vantage point we make judgment calls, but we're not
in your shoes. And as a trial lawyer for many years I often saw
facts that appeared to say one thing but when the story was
told and the circumstances were explained they said a whole
other thing.
I think part of the problem here this morning is that as
I've listened very carefully, the timeline in getting out
information at certain points seems a bit shaky. And as I
listened to your explanation in response to one of Mr.
Kucinich's questions, I am convinced that apparently you did
things in a way that it should have been done. But the problem
is this. Somebody over there just said, trust is so important.
And there is a book that I recommend to all my proteges that's
called The Speed of Trust. And it talks about how important it
is that when in any relationship, that you trust a person,
because it allows the relationship to move faster; in other
words, get things done. But there are two kinds of trust.
There's trust with regard to integrity and then there's trust
with regard to competence. In other words, I would not want my
barber cutting my hair.
So I think, you know--and I don't want us to get confused
here. You've been sworn here today. But what has happened here,
and whether you know it or not, is your integrity has been
questioned, your honesty has been questioned. And then the
question becomes, what is that all about?
Now, I don't believe this hearing is about safety. I wish I
did. I think that GM has come up with a brilliant idea to come
up with a great product. It's had some problems, but there is
this allegation out there that some kind of way President Obama
or somebody from the Obama administration came to NHTSA and
said, don't put out certain information because we want GM to
be successful; or, they have conflated the CAFE standards with
all of this--which is ridiculous.
So I'm going to ask you a few questions that I want you to
clear up some things. Because see what happens here is that,
Mr. Strickland, our lives are short and damage can be done to
somebody sitting in that chair and they don't even know it's
been done. Or your wife will be looking at you on television
tonight and saying, you know, they really made you look bad.
Well, I just want you to know, calm down, you don't look bad.
Mr. Strickland. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Cummings. But I've got to ask you this. You know
there's been some discussion with regard to--you know, when you
were here before, and there was discussion that you had at the
October fuel economy standards hearing regarding safety focused
on--and that focused on the impact of weight and mass
reduction; do you remember that?
Mr. Strickland. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cummings. And I want to ask you this. Do electric
vehicle technologies have impact on weight and mass reduction
of vehicles?
Mr. Strickland. No.
Mr. Cummings. So the discussion on safety at the October
hearing was not directly relevant to the battery fires that
occurred 3 weeks after a series of extreme tests; is that
right?
Mr. Strickland. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Cummings. So the majority is attempting to conflate two
separate issues. Mr. Strickland, how does the safety of
electric vehicles compare to conventional fuel-based vehicles?
Mr. Strickland. There is no differential in risk between
those two systems. They have different attributes that have to
be taken into account, but there's no different risk between
electric vehicles and gasoline-powered vehicles.
Mr. Cummings. Does the fire of a Chevy Volt, weeks
following extreme crash testing in the NHTSA lab, justify
Chairman Issa's characterization of Chevy's Volt as a, ``fiery
failure?''
Mr. Strickland. No, absolutely not. It was an anomalous
result that we were not expecting and GM wasn't expecting
either, and we took a lot of time to figure out the root cause,
which we did. And we feel that the remedy that GM has proposed
would deal with those issues going forward.
Mr. Cummings. And so we've got a situation. I want you to
understand how this stuff works, okay, because I've been around
here awhile, 16 years. There are some employees that are going
to watch this at GM tonight, if they're not watching it right
now, and they care about this vehicle. They are people who, if
it were not for the good leadership of Mr. Ackerman and the
help that they got from the government, would be out of a job.
They take pride in this vehicle. And so we're having this
discussion today, and I don't want the word going out--see, you
can have collateral damage in these hearings, and the
collateral damage could be that folk go out and say, I'm not
going to go buy a Volt. They catch a little bit of information,
right? Not going to buy a Volt. So therefore a car that is safe
now--and it is safe; is that right?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. You all just released a report, what, Friday?
Mr. Strickland. We closed our investigation last week,
that's correct.
Mr. Cummings. So I want to be clear that they can buy a
Volt, and as you said--you didn't say these words, but you
would be comfortable with your wife, your children, la-de-da-de
and everybody riding in it; is that right?
Mr. Strickland. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. Because see, you know, we run around here and
we complain about jobs and here we--and we complain about what
we're failing to do. But here we have used some of the best
minds to create one of the best vehicles, one that's selling
off the charts. We've got GM now leading the world, and this
hearing in and of itself could cause damage to all of that.
So I don't want to--believe me, I want to make sure that
the vehicle is safe; that's why I want you to be clear that
safety should be all of our number one concern, and I know it's
yours. But I also want the word to go out--I don't want this
collateral damage, because that collateral damage is going to
cost somebody, a supplier in my district perhaps, or a supplier
in Mr. Jordan's district, to perhaps have to close their doors.
But more importantly, it sends a message to hardworking
Americans who are producing a great product and a product that
will allow GM to perhaps continue to lead the world with regard
to sales of vehicles.
And so I just--you know, I want you to just go back just 1
second, I've got 1 minute left, and give us--and I don't want--
see, I don't want these--see, what they're going to do, I've
been around here a long time, they're going to keep hammering
at you. I'm just telling you that's what they're going to do. I
can go to lunch and come back and they're going to still be
beating up on you, because they want to make a point. And do
you know what, sometimes the point ain't even there, it's not
there. They're swatting, we got a point, I want to make a
point.
And I want you to use your next 23 seconds that's left to
assure us that although it may have appeared--the timeline may
have appeared not to be all that we would want it to be, that
it was. Can you explain that to us again?
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Cummings, thank you so much for the
opportunity. Our work was independent. We have a statutory
obligation to protect the American public from a reasonable
risk of safety caused by vehicle defects. Our obligation is to
make sure the American public gets home safely every time.
It took us 6 months in order to figure out not only whether
the Volt was involved, what specifically caused the fire and
whether there was an imminent risk, and then if there was a
defect that needed to be addressed. It took 6 months of a lot
of engineers not only in my agency but in other agencies across
government to do that. At no time was there any notion of any
other part of government coming to me or coming to any of my
staff saying that we should do nothing other than our job, and
that's what we did.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. Yes, thank you. I would just point out we're
not trying to make a point; the point is the point, the
timeline is the timeline, the facts are the facts, and that's
exactly what this hearing is about. The hearing is not the
problem, the problem is the problem. That's why we have the
hearing.
Mr. Cummings. The problem is the problem?
Mr. Jordan. Yeah. We're here because a vehicle exploded in
a timeline and this gentleman did not give information to the
committee when he could have back in October.
Mr. Cummings. That is right but--will the gentleman yield
for just a second?
Mr. Jordan. All I'm saying is the facts are the facts.
Mr. Cummings. The facts are the facts.
Mr. Jordan. You're saying we're swatting at things, we're
appearing, we're trying, we keep them here until--we've got our
last questioner right now. That's not what this hearing is
about and that's not the points we're making.
Mr. Cummings. Come on, Mr. Chairman, come on now. I've been
around a long time. This hearing is not about safety, this
hearing is about an attack.
Mr. Jordan. No, it's not.
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Mr. Jordan. We're getting to the facts.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Fine.
Mr. Jordan. The gentlelady from New York is recognized, the
vice chair.
Ms. Buerkle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, unlike the ranking
member, Mr. Cummings, I am new here in Washington. And Mr.
Strickland, thank you very much for being here.
Mr. Strickland. Thank you. Nice seeing you again.
Ms. Buerkle. Nice to see you, too. We've had other
conversations about other issues, but today I would like to
talk about--and the ranking member brought it up--trust based
on integrity or based on competence. I'm concerned with your
role and NHTSA's role with regards to competence and making
sure that the technicians and the folks who work there know
exactly what the issues are and what to do. And in this
instance it really is the issue of the lithium-ion battery. I
mean, that really isn't how one handles that and how one treats
that. That really is kind of the essence of what we're talking
about here for safety.
You know, I think we should all take this opportunity. We
learn from mistakes, we learn from shortcomings, we look at
situations that we didn't like the way they worked out and we
figure out what we did wrong and we move on. And so I think
that's what a hearing like this is about: How do we prevent
this from happening again?
I guess my question to you is, were the automobile, the
safety engineers, aware of the dangers posed by the damaged
lithium-ion battery?
Mr. Strickland. At what point, Madam Chairwoman?
Ms. Buerkle. After the crash occurred on the 12th, May
12th. Then the car sat after the crash.
Mr. Strickland. Okay, I understand. Thank you, vice
chairman, for clarifying that. The car was put through a normal
New Car Assessment Program side impact test. When we finish
with those particular tests and get the results, the car, the
hull, is then sold for salvage. That car was stored in the
normal process in the yard, thinking that there were going to
be no issues, and it wasn't observed at all until those 3 weeks
later, on June 6th, when the staff at MGA came back and noticed
the burnt hulls that were discovered.
So no one had an expectation that the particular fire
incident that happened on June 6th would be precipitated from
the May 12th test.
Ms. Buerkle. And I guess that gets to the essence of my
question. These batteries, when it was traumatized, when you
had the crash test on May 12th, it then began to leak and there
was evidence that there was a leaking orange fluid. And my
concern is that the safety administrators didn't have the
wherewithal or the knowledge that this leaking battery would
cause a problem, given that battery and the energy behind it
and the dangers.
And so my question to you is: Why was that car stored with
other cars, why wasn't that battery drained, why wasn't that
handled--why wasn't it handled as if someone understood the
dangers with regards to this lithium-ion battery?
Mr. Strickland. Our engineers and the test facility
engineers actually know of the dangers and the issues regarding
lithium-ion in terms of how much energy they store. In all of
the crash tests up until that particular point, the ones that
are taken by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, and my understanding of those undertaken by GM,
there has never been an issue where post crash there was
actually a fire issue. So therefore there was no protocol
either by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or GM
externally at that particular time to deal with batteries post
crash. Because this is a new technology and we are always
learning, this is something frankly that we addressed and we
looked at and we took the proper processes once we recognized
that this could be an issue.
Ms. Buerkle. And that, sir, with all due respect, is our
concern, or my concern. The fact that if it was a regular
engine you would have drained--after an accident, you would
have drained the gasoline out of the tank to avoid any--and in
this instance, the fact that the fire did occur because the
fluid wasn't drained, there were no protocols, therefore there
were no protocols given to GM, and that's a problem. Because in
this instance without the protocols, without giving the
protocols to GM, how do you inform them of what happened? I
mean that's the purpose of--you do. And obviously this could
happen--it could happen on the road and you would have a
similar situation. So that's the concern. There were no
protocols, GM wasn't informed, and it appears--and we talk
about appearance being reality--that the administrators, the
safety administrators, didn't have the knowledge of this
battery and the danger that this leaking fluid out of it could
cause and did cause this fire. I believe I'm out of time, and I
yield back.
Mr. Strickland. Actually, I would like to respond to that.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Quickly. That would be great.
Mr. Strickland. And I'll be very brief. Am I satisfied for
the fact of what we as an agency or what the manufacturers did
at the time in terms of post crash protocols for lithium-ion
batteries? No. That's the reason why we addressed it. But there
is also no reason to think that there was an issue with the
protocols because of the processes that we went through and are
learning over the years about these systems. Battery intrusion
we've always known is a situation that we want to avoid. In
this particular situation, in an anomalous way the battery was
intruded upon, and then we discovered a list of events where we
know we needed to address lithium-ion batteries post crash,
which we did, with the National Fire Protection Association and
the Department of Energy.
So, Madam Chairwoman--Vice Chairwoman, we absolutely want
to make sure that we protect those people not in post crash,
but the second responders, the storage facilities, all those
other things. But let me be perfectly clear. We have been
working on lithium-ion high-voltage battery systems for several
years. We began our work on safety protocols in a research plan
in 2010 specifically, well before any of these issues came to
the fore, because we recognize that there's always going to be
learning going forward in how we deal with these safety
systems. It's a priority and we take our job very seriously in
that way.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Administrator. We want to get to the
chairman of the full committee. And we promise this will be
your last 5 minutes because we do want to get to Mr. Akerson
before we have votes. So the chairman of the committee, Mr.
Issa, is recognized.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And perhaps going last
gives me one advantage. Administrator Strickland, this is about
safety, this is about government's role. This committee under
the Republicans and Democratic leaders has taken on auto
companies and the Transportation Safety Administration overall.
We did it under Toyota and we did it in a very, very bipartisan
fashion. So understand, you're here today because my first
hybrid electric car came with me to Washington. The factory
that blew up and left the world without enough lithium-ion
batteries occurred while I was still a CEO in the electronics
industry. How dare you tell us you're still developing
protocols while the President is sitting in an electric car?
And it's not General Motors' first electric car, it's not the
first electric car that has been put on the road.
So one of the reasons you're here today is you're behind
the power curve. This vehicle's picture was not released until
today. I've got to tell you, if you were against electric cars,
if you were not trying to promote them perhaps ahead of some of
the expertise you have for safety, this picture would have been
splashed 20 minutes after it burned. The fact is your
administration is not up to speed to maintain safety in an
electric age.
Now, I grew up, like many people on both sides of the dais,
seeing exposes of various trucks and cars--and I won't name the
brands--exploding on television. It's not new that you can have
catastrophic events in the case of an accident. That's one of
the reasons you have the test protocol.
I'm deeply concerned today about one major part of this,
the most important part. You didn't know what you were doing,
an anomaly happened, it happened when there were less than
400,000 Volts out there, didn't it? Didn't it?
Mr. Strickland. I don't know the stated charge
particularly.
Mr. Issa. Well, I do. By July there were less than 4,000,
and we'll have the CEO here in a moment. Today there are twice
as many out there. You didn't even inform and deal with the
problem, either to the public or to General Motors or to this
committee, when people were here in front of this committee
during the intervening period until Bloomberg media outed you.
Now, how do you answer the question of transparency,
accountability and trust today? You said you would put your
mother, your grandmother, all these people in a car you don't
own. You put the President of the United States in the car, you
put the Secretary of Transportation in the car. How dare you
not have both the public and this committee know what you knew
in a timely fashion? How do you answer that accusation, which
is the safety charge that you guys screwed up on by keeping a
secret?
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman, I will point to the timeline,
which is very detailed as to the work that was undertaken by
the agency along with the Department of Energy and the
Department of Defense.
Mr. Issa. The car blew up 3 weeks after it was hit,
unexplained, right? Part of the timeline.
Mr. Strickland. That's correct.
Mr. Issa. Three minutes after that 3-week event, why was it
that executives at General Motors weren't flying in well
informed? Why is it that one of the hallmark projects of this
administration that higher-ups, including Secretary LaHood,
including if necessary a briefing sent to someone that would
try to get it to the President, why wasn't that as important?
Mr. Strickland. GM was notified as soon as we were
notified, on June 6th. And it is our responsibility to figure
out what is wrong with the vehicle, even the vehicle that was
at cause. At the point that we saw, Mr. Chairman, we didn't
even know whether the Volt was at fault. So we had to build
from the ground up which vehicle was responsible; or even if it
was a vehicle, it could have been an arsonist as far as we
knew.
Then once we isolated it to the Volt, it took every moment
up until we were able to close the investigation to do the
engineering work for us to come to the decision on whether or
not the Volt posed an unreasonable risk to safety. And until we
have that agency decision made, it is irresponsible, frankly
illegal, for us to go forward and tell the American public that
there is something wrong with a car when we don't know what it
is or not. It took us that time to figure it out. So there was
never any notion of us not being transparent, Mr. Chairman. We
were doing our jobs.
Mr. Issa. Well, I hear you. I don't believe you. The fact
is today, coming to this hearing, why weren't these pictures
released? Oh, I'm sorry, that's an embarrassment. But what part
of transparency gives you an obligation to be forward-looking?
It's great that everyone is still promoting the Volt. I go
to every CES show and every other show and I see all kinds of
special cup holder battery chargers in the Volt. I see all
kinds of nice things. The fact is the American public wasn't
interested in buying the car in large quantity, even with
incentives. Now we have a safety question, and it's not a
safety question about the Volt, it's about trust of your
agency. Can we trust you in this and every other area to not be
selective and basically overly cautious?
This was a new automobile, something catastrophic happened,
and you're telling me it took months to get to where you had a
confidence level that, ``you had a problem.'' It sounds to me
like you had to make sure that you could absolutely explain
this as an anomaly to save the whole reputation of the Volt and
electric cars. And you started off saying, we've got to prove
that this is safe and we're not going to stop until we fully
proved it and documented it. You certainly had concerns.
And I'm going to share one thing in closing. Look, I was an
automobile parts manufacturer, I had a recall, I've been down
the road of anomaly along with Circuit City, one of my major
customers at the time, and you can always say that because
they're no longer around to complain one way or the other.
The fact is, we were under the scrutiny from a national
level from the moment the agency was informed, under the
scrutiny. Ultimately we did a recall on something where there
was no problem in the vehicle, but we explained in depth how
somebody could make a mistake in installation on a limited
number of cars. I'm very familiar with how fast you can act,
even if you don't know all the facts but you know something bad
happened.
Now, with the chairman's indulgence, please, you've got the
last word.
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Chairman, the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration is not in the reputation business, we're
in the safety business. I am not concerned about the reputation
of any manufacturer if they put a product out that that poses
unreasonable risk to safety. We work independently to prove
that every single day.
Now, I appreciate your comparison with your experience with
Circuit City and your company, but we have a statutory
obligation under the Safety Act that we have to fulfill before
we move forward in pressing a manufacturer for a mandatory
recall. It would be improper for us to do anything different
than that process. So it is a very careful and deliberate
process. I wish it could be instantaneous. It takes technical
work, engineering work, and a lot of science to be able to
figure that out to a point of certainty.
In those 6 months it took every second for my engineers at
NHTSA to be able to come to that conclusion and give us the
information for an agency decision and a recommendation of the
Secretary of Transportation.
So we are as transparent an agency as we find in
government. We have a data base which is filled with tens of
thousands of complaints every single year of vehicle defects.
We work very hard. We've reduced fatalities in America by 25
percent since 2006. We take every single crash that injures or
kills someone with the highest level of sincerity and severity.
And, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to explain
that.
Mr. Issa. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, working with your
subcommittee, I would ask that we continue the process of
verifying what has just been said; essentially how often it
takes 6 months when there's a known catastrophic event. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Administrator, we want to thank you
for your time. And we do want to get to our next witness as
quickly as we can. If the staff would quickly get ready for
Panel II, we want to get Mr. Akerson started because we are
going to have votes sometime in the next half an hour and we
want the testimony in time for questioning of our second
witness. Thank you, Administrator.
Mr. Strickland. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. We're pleased to have Mr. Dan Akerson,the CEO
of General Motors with us. And Mr. Akerson, you know the
routine here. We've got to do the swearing in real quick, then
you get your 5 minutes and we'll go from there.
So if you'll raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Jordan. Let the record show the witness answered in the
affirmative. And again, Mr. Akerson, I know you were here for
the first panel, so you get 5 minutes. And we're pretty lenient
with that time, as you saw. So go right ahead and then we'll
get to questioning and hopefully get this done before we have
to go to vote.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL F. AKERSON, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, GENERAL
MOTORS
Mr. Akerson. Good morning. Thank you----
Mr. Jordan. I did the same thing. Try the mic there if you
would there. And just pull it close. You should have the red
light there. There you go.
Mr. Akerson. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Jordan,
Ranking Members Cummings and Kucinich. I welcome the
opportunity to testify today and stand behind a car that all of
us at General Motors are proud of.
Please allow me to start with some Volt history. GM
unveiled the Volt concept at the January 2007 Detroit Auto
Show. In June 2008. The old GM's board of directors approved
the Volt project for production well before the bankruptcy and
the infusion of government funds.
The battery story goes back much farther in the early
1990's with GM's extensive work on the EV1. Drawing on that
experience, we engineered the Volt to be a winner on the road
and in customer's hearts. Today I'm proud to say that the Volt
is performing exactly as we engineered it. In its first year
the Volt garnered the triple crown of industry awards; Motor
Trend Car of the Year, Automobile Magazine's Automobile of the
Year, and the North American Car of the Year.
Volt is among the safest cars on the road, earning five
stars for occupant safety and a top safety pick with the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. And 93 percent of Volt
owners report the highest customer satisfaction with their car,
more than any other vehicle, and the highest ever recorded in
the industry.
Beyond the accolades, the Volt's importance to GM and our
country's long-term prospects is far-reaching. We engineered
the Volt to be the only EV that you can drive across town or
across the country without fear of being stranded when the
battery is drained. You can go 35 miles, in some cases much
more, on a single charge, which for 80 percent of American
drivers is their total driving range. After that, a small gas
engine extends your range to 375 miles, roughly, before you
have to recharge or refill.
But the Volt--but if Volt--if the Volt message boards are
any indications, there's some real one-upmanship going on out
there. Customers were reporting going months and thousands of
miles without stopping once at a gas pump. No other EV can do
this or generate that much passion with its drivers.
We engineered the Volt to give drivers a choice to use
energy produced in the United States rather than from oil from
places that may not always put America's best interests first.
We engineered the Volt to show the world what great vehicles we
make at General Motors.
Unfortunately, there's one thing we did not engineer.
Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety
features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political
punching bag. And sadly, that is what it's become. For all the
loose talk about fires, we are here today because tests by
regulators resulted in a battery fire under lab conditions that
no driver would experience in the real world. In fact, Volt
customers have driven over 25 million miles without a similar--
single similar incident.
In one test the fire occurred 7 days after a simulated
crash. In another it took 3 weeks after the test; not 3
minutes, not 3 hours, not 3 days, 3 weeks. Based on those test
results, did we think there was an imminent safety risk? No. Or
as one customer put it, if they couldn't cut him out of a
vehicle in 2 or 3 weeks, he had a bigger problem to worry
about.
However, given those test results, GM had a choice in how
it would react. It was an easy call. We put our customers
first. We moved fast and with great transparency to engineer a
solution. We contacted every Volt owner and offered them a
loaner car until the issue was settled. And if that wasn't
enough, we offered to buy the car back. We assembled a team of
engineers who worked nonstop to develop a modest enhancement to
the battery system to address the issue. We'll begin adding
that enhancement on the production line and in customer cars in
a few weeks. And in doing so, we took a five-star-rated vehicle
and made it even safer.
Nonetheless, these events have cast an undeserved damaging
light on a promising new technology that we're exporting around
the world right from Detroit. As the Wall Street Journal wrote
in its Volt review, we should suspend our rancor and savor a
little American pride. A bunch of midwestern engineers in bad
hair cuts and cheap wrist watches just out-engineered every
other car company on the planet.
The Volt is safe, it's a marvelous machine, it represents
so much about what is right about General Motors and, frankly,
about American ingenuity in manufacturing. I look forward to
taking your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Akerson follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.012
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Akerson. We appreciate you being
with us today, and we appreciate the fact that in your
testimony you talked about you contacted every Volt owner, and
frankly the response you took when this was brought to the
public's attention.
In your opinion, Mr. Akerson, should NHTSA have known to
drain the battery--when they conducted this test and they
subjected it to a crash and they took it out in this lot and
they left it sit there, shouldn't they have known that they
needed to drain the battery?
Mr. Akerson. I can only speak for General Motors and the
protocols within the industry. The protocol on whether it's a
combustion engine or an electric assist, as the Volt is, is to
disconnect the battery, the 12-volt battery in a combustion
engine car and drain the gas. Our protocol at the time, with
the understanding in the background that this is a new and
evolving technology, was the battery, the 12-volt battery, is
disconnected and the large 16-kilowatt hour battery was
disconnected, not depowered. Lesson learned, and that's part of
our protocols going forward.
Mr. Jordan. But let me be clear. So is it fairly common
knowledge that when there's a crash, you drain the battery and
drain the gas tank? I mean, that's just common sense.
Mr. Akerson. No. You disconnect the 12-volt battery,
disconnect it from the circuitry, and you drain the gas tank.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. But should we have expected NHTSA to know
that they should have drained the battery, or is that an unfair
expectation?
Mr. Akerson. Again, I can't speak for the administration.
Mr. Jordan. Any testing that you had done before, any
testing other--that you know of other manufacturers with
similar-type electric vehicles, do they know they're supposed
to--I mean, did they drain their batteries in those tests? I
mean, was there--it seems to me this is something NHTSA should
have known to do, rather than just park it on a lot with a
bunch of other cars.
Mr. Akerson. Let me speak to what General Motors knew. We
had 285,000 hours of testing on this battery, which is the
equivalent of 25 car lives, if you will. And everything we
found was this was a safe----
Mr. Jordan. Did any of that testing involve draining the
battery after it had been subjected to a crash or after the
battery had been punctured?
Mr. Akerson. No.
Mr. Jordan. When did NHTSA ask you for the protocols--when
did you give them the protocols that did include draining the
battery?
Mr. Akerson. In the case in question where the car had a
fire 3 weeks after the crash, it was left, as you saw, on the
side of the road. And I don't know that the battery was even
disconnected. I believe it was. I'm talking about the 12-volt
battery. I believe it was. And I believe the larger battery was
disconnected from the circuitry but not drained.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. And when did you plan on, if at all,
informing the owners of the Volt and the public about potential
concerns? Did you plan on doing that or is that something you
were waiting--you worked in conjunction with NHTSA? What was
your plans at General Motors for informing the public?
Mr. Akerson. Well, after listening to the Administrator's
testimony, as the summer progressed we had to disassemble the
battery itself and look for the root cause. And as he said,
there were concerns about arson or one or the other three or
four cars involved. It wasn't all that clear to anyone exactly
what happened. It happened over a weekend. There was no
observation, there was no witness to what happened.
In September of last year we tested, and NHTSA tested
again, and we could not replicate a fire. We did the same exact
test--we, General Motors. They did exactly the same test. We
could not replicate, and so there were further tests. And as he
said, the battery itself was extracted from the vehicle. It was
pierced with a steel rod, which is highly unlikely in the real
world. And then it was rotated, simulating a rollover, not in a
second that you would expect on the road, but by an hour; and
it was drenched, if you will, in fluid, coolant. It took 7 days
for a fire to occur. I would like to underscore, there was no
explosion, a fire.
And that--at that point after that extreme, what I would
call not real-world situation, 7 days, that's when they said
they wanted to open a formal investigation. We notified our
customers immediately after that.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Thank you. I yield now to the gentlemen
from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Akerson, for being
here. Is the Volt safe?
Mr. Akerson. It is very safe.
Mr. Kucinich. Have you ever had any communication with
anybody in the Obama administration to ask them to provide some
kind of consideration to GM with respect to the testing that
you became aware of not to disclose it or to defer disclosure
of it?
Mr. Akerson. Absolutely not.
Mr. Kucinich. And you're sure in terms of your line staff
that it didn't happen?
Mr. Akerson. I'm quite sure. I can't testify to that 100
percent.
Mr. Kucinich. But as a policy you, GM, did not try to get
the Obama administration to fail to disclose any tests that
were made in a laboratory setting?
Mr. Akerson. No, no one.
Mr. Kucinich. And you're not aware of any accident or any
injury that's occurred to anyone driving a Volt?
Mr. Akerson. Absolutely none.
Mr. Kucinich. They're safe in the vehicle; is that right?
Mr. Akerson. I own one. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. And you drive it, and your family members
drive it as well?
Mr. Akerson. I just bought it.
Mr. Kucinich. Okay. Well, let me ask you something. If
there was a material defect in a car that was out in
circulation right now, would that affect, let's say, your
insurance that GM would be buying from, you know, your
insurance carrier? Wouldn't they increase the cost of your
insurance if you were likely to have, let's say, a claim for a
product liability? Wouldn't that be a problem for you?
Mr. Akerson. Yes.
Mr. Kucinich. Has that occurred? Has your insurance company
contacted you and said, wait a minute, Mr. Akerson, there's
questions here and it's going to cost you more to--it's going
to cost you more to--it's going to cost GM more to have
insurance, has that happened?
Mr. Akerson. I insured this car and it was ridiculously
low, but that's because it's a five-star-rated car by the
Insurance Institute.
Mr. Kucinich. So the very people who are charged with
determining risk, as a question of the market now, they have
not increased the cost of insurance; to the contrary, they've
given it a high rating?
Mr. Akerson. I presume that's the----
Mr. Kucinich. Is that the way it works?
Mr. Akerson. That's the way I would run it if I were
running an insurance company.
Mr. Kucinich. Can you discuss what effect designing and
producing the Volt has had on GM? Has it helped GM become more
competitive?
Mr. Akerson. As I said, this is an evolving area of
automotive engineering and technology. It's a halo car in the
sense that we get a cache, if you will, of being innovative,
and successful companies all innovate.
Just to set an expectation, a little bit of background, we
sold more Volts in the first year than Toyota sold Priuses in
the first year that they rolled out the Prius. So new
technologies do take awhile to take hold, to get traction. And
I think that the engineering around this has been viewed as--it
was described as a Moon shot from a technological point of
view. And indeed I think it was, and I think that has benefited
other cars. We're rolling out----
Mr. Kucinich. So it's your experience, then, that the
manufacturing of the Volt will put America essentially on the
map with respect to these electric vehicles; is that right?
Mr. Akerson. These electric vehicles, the derivatives are
already going into many of our cars. And, for example, the
Buick LaCrosse would chart in the high 20's on the road
mileage; with eAssist, as we call it, it jumps to 37 to 38
miles per gallon. So we're getting derivative positive impacts
of exploring these technologies and deploying them in the real
world, yes.
Mr. Kucinich. And so the manufacturing of the Volt then
moves America toward clean and efficient energy technologies
that's not only used in a Volt, but is being used in other cars
to help them become more fuel efficient; is that correct?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. And that in turn, I might add, has a lot to
do with saving jobs in this economy. How many jobs has GM added
to the auto manufacturing sector to help develop the
technologies that build the parts for the Volt?
Mr. Akerson. Well, one entire plant in Hamtramck, just
outside Detroit, is dedicated to the Volt production. They put
out about 400 every couple of days. And there are a couple
thousand employees there. I would also say, since we've emerged
from bankruptcy, we've invested over $5 billion in
infrastructure in this country and hired about just short of
16,000 additional employees.
Mr. Kucinich. Five billion dollars for the purposes of?
Mr. Akerson. All of our capital programs here in the United
States.
Mr. Kucinich. Final question. So it's your intention as the
CEO of General Motors to have the Volt lead the way toward,
let's say, electric and hybrid electric vehicles revitalizing
our auto manufacturing sector by providing products that
consumers would find attractive because it's going to save them
money; is that correct?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, sir. And I would also add that we're
developing great combustion engine cars as well that are energy
efficient.
Mr. Kucinich. I understand that from my own district. Thank
you very much, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you.
I'm pleased to have with us a member of the full committee,
Mr. Walberg from the great State of Michigan. With unanimous
consent from the committee, we would like for Tim to be able to
join us.
Before going quickly to Mr. Kelly I just want to be clear
on a question Mr. Kucinich asked. So with the exception of
NHTSA, General Motors had no--you, Mr. Akerson, had no
conversation with folks at the White House concerning this
incident?
Mr. Akerson. Correct.
Mr. Jordan. No conversations with people--you or anyone in
General Motors had no conversation with people at TARP--in
particular Mr. Massad, who sort of handles the now defunct Auto
Task Force--you had no conversations with Tim Massad at
Treasury regarding this issue?
Mr. Akerson. I had a conversation with Mr. Massad earlier
this week on another general matter, and I observed to him that
I was going to testify today. Other than that, no conversation.
Mr. Jordan. But has anyone at General Motors, do you know
of, talked to Mr. Massad or someone in the administration--have
you talked to Mr. LaHood, you or anyone at General Motors
talked to Mr. LaHood about this issue?
Mr. Akerson. No, sir.
Mr. Jordan. I now yield to the chairman of the full
committee, Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome. I'll be brief.
The question here is not about whether General Motors is making
good cars, whether or not General Motors is coming back. I
think those are undeniable, and I'm very happy for that, and I
think the President took great pride in that last night. The
question here is: Is this, in your history recognition and as
far as you know, a typical response to a typical catastrophic
event? Is this less aggressive or more aggressive by NHTSA in
their response to a mysterious fire on a brand-new automobile
when there were only a few thousand in the field?
Mr. Akerson. As we speak--excuse me. Mr. Chairman--there
are about 8,000.
Mr. Issa. Right. And I was correct. I think there were
about 4,000 when this occurred. You've sold about--you may be
making 400 a day, but you're selling far less than that; 4,000
or less in June-July, 8,000 or so now.
The question is, when this occurred the director has said,
the Administrator has said, this is what we do, it takes 6
months to do it, this is just the way it is.
In your experience, would you consider this to be an
aggressive response, an average response, or a little slower
than average when it comes to when it lights up your phone and
your people come running in and you have emergency meetings and
the shit hits the fans and the alligators are around you and
it's all you can focus on, even though you're bored and
everybody else had something else in mind for you that day? As
you compare it to other events that have happened to all great
automobile companies, was this more aggressive, typical or,
quite frankly, a little less speedy?
Mr. Akerson. Thank you for your colorful description of my
daily routine.
Mr. Issa. Been there, done that on a smaller scale.
Mr. Akerson. I understand. I would describe it as
proportional. We tried to replicate--first we had to find what
we suspected to be the root cause. Then we had to try to
replicate it in the field. We crashed and tried to simulate the
same outcome we had in the May-June timeframe. We could not do
that. Subsequently when they drew the battery out of the car
and then impaled it with a steel rod and then spun it, it took
awhile to get it, and then it took 7 days after it was impaled
in order to replicate a similar situation.
So I would say, given all the complexities associated with
this new technology and the fact that we couldn't replicate it
in the field again, it would be proportional.
Mr. Issa. Okay. I'll take ``proportional'' as an
interesting answer that I'm not sure what it means, but I
appreciate your candor.
Last question. Lithium-ions, a relatively new technology
for you, not new technology to the world. It's a 20-year-old
use in all kinds of things, including all of our cell phones.
The aviation industry has regulated volume of it, all kinds of
other things. Do you think you're behind the power curve and
need to play catch-up on lithium-ion? You describe not knowing
how to replicate that. Is that one of the problems with going
forward on a mass basis with large volumes of a new, basically
other-than-sealed lead acid battery that you've historically
used?
Mr. Akerson. Well, arguably we're teamed with probably one
of the leaders, not the leader in battery technology in the
world, and that's LG Chem out of Korea. And they built a plant
in Holland, Michigan, to supply not only ourselves, but other
competitors in the same market. I would say that we're a leader
in this. We understand the battery technology well. We have a
battery lab specifically to study the technology and the
evolution and the improvement that we expect over years.
Mr. Issa. I wasn't trying to ask what you were doing,
because I know you're doing that. But in fairness, it's a
little bit of catch-up. I mean, the American automobile
companies, including your previous leased automobile, you're
playing catch-up on all electric cars, and even hybrid, and I
applaud you for doing it. But from a safety standpoint, don't
you think that if you had to do it over again, you would have
been--would have worked with NHTSA to be a little more
aggressive in public confidence by doing what you needed to do
sooner; in other words, 6 months of continuing to sell a car
that could, and turns out would, potentially explode and needed
dramatically different safety procedures? Didn't we find as a
country that you shouldn't have kept selling this relatively
new car the way you were?
Mr. Akerson. The lithium-ion battery, as you know, is well
used throughout the industry. The one protocol change that I
think we did learn as an industry, and it is now incorporated--
in fact, General Motors is leading the Society of Automotive
Engineers in how to handle not only with first and second
responders, but that we need to have certain protocols that are
consistent and uniform, not only for General Motors battery
electric cars, but around the globe. And that is that we are
going to depower the--not disengage--but depower the battery
after crash. And I think that alone is a huge step forward.
The additional work we did to support and shed the load
around the battery is a huge step forward. I don't think it's
monumental, but it's a good step forward that when we did crash
five cars after this minor enhancement, perfect. So I think
there's lessons learned; but at the same time, I don't think
there was ever an imminent threat to any customer when you have
anywhere from 7 to 21 days to remove yourself from the car if
there is an accident. After 25 million miles on the road for
this car, there's never been an incident anywhere close to
this. There have been no injuries. And so we felt, as we found
in an extreme simulated lab fire that took 7 days, that this
car was safe.
But as I said in my opening comments, we weren't satisfied
with this. We wanted to address the issue with our customers.
We offered them loaner cars, we bought the cars back, we made
the adjustments, and they're being implemented over the next
month.
Mr. Issa. So to characterize it, just to make sure your
testimony is understood, it's fair to say that what you've
learned is the entire Nation of repair facilities, salvage
yards and other people involved in the automotive industry are
going to have to learn and adapt a lot of new procedures that
are continuing to evolve if we're going to ensure safety of
handling of these new components, both because of high voltage
and potential fire and explosion? That's what you've learned
from this, is that those of us who aren't part--we get out of
the car, but when we go to the salvage yard they need to know
it, the tow truck company needs to know it, all the other
people need to know it? That is in fact the risk that you found
after 6 months?
Mr. Akerson. Before we launched this car, Mr. Chairman, we
conducted nationwide safety tours across the country to make
sure that the public safety was paramount. That's a core value
of General Motors. We talked to the National Fire Protection
Agency, the International Association of Fire Fighters, the
International Association of Fire Chiefs, the Association of
Public-Safety Communications Officials, fire chiefs, police
chiefs, 911 call centers, to make sure that we had this
understood. We've now trained over 15,000 people across the
Nation on these safety protocols. We're going to have to go
back and make sure that it's well understood, the new safety
protocols. So I think every organization and individual should
evolve and learn, and we've learned some lessons here that I
think will benefit the entire industry, not just General
Motors.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. CEO. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. We're pleased to be joined by Representatives
Connolly and Maloney. We have 4 minutes left in this vote, but
only 60-some folks have voted. So if Mr. Cummings----
Mr. Cummings. I'm going to be very quick.
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. Cummings. First of all, Mr. Akerson, as a member of the
Board of Visitors of the Naval Academy, I just want to
congratulate you on being named Graduate of the Year. Thank
you. That's wonderful.
I want to make sure, you heard what I said, I don't want
collateral damage from this hearing. And so you as the head of
GM, you're assuring the public, and listen up, press, that the
Volt is a safe vehicle; is that right?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, sir. And actually I view this as a
positive. It's our chance to get this before the American
people; you represent the American people, to get our story
before you. We've taken out ads in the paper today, coincident
with this, that the investigation has been complete. I do think
there has been collateral damage. We're going to have to work
hard to get it back, and today is a good start.
Mr. Cummings. Well, I want to thank you for your
leadership. And I want to take this moment to thank all the
employees of GM for producing such a great product. And with
that, I yield back.
Mr. Akerson. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman. We are going to take
about a 20-minute break. We'll be back for Mr. Kelly and then
some of our full committee folks who may want to ask questions,
but we'll keep that as quick as we can.
I want to congratulate you, too. And frankly I appreciate
the attitude you just expressed in your last answer. So the
committee stands in recess for 20 minutes, more or less.
[Recess.]
Mr. Jordan. The committee will come to order.
I will recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Kelly, for 5 minutes.
I apologize for the delay, Mr. Akerson, but I forgot we
were going to have a very appropriate ceremony for
Congresswoman Giffords.
Mr. Kelly is recognized.
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Akerson, thanks for being here.
You and I have never met. We have never done anything
socially. We have never done anything--well, from a business
standpoint, far away, I buy a lot of cars from you.
But we are linked in a different way. Dan Daniel and I grew
up in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mr. Daniel and yourself, we have a
great relationship. And I know the reason you are here is not
because of any monetary gain that General Motors could have
possibly offered you. Because, really, your decision to go with
GM was made with your heart and not with your head. Because you
could have stayed in the private sector, and it would have been
a lot more rewarding, and you wouldn't be, in fact, here today
going through this.
The question goes back to--it has nothing to do with
General Motors, but it does have to do with the apparent
partnership that the government has with GM. And the reason I
bring that up--and I know you say, no, that is not true; and I
know Mr. Strickland said, no, that is not true. But you can't
get away from certain things that are already on the table.
If we go to the slides--I think it is on page 3. There is
two slides. In one of the slides, this is some advice coming
from the administration back to GM, and it is kind of a
marketing thing. And one of the slides--and this is a 2009--May
18, 2009, e-mail--shows Treasury officials directing GM in how
it would structure press releases, asking that references to
the government ownership of GM be removed and taking it out of
the lead.
Then we go to another slide showing an e-mail from May
2009, again, and it talks about a member of the automotive task
force telling General Motors to coordinate with the UAW, United
Auto Workers, about the pending termination of the pension
plans for which GM is responsible. And it says, at a minimum,
this could get messy and the UAW should probably be brought
into the loop.
Now, having served on a lot of dealer councils and being
part of ad groups where we tried to get the message out about
how great our cars were and how good our deals were and how you
could trust your General Motors dealer and the General Motors
products, walk me through some of that stuff. Because it is--
again, perception is reality.
This hearing today is not about the Chevy Volt. This
hearing is about NHTSA. What did they know? When did they know
it? When did they let you know it?
I believe we have always had a great partnership, and I
told you early on my dad started in 1953 after being a parts
picker in the warehouse.
My relationship with General Motors has never been cloudy.
It always has been clear and been transparent, and I know at
which side of the table I sit. I am not a manufacturer or a
distributor. I actually sell these cars.
But when you look at these things and you say, well, my
gosh, if it really isn't government run, if the government
really is at arms length and away from this, this sharing of
this information of how are we going to market these different
messages, how does that happen if it is not that way? And how
does NHTSA sit there and say, no, no, no, no, we did it the
same way we always do it, and the fact of the matter is they
didn't do it the same way they always do it.
Again, halo products, I understand halo. It has nothing to
do with angels, but it does have to do with what we are trying
to do when we are putting the spotlight on our cars. We can
compete with anybody in the world with any product at any
level. But, again, our success has been driven by producing
cars in mass quantities that people want to buy in mass
quantities. So it truly is market driven, and by that I mean
just be able to be driven off the lot by an awful lot of folks.
But when I look at those two e-mails and I am trying to
think, okay, so if they are really not involved and they really
don't have an influence, why are these e-mails going back and
forth and why are they advising General Motors on how they
should message these different things? If you could just walk
me through it really easy.
And, again, I admire you for what you are doing. I know
don't have to be here. You could do a lot of different things.
And Danny speaks highly of you all the time. So if you could
just kind of help me to understand that and help the American
people to understand that, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Akerson. Thank you for your question.
I want to make something perfectly clear. I joined the
board in July 2009, so these e-mails preceded any knowledge or
specific knowledge I would have of the situation.
I would allow that when I was in the deal merger and
acquisition business at the Carlyle Group, there is a lot of
conversation back and forth when you are about to put money
into an investment. So possibly that is the context of that.
But that is just pure conjecture on my behalf. I don't know.
I will say this, and I mean this as sincerely as I can.
When I was first queried on the possibility of joining the
board, I was clear that I did not want to be associated with a
venture, a company as great as General Motors is and as
important as I think it is to this country's manufacturing and
industrial base, if there was going to be government
involvement. Was the company going to be allowed to function as
a business?
And in my tenure, both on the board for the first year from
2009 to September 2010 and in the subsequent year and a half, I
will testify in front of the Good Lord that this administration
has never had a presence in the board room or any input on the
operations of the business.
You asked a more specific question about NHTSA and its
involvement with us: What do they know? When did they know it?
I think the Administrator and I have commented on that. But if
there is any question in anyone's mind that they gave us a free
ride, if the last 2 months of negative publicity and the fact
that I am sitting here explaining this, thanks, but I will go
it alone in the future.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
I believe in order the gentleman from Virginia is
recognized and then Mrs. Maloney.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Akerson, welcome.
Mr. Akerson. Thank you.
Mr. Connolly. The chairman of the full committee indicated
the NHTSA study was done roughly sort of halfway through the
number of sales that currently have occurred. That is to say, I
think you said there were about 8,000 Volts on the road. This
happened around sale 4,000. Is that about right?
Mr. Akerson. I am sure it was quite a few less than that,
because we sold I think 1,500 plus in January alone. So I think
it has been gaining momentum. I would have said closer to 2,000
or 3,000, but I don't have the specific number before me.
Mr. Connolly. Of the 8,000 families or consumers who drive
Volts, how many have blown up or had fires?
Mr. Akerson. None.
Mr. Connolly. I am sorry?
Mr. Akerson. None.
Mr. Connolly. None. Well, so the only example of any safety
concern with respect to that occurred in a laboratory run by
NHTSA?
Mr. Akerson. No. To be precise, the first one occurred in
the field in a contractor--I guess a contractor of NHTSA's--it
was a test facility in Wisconsin. We hit it with a severe side
impact, and it sat alongside the road with three other
vehicles. Three weeks later, a fire occurred; and it took us
awhile not only to understand which vehicle started the fire
and under what conditions, because it happened over a weekend,
then we had to find the root cause. We had to dissemble the
battery. You saw pictures of it. It was not all that easy to
ascertain precisely what happened.
Subsequently, tests were conducted to try to simulate that
again, because you could have a bad test. We ran tests. We
crashed it again. We could not replicate a fire with the same
conditions. We didn't depower. We didn't do anything. NHTSA
could not do it.
Mr. Connolly. Well, I was listening to the chairman of the
full committee, Mr. Issa, questioning you. And in the process
of asking a question, he asserted some facts; and I want to
make sure that you either do or do not concur with his
assertions that, in light of this test, even though it hasn't
been able to be replicated, we need to give special
instructions for people so that it doesn't explode and blow up.
You know, if you are taken by tow truck or put in a storage
facility or a junkyard or even, for that matter, in a garage,
because there is reason to be concerned. Would you comment on
that?
Mr. Akerson. I think the kernel of the issue is what do we
do in a post-crash, multi-day, multi-week environment if we did
not depower the battery. I think the lesson learned is, after a
week to 3 weeks--and we could not simulate in the real world
the condition that we experienced after 3 weeks. We had to pull
the battery out, pierce it, and essentially--this will be a
slight exaggeration--drench the battery in coolant, and then a
week later it occurred. And it wasn't an explosion. That has
been a little bit of hyperbole, I think. There was a fire. It
smoldered for a while. It would spark. It takes awhile, and
then it would burn.
When that occurred, even in a simulated laboratory,
extreme, non-real-world environment, NHTSA initiated a formal
investigation, and we went to general quarters.
Mr. Connolly. And you, as the CEO of GM, are so concerned
about this you went out and bought one yourself?
Mr. Akerson. I bought one of the cars that was returned,
yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
Last night, the President alluded to the lithium battery
research and development, advanced lithium battery. If I
recall, at the time we adopted the Recovery Act here in
Congress, before we made the investment in advanced lithium
battery research, the U.S. manufacturing share worldwide was
something like 4 or 5 percent, and the projection is like by
next year it is going to be 40 percent, is that correct? Is
that your understanding?
Mr. Akerson. I am not familiar with those numbers.
Mr. Connolly. But in a brief period of time, manufacturing
here in the United States of advanced lithium batteries has
significantly expanded in the last 2 or 3 years, is that not
correct?
Mr. Akerson. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. Briefly, GM before and after the bailout,
could you just refresh our memory in terms of your world market
share?
Mr. Akerson. Our world market share today at the end of
2011 stands at about a right around 12 percent. Roughly one out
of every eight vehicles in the world is manufactured by GM or
one of its affiliates. Through--at the end of 2011, it was the
first time since 1977 that we have gained market share 2
consecutive years in a row.
Mr. Connolly. And you have returned to number one in the
world?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
Real quick, before yielding to Mrs. Maloney, just so I am
clear, the protocols prior to this investigation and this
incident were--commonly understood, commonsense, common
knowledge--were to drain the gas tank and to disconnect the
smaller battery--12 volt battery that the car has.
Mr. Akerson. In a ``conventional car,'' yes.
Mr. Jordan. So in an electric vehicle the protocols were
the same: Disconnect the 12 volt, drain the gas tank, but do
nothing with the larger lithium-ion battery?
Mr. Akerson. It would automatically disconnect from the
circuitry.
Mr. Jordan. So the protocols for the electric vehicle were
exactly the same as for a non-electric vehicle: Disconnect both
batteries, disconnect the battery operation, drain the gas
tank. That was common knowledge.
Mr. Akerson. Yes. But I want to make sure I am perfectly
clear. There is a difference in depower.
Mr. Jordan. Okay, that was my next question. So the
protocols today are disconnect the battery, which entails both
batteries, drain the gas tank, and, in your words, depower the
larger battery, which means drain the coolant?
Mr. Akerson. No.
Mr. Jordan. Tell me in layman's terms.
Mr. Akerson. Discharge the battery.
Mr. Jordan. And what does that mean?
Mr. Akerson. Think of connecting a giant light bulb to that
battery and just run it down.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Got it.
Mrs. Maloney.
Mr. Akerson. I am sorry for the inarticulation, but there's
not much----
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you very much and welcome to the
committee.
I would find it very difficult to imagine an America that
did not make its own cars, so I am pleased that the President
was able to report in his State of the Union the progress that
the car industry has achieved in America. I would like to quote
one line and put his whole statement in the record with
unanimous consent. He said, ``Today, General Motors is back on
top as the world's number one auto maker.''
A report I read last week said that there are over 700,000
jobs created by the auto industry now in America, and I would
like to put that report in the record.
Mr. Jordan. Without objection.
Mrs. Maloney. Okay. I think that it is clear that this
innovative car that GM has made has been caught up in the
middle of politics, and some Members appear more interested in
making wild allegations for political purposes than in
recognizing a promising technological breakthrough. And I would
like to ask you--and give me a yes or no answer--is it true
that the Volt was first shown as a General Motors electric
vehicle concept at an international auto show in January 2007,
more than 2 years before the swearing in of President Obama and
the company's filing for bankruptcy?
Mr. Akerson. Yes. It was shown at the Detroit auto show.
Mrs. Maloney. Okay. I am just curious. How did you get
here? Did you fly? Did you take a train? Did you drive? How did
you get to this hearing?
Mr. Akerson. I drove a Volt.
Mrs. Maloney. You drove a Volt. Okay. And can you tell us
how the Volt is selling and what is the customer feedback?
Mr. Akerson. Well, it is rated--from a customer
satisfaction point of view, it is rated at the highest rate any
car has ever gotten. Ninety-three percent of the people highly
approve of the car that own it. It is the highest recording
ever.
Mrs. Maloney. And will the technology developed for the
Volt be used in other vehicles?
Mr. Akerson. There are derivatives that come out of our
research and development and the practical application of the
Volt and other electric cars that will benefit other vehicles
in our fleet, yes.
Mrs. Maloney. How many miles does the typical Volt owner
drive without having to fill up with gasoline? How long can you
go?
Mr. Akerson. Well, on one charge we say 35. Sometimes it is
more. It is actually, quite interestingly, temperature
dependent. If it is really cold or it is really hot, you do see
some diminution. But let's say in the typical day that is
temperate, about 35-40 miles.
Now, what we do have is 80 percent of the American public
drives 40 miles or less per day. This car was designed for that
mass market. I drove a test vehicle before we launched for 3
months. I put roughly 2,500 miles on it. I used two gallons of
gas, because our driving patterns were such that we didn't
drive 50 and 60 miles at one run.
Mrs. Maloney. So how often do you have to fill up with the
Volt if you can get such mileage off it?
Mr. Akerson. Well, again, it depends on your usage
patterns. If you are driving 35-40 miles a day, you may not
have to fill up for months. We have instances and testimonies
on some of the blogs that people drive it 800 or 900 miles.
But, again, if you are driving 100 miles a day, you are going
to see a transition.
It is really important to understand this car is always
driven by an electric motor. The gas engine is relatively
small. There is no mechanical drag on the combustion engine.
All it does is charge the battery.
Mrs. Maloney. And what are your future plans for the Volt?
Mr. Akerson. Well, I think this has been a good exercise
for us, because it has gotten everything out on the table, and
I think we have a fair hearing. We are going to start exporting
it with the enhancements that we are implementing now, not only
to Europe but to Asia and China in particular.
Mrs. Maloney. If everything you say, Mr. Akerson, is true
about the Volt, that you can get such mileage, that you can
drive for months if you are not driving that long, that you
cannot fill up but once every 2 months, and you get such great
mileage and safety and so forth, why aren't other manufacturers
of cars copying the Volt? Why aren't they building their own
version of the Volt?
Mr. Akerson. There has been interest by some of our
competitors to license the technology.
Mrs. Maloney. And do you own the technology? Is it American
owned, this technology?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, it is.
Mrs. Maloney. Is it patented?
Mr. Akerson. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. And so you can hold on to it?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, For 17 years.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, we might be able to export something
then.
Mr. Akerson. We are exporting it.
Mrs. Maloney. This fire scenario that we have been talking
about, it seems to me that you have responded to it in a very
unlike GM way--no offense--but not like a big corporation, but
responding very fast to provide a solution. Has this fire
happened in any other real-life accident or other accident?
Mr. Akerson. We have 25 million miles driven on the cars
that are in the public domain. There has been no documented
case of any fire of any nature on the Volt.
Mrs. Maloney. And I have heard that some of the consumer
groups and watchdog groups have given you ratings. Could you
give us what those ratings are and the safety watch groups? Can
you elaborate on these standards, I guess, or qualifications?
Mr. Akerson. We are rated five star not only by NHTSA but
by the International Institute of Highway Safety for occupant
safety. So both five stars in the arena we want. The Consumer
Reports says it has had the highest rating of customer
satisfaction, the highest they have ever seen.
When we closed the--when we were first notified of a formal
investigation, we immediately offered loaner cars or the
opportunity to sell the car back to the company, and at the
same time we embarked upon a very aggressive and active effort
to come up with an enhancement to the protection of the
battery, which we have done, and that will be implemented over
the next couple of weeks and months.
Mrs. Maloney. I would like to commend you and your company
for this innovative addition to the world and congratulate you
on moving in the right direction to reduce our dependence on
foreign oil and eliminating, I would say, harmful pollutants in
the air. It is a wonderful technology. I am proud of my vote in
support of the bailout of the auto industry. It is an American
success story. It is the American dream, and I am very proud of
you and your company. Thank you for being here today.
Mr. Akerson. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman from----
Mr. Kucinich. Would the gentleman yield for just a moment?
When I was out in the lounge there I saw my friend, Mr.
Kelly, put the slide referring to the e-mails between GM and
the Department of Treasury concluding that the U.S. Government
was somehow running GM. Now, I just want my friend to know
that, on this side, we really looked at that very deeply, and I
wrote a letter dated June 29, 2011, which I don't know--I am
guessing you may not have had a chance to see it. Because what
this effectively did is to debunk any evidence of collusion in
a June 29, 2011, letter to the chairman. And I would
specifically cite pages 3 and 4 and 6 and 7.
When I wrote this letter, I haven't received any response
that would indicate that there was a dispute as to what was
said. So I just wanted to share that with my friend and with my
chairman, just so you know that we looked at this and I think
we effectively debunked it.
Mr. Jordan. Without objection, the----
Mr. Kucinich. I would ask unanimous consent----
Mr. Jordan. Without objection, the letter is entered into
the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.022
Mr. Jordan. I would just point out the e-mails are the e-
mails, and when you have people in the administration telling
people at the company how they should structure a press
release, how they should write things, I think that speaks for
itself as well.
Mr. Kucinich. If I may, to my friend, Mr. Chairman, it is a
tautology and it is true to say the e-mails are the e-mails.
However, there is no evidence of collusion between GM and the
Department of Treasury that would suggest that the government
is running GM.
I would say, given the philosophy of some of my friends on
this side of the aisle and that GM has had such success
recently, to assert that the government was running GM would
probably create a feeling that the government is either more
competent than you think it is or that GM is less competent
than you think it is. I think either of those two assertions
might be interesting to have to cognize.
Mr. Jordan. To my good friend, I would certainly say I
think everyone on the committee, everyone in Congress, every
American is pleased by the success of General Motors. But that
doesn't dismiss the fact that, even today, half of the board--
approximately half of the board were selected by the
administration to sit on the board; that the taxpayers have
invested $50 billion in this company; and that there are all
kinds of incentives, tax breaks, etc., for people to purchase
this product. Those are the facts.
Mr. Kucinich. The gentleman is correct about that. But the
e-mails were about the government's position----
Mr. Jordan. You talk about the totality of the situation. I
just want to make sure we saw the whole situation.
Mr. Kucinich. My friend is correct in asserting how this
thing was structured. I supported it. I know some of my friends
did not.
But I just want to say that if you look at the e-mails,
they were about the government's role in characterizing what
the government was doing, I believe not trying to direct GM.
So I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity
to present that. Thank you.
Mr. Jordan. And while we are on the subject, if I could
also enter into the record the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform preliminary report on the effects of the
bailouts and the policy of the Obama administration on this
issue.
Without objection, so entered.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.038
Mr. Kelly. If I could, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Kelly gets the last word, Mr. Akerson.
Mr. Kelly. I don't mean to have the last word, but we use
this term ``the government's investment.'' We are talking about
this body made a decision. This is taxpayer money. We are not
some benevolent monarchy that showers favors on people. We take
it out of hardworking American taxpayers' pockets and then we
decide who gets it.
I am appalled by this attitude down here that somehow we
have the ability to pick and choose winners and losers not with
our own money but with taxpayer money. And then we say, well,
geez, you know what? We made a great decision for you taxpayer.
Really? Really. $50 billion--that is a B. That is a lot of
money, in a town that throws around trillions like it doesn't
matter, and it doesn't matter to them because it is not their
money.
And I am going to tell you, Mr. Kucinich, you and I agree
on a lot of things and we are entitled to our own opinions, but
we are not entitled to our own facts. The truth of the matter
is the government has been involved in this far deeper than
they ever should have been to begin with.
Mr. Akerson knows how to run GM. He has a history of
running great companies. He does not need somebody who has
never run a company to tell him how he is going to spend the
money and we are going to shower this on you.
I am going to tell you, if you want to throw money, if you
want to throw $7,500 in a tax incentive and then Pennsylvania
throw another $3,500 in a tax incentive and you want to talk
about rate of sale and days supply, when it is your money that
is on the shelf and it is your product that has to turn because
it is your dollars and you are damn careful about how you put
that money. This is taxpayer money that is being used.
Mr. Kucinich. Will my friend yield?
Mr. Kelly. No, I am not going to yield, because I got to
tell you something. There is such a disconnect in this town
with the way the real world works. General Motors does not need
the help of the taxpayers to subsidize their cars. You want to
move a market? Throw $7,500 on a Cruze. Not from the General
Motors, from the taxpayers. You want to see that needle jump?
You want to put thousands of people back to work? You can do it
in a lot of different ways. But you know what? Stop taking it
out of my wallet.
And I am deeply offended by the attitude down here that
somehow this merry-go-round is going to continue to spin and
there is no consequence. There are a hell of a lot of important
things that happen, unintended consequences, by people who have
never done it, don't have any skin in the game, and are
spending taxpayer dollars. That is absolutely ridiculous, and
that is something we have to stop doing.
This has nothing to do with Mr. Akerson. This has nothing
to do with General Motors. This has to do with an
administration that can't keep its fingers out of pie.
Mr. Kucinich. If I may, in response----
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Kucinich. Just briefly, this hearing was I thought
about the safety of the Volt. It may have other dimensions. I
want to tell Mr. Kelly, who is my friend, I did not vote for
the bailout of the banks because I didn't want the government
to be involved in picking winners and losers.
Now, the American automotive industry was on the verge of
collapse; and I felt, given the primacy of that American
automotive industry to our strategic industrial base, including
automotive, steel, aerospace, and shipping, that the prudent
thing to do would be to make an attempt to rescue it. GM's
management has helped to conclude it.
But, again, I don't see--and to my good friend, we have
strong differences of opinion on this point. I understand and
respect that. I really do respect you. But I just think that
the evidence of collusion that is being offered here hasn't
been supported by the facts. And I again respect you greatly.
Thank you.
Mr. Jordan. With that, we want to thank Mr. Akerson. I know
you are a busy man running a big company. We appreciate what
you do, and we appreciate you taking the time to be with us
this morning.
Mr. Akerson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. All right, we will quickly move to our third
witness. If the staff can help us set that up. We have to get
out of here in about 15 minutes.
I am pleased to welcome to the committee Mr. John German,
who is a senior fellow and program director for the
International Council on Clean Transportation. I apologize for
the long time--for the way the arrangement had to be worked
out. So you are the third panel. You get the final say. But,
unfortunately, we may not have too many Members here.
Mr. German. Mr. Chairman, good morning.
Mr. Jordan. I forgot an important thing. We have to swear
you in.
Would you raise your right hand?
Thank you.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Jordan. Let the record show the witness answered in the
affirmative.
Now you can go.
STATEMENT OF JOHN GERMAN, SENIOR FELLOW, THE INTERNATIONAL
COUNCIL ON CLEAN TRANSPORTATION
Mr. German. Mr. Chairman, good morning. My name is John
German. I am a senior fellow and program director for the
International Council on Clean Transportation. Before joining
the ICCT, I spent 8 years in Powertrain Engineering at
Chrysler, followed by 13 years with EPA's Office of Mobile
Sources and 11 years with American Honda Motor Co.
Thank you for the opportunity to present the ICCT's views
on lithium-ion battery safety and on the role electric vehicles
play in the proposed 2017-2025 CAFE and greenhouse gas
standards. Briefly put, our position is that the issues raised
by the Chevy Volt battery fire have been seriously
misinterpreted by being pulled out of context, that the
lithium-ion batteries used in vehicles are far safer than those
used in laptops and are far safer than gasoline, and that in
any case these issues are irrelevant to the proposed standards
because manufacturers will not need plug-in electric vehicles
to comply.
The recall of almost six million Sony laptop battery cells
illustrates that lithium-ion batteries have the potential to
catch on fire. However, it is important to understand that
lithium-ion refers to a broad family of chemistries that vary
dramatically in voltage, capacity, durability, and safety,
depending on the compounds used.
Cars are not laptops. Every auto manufacturer has worked to
develop lithium-ion chemistries that are much more abuse
tolerant, as well as more durable. Safety is further improved
with cooling systems, internal cell isolation, and external
packaging of the battery pack.
Every auto manufacturer also understands that any new
automotive technology will be scrutinized minutely. Problems
with safety, drivability, and reliability will be highly
publicized and may create the perception that the new
technology has problems. Thus, manufacturers take great pains
to ensure problems with new technologies are minimized and
start with low-volume production so that they can closely
monitor and quickly correct any unanticipated problems.
The proper context for the Chevy Volt battery fire is this:
This was a single incident that occurred after a highly
invasive crash test, not in-use.
It took 3 weeks for the fire to start.
The battery was not discharged after the crash test. Thanks
to extensive outreach and education by Toyota and Honda and
experience with hybrid vehicles, body shops and junkyards know
to disconnect or discharge the battery pack before working on
or storing a vehicle, just as they remove any fuel from the
tank.
The fire was extremely difficult for NHTSA to reproduce.
There have been no fires related to lithium-ion batteries
reported in the Volt, the Nissan Leaf, or any hybrid vehicle
using lithium-ion batteries.
More important, the relevant question is not whether
lithium-ion batteries can cause a fire under extreme conditions
but whether electric vehicles are safer than conventional
vehicles. Let me quote here from a 2010 report by the National
Fire Protection Association: ``In 2003-2007, U.S. fire
departments responded to an average of 287,000 vehicle fires
per year. These fires caused an average of 480 civilian deaths,
1,525 civilian injuries, and $1.3 billion in direct property
damage annually.''
There are approximately 250 million vehicles in the United
States, which means there is about one vehicle fire per year
for every 1,000 vehicles. Such a high rate of vehicle fires
would be completely unacceptable for any new technology or
fuel. It is only pause of our long familiarity with gasoline
fires that we accept this level of risk and fatalities, even as
an isolated battery pack fire 3 weeks after a crash test with
no one in the vehicle generates headlines for weeks.
Electric vehicles are far safer than gasoline-fueled
vehicles with respect to fires.
As I noted, perceived risk can be very different from
actual risk, and it is possible that publicity about rare
lithium-ion battery fires could depress electric vehicle sales.
However, even if this occurred, it will have no impact on the
ability of manufacturers to comply with the proposed standards,
as plug-in electric vehicles are not needed to meet them.
The opportunities to reduce fuel consumption in the near
term using conventional technology are much greater than most
people realize. Computer simulations and computer-aideddesign
are enabling vastly improved designs and technologies. On-board
computer controls provide unprecedented optimization of vehicle
operation. Rather than slowing down, the pace of technology
development has accelerated.
To give a single example, in 2001 the National Research
Council estimated that turbocharging and downsizing would
improve fuel economy by 5 to 7 percent. Current estimates are
10 to 15 percent, as in the Ford EcoBoost engines. This
doubling of the efficiency benefit in 10 years is not because
the older estimates were wrong but rather due to rapid
improvements in combustion and turbocharging technology. The
efficiency estimates in the proposed rule are actually quite
conservative.
The enormous advantages to society from reducing the amount
of transportation fuel we consume are well documented, from the
energy security benefits of reduced oil imports and improved
balance of trade to the economy-wide benefits of putting
billions of dollars in fuel savings into consumers' pockets.
Countries worldwide are adopting comparable efficiency
standards. In this dynamic global auto market, the United
States must be able to compete on the same technology terms.
The written testimony I submitted to the committee contains
more detail on these points, and I would be happy to address
any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. German follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 73448.049
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. German.
I will be brief here.
You have been here all morning. You heard when I asked Mr.
Akerson about what the protocols are when there has been a
crash and how you drain the battery--or disconnect the battery,
excuse me, and drain the gas tank. I believe I got this right.
In your testimony you just gave to the committee, you talked
about disconnecting the battery. But in your written testimony,
and the question I had here was, you say all junkyards know to
discharge the battery pack before storing, just as they remove
any fuel from the tank. So in your written testimony you used
the same term that Mr. Akerson used, discharge the battery.
Do you mean when you say ``discharge'' what Mr. Akerson
described? Is that a term of art and it means the same thing?
Mr. German. Yes, it means the same thing.
Mr. Jordan. So if every junkyard knows to discharge the
battery, why didn't NHTSA discharge the battery?
Mr. German. I cannot answer that.
In my written testimony I also may have--I wrote this over
the weekend--and even the junkyards, I should have said,
disconnect or discharge. The experience that we have----
Mr. Jordan. But this is important. Because if everybody
knows it except NHTSA, and NHTSA didn't do it, and that causes
a fire, then that definitely puts into question the capability
of NHTSA to deal with the issue that the ranking member has
brought up, that all Members are concerned about, the safety.
If they can't even figure out, hey, you are supposed to do what
the guy at the junkyard knows you are supposed to do, that is a
problem.
Mr. German. Even the relatively small battery packs in
conventional hybrids are powerful enough to kill people. Toyota
and Honda, when they brought out the first hybrids 10 years
ago, went through a great deal of trouble to educate emergency
responders, fire departments, about the dangers and how to
safely handle the vehicles, how to disconnect the battery pack,
what to avoid. So this education didn't start with the Volt. It
has actually been going on.
Mr. Jordan. Well, fill me in. Because maybe you are
educating me a little bit with what you just said there.
So you said other car manufacturers have talked about what
needs to happen for emergency responders. You were here
earlier--Mr. Kelly has now left, but Mr. Kelly talked about the
gloves and utensils and the protection that technicians have to
use when working on an electric vehicle. Is that a concern for
the volunteer fireman who has showed up at the scene who is
trying to save a person's life? Is his life in greater danger
if he does not know this is an electric car with a lithium-ion
battery in it?
Mr. Akerson. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Jordan. What kind of procedures does he or she have to
take if they are an emergency personnel called to the scene
trying to save someone's life? What kind of things do they have
to do when dealing with this type of vehicle?
Mr. German. They have been given training on location of
high-voltage wires and what to avoid, for example, if using
jaws of life. They have been given information on how to
manually disconnect the battery pack if necessary. There is all
kinds of safeguards. They shut it off automatically. But, just
in case, they are still trained with how to deal with this.
Mr. Jordan. And is it much more extensive procedures they
have to go through with an electric vehicle compared to a
conventional automobile without this larger battery?
Mr. German. There is some additional that they have to deal
with to make sure they avoid the electrical shocks. The danger
is much less than from gasoline, but it is still something that
they must be aware of.
Mr. Jordan. So the volunteer fireman knows real concerns
exist, the guy at the junkyard knows real concerns exist, and
yet the folks at NHTSA seem not to have known real concerns
exist. Is that fair?
Mr. German. You are now wandering off into areas that I
can't comment on.
Mr. Jordan. You may not comment on, but you wrote about it.
You said, all junkyards know to discharge the battery pack
before storing, just as they know to remove any fuel from the
tank. You also told me that Honda and Toyota and other
manufacturers have done extensive training with emergency
responders telling them they have to be careful. This is
different. This is not just your normal car. This is different.
So you need to know more things, go through more procedures--
this is what you told the committee--know more procedures, know
more protocols, than you do with a typical car.
And we have an administration who says, this car is the
cat's meow. It is the most wonderful thing going, and we have
to sell more of them.
And you are telling me NHTSA, the organization in this
administration charged with safety for consumers, for American
purchasers, didn't know what the guy at the junkyard knows and
what the volunteer fireman knows in my community.
Mr. German. Right. Again, those are questions better
directed at NHTSA.
The one things I can say is that there has not been a
recorded case of a battery pack catching on fire. So it may
have just been oversight. I don't know.
Mr. Jordan. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. German, in your testimony, you allude to pictures of
blazing laptops and a recall of almost six million Sony
lithium-ion battery cells in 2006 have caused people to have a
misconception that all lithium-ion batteries are highly
flammable. Now, can you explain the different types of lithium-
ion batteries and what your expert opinion is about the safety
of the batteries being used in vehicles like the Volt?
Mr. German. Yes. Unfortunately, there is a wide variety of
lithium-ion batteries out there, but the ones that are being
developed for automotive use are all far safer than what is
used in consumer laptops.
Mr. Kucinich. So then do you concur with other witnesses
that lithium-ion poses no greater risk than gasoline vehicles
for fire hazard and, like gasoline vehicles, those risks can be
managed?
Mr. German. The gasoline vehicles have far higher risks
than lithium-ion.
Mr. Kucinich. Why?
Mr. German. Because gasoline is highly flammable. It can
actually explode under certain conditions. It will ignite under
a fairly wide range of air-to-fuel ratios. Whereas lithium-
ion--it is because of how the lithium-ion batteries are
packaged that they are more isolated from contact.
But the other main thing here is that you can design
lithium-ion chemistries in a way--for example, if you exclude
oxygen from the chemistry, putting oxygen into the cell causes
it to be much more flammable when it reacts to the lithium. So
just by excluding oxygen you have taken a major step toward----
Mr. Kucinich. So what is the role of oxygen in car fires
then? Because there is 200,000 car fires every year in the
United States where gasoline ignites in seconds. What is the
role in that?
Mr. German. That is because the gasoline is exposed to the
oxygen. The gasoline needs oxygen in order to burn.
Mr. Kucinich. So is it your testimony that these lithium-
ion batteries that are used in the Volt are much safer than
gasoline-powered cars with internal combustion engines?
Mr. German. Yes. General Motors has chosen a cell chemistry
that is quite good on safety, and they have also gone to a lot
of trouble to protect the battery pack in case of an accident,
and there is no doubt in my mind that the system is far, far
safer than gasoline.
Mr. Kucinich. You received a pretty prestigious award for
excellence in automotive policy analysis, did you not?
Mr. German. Yes. The Society of Automotive Engineers
established an award for excellence in automotive policy
analysis. I was the first recipient, not so much because I did
better analyses but because my reputation is that my
conclusions are always based on the analyses.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jordan. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. German.
Mr. German, you were asked some questions on NHTSA's
testing and how come NHTSA didn't get it when tow truck
companies got it and storage facilities and junkyards and so
forth. Are you an expert on NHTSA and its methodology?
Mr. German. No, I am not.
Mr. Connolly. Have you ever worked for NHTSA?
Mr. German. Really the only times I have worked with NHTSA
is in connection with the vehicle CAFE standards. There have
been instances where I have gotten involved in safety impacts
of vehicles as it relates to fuel economy such as light-
weighting of vehicles. So that is my one area that I have
interacted with NHTSA on the safety front.
Mr. Connolly. Let me ask a follow-up question to that. Were
you involved in this particular test?
Mr. German. No, I was not.
Mr. Connolly. So you have no firsthand knowledge of what
they did, how they did it, why they did it, and why it differs
from other experience?
Mr. German. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. For all you know, this is an isolated--as
your predecessor at that table just testified, sometimes tests
are outliers. They don't really indicate anything, other than
something must have gone wrong. Is that fair?
Mr. German. That is fair. I think it is also fair to say
that NHTSA will always discharge the battery after a crash test
in the future.
Mr. Connolly. Okay. Are you aware of any consumer who has
experienced a fire, explosion, or any other direct threat to
his or her safety in driving the Volt?
Mr. German. Not related to the battery pack, no.
Mr. Connolly. In response to Mr. Kucinich, you were saying
that, actually, the risk--the safety risk from a gas-fueled
vehicle is actually higher than that of a lithium-ion-battery
propelled vehicle. Would it be fair to say, in understanding
your response to Mr. Kucinich, that actually the probability of
an explosion or a safety incident with the mechanism of fueling
the vehicle is higher when it is gas fired than it is with,
frankly, an electric vehicle fueled by a battery?
Mr. German. It is far higher. We have, on average, over one
person die per day from vehicle-related fires, but people are
so used to it that it is not national news anymore.
Mr. Connolly. I yield to the chairman.
Mr. Jordan. I was just going to say that is not the
question. The question is, if you drain the gas tank, discharge
the 12-volt battery but don't discharge the bigger battery,
then the question is which is a greater safety concern?
Mr. German. Even in that situation, the gasoline is still a
much, much greater concern. It is not just that the battery
pack was ruptured in the crash test. It is that the coolant
leaked into the battery. Without that coolant leakage, there
would have been nothing for the lithium-ion chemistry to react
with. So it required that combination. And it is not a common
situation at all.
Mr. Jordan. Okay.
Mr. Connolly. Reclaiming my time--and I thank the chair for
that clarifying question--but, of course, actually my concern
is that unintentionally, of course, we are having a hearing
here on the safety of an electric vehicle, and I wouldn't want
American consumers to get the wrong impression by virtue of the
fact that there is a congressional hearing, just the fact that
we do that, raising some questions, could perhaps plant doubts
in the minds of potential consumers, doubts that are not so
far, based on the testimony we have heard here today,
justified.
As a matter of fact, the public can feel somewhat reassured
based on the testimony we have heard today that they are
actually safer than the normal car you drive with gas. Now that
doesn't mean there aren't some concerns and questions that have
to be answered, as the chairman indicated. But I just wanted to
put it in context to reassure the public that may be watching
that we don't think there is some huge challenge here,
especially given the fact that many of us want to see a future
for the electric vehicle.
Speaking of which, since I am going to run out of time,
your area of expertise is especially clean technologies,
vehicular technologies. I noted that the International Energy
Agency said that, actually, because of the administration's
clean car standards, the United States' dependence on foreign
oil is actually going to decline over the next 25 years. Could
you corroborate that and/or elaborate on that?
Mr. German. Yes. The standards will increase the efficiency
of vehicles considerably, and that will reduce the amount of
fuel consumed. It is actually equivalent to drilling new oil
wells in the United States. It has the same impacts on reducing
our oil imports and on economy-wide benefits.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, my time has just run out. But I
just think that is actually an extraordinary statement and an
extraordinary fact and a very heartening development when we
are looking at the role of technology and lessening our foreign
oil dependence.
I yield back.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the gentleman, and I thank our witness,
and we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]