With less than a year to go before the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle is scheduled to enter production, General Motors suggested in its FastLane Blog that the battery that supplies the juice that propels the car might have a significantly shorter-than-expected life in hot environments. “The biggest challenge in testing is hot-weather storage of the vehicle,” the automaker wrote. “Currently, 10 years of battery life is the norm, but some people could get more battery life depending on the climate where they live and their driving conditions.” The second of those sentences strongly suggests that if a Volt spends most of its time in a hot environment – which would, of course, include many parts of the western and southern U.S. – the normal 10-year life of the battery likely will not be achieved. The person supplied that information, Vehicle Chief Engineer Andrew Farah, did not go into detail regarding the challenge hot weather poses to the battery. Farah also mentioned the heat problem in a media briefing last week . In the FastLane Blog entry, he said that the
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GM Suggests Life of Volt Battery Might Be Shorter Than Expected in Hot Areas
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