When we talked about a four door version of Volkswagen’s hot-selling (in Europe, not available stateside) small car, the Up!, one commenter in particular equaled the car to a happy meal container and its owners to baby killers. A small car can be very safe – if its engineers know what they are doing. It just so happens that that little happy meal container is proof of it. It  was elected one of Europe’s safest cars. (Read More…)

Distracted driving is very much in the news, and so far, cellphones were fingered as the culprits. Now, there is a study that finally identifies the biggest distraction: Passengers. A study by State Farm, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health goes to the bottom of what experts have known for long: Peer passengers increase driver crash risk, especially amongst adolescent drivers.  (Read More…)

Obama! Socialism! Taxes! Jesus! Faith! Guns! Now that you’re paying attention, it’s time for our regularly scheduled programming. A Detroit News article claims that NHTSA is denying any interference on the part of the White House with respect to the Chevrolet Volt fires that resulted from government crash test procedures.

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The quote is courtesy of John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, quoted in a CNET article. Let’s get another quote, this one from Dr. Peter Rez at Arizona State:

To call anything based on high energy X-rays ‘low energy’ is worse than 1984 doublespeak

What’s this all about?

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In the ramp-up to the launch of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, a great debate seized the engineering community: was Nissan opening itself to problems by not including a active thermal management system for the Leaf’s battery pack, or was Chevrolet’s liquid-cooled approach simply adding unnecessary complexity? Well, thus far, the verdict seems to be in Nissan’s favor. Though Leaf has been troubled by some dissatisfaction with its real-world range, the Volt has endurd the first technical semi-scandal of the plug-in era, when federal regulators found that ruptured coolant lines could cause fires. Now the liquid-cooled approach is hitting its second challenge, as Fisker’s battery supplier A123 Systems is warning in a letter [PDF] that

some of the battery packs we produce for Fisker Automotive could have a potential safety issue relating to the battery cooling system.

Ruh-roh!
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The University of Colorado-Denver looked into fatalities in the 16 states that have legalized medical marijuana and unearthed perplexing results: The states saw an average nine percent drop in traffic deaths since their medical marijuana laws took effect. (Read More…)

Two weeks ago, the TTAC Black Friday Special was all about Corvette crashes. Not just any Corvette crashes, however. We’re talking about the very special kind of Vette crash that happens when you’re just driving along and… something happens to make you jam that accelerator down and lose control.

What’s that something? Experienced Corvette-ologists know that common provocations to throttle-based havoc include:

• the presence of your daughter’s sexy-ass friends, particularly if one of them is named “Sharona”;
• hearing the chorus of the famous Golden Earring song, “Radar Love”
• but worst of all, when somebody has the son-of-a-bitching nerve to drive up next to you at the stop sign in another Corvette!

From there it all goes downhill… but TTAC is here to help. When Corvettes attack, just click the jump to find out what to do.

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On my raceboat, we had one of those big red things pictured above. It was supposed to switch everything off when things went awry. The NHTSA now proposes something similar for cars with keyless ignition. It is intended to stop the car immediately in a panic situation. Of course it won’t be as intuitive as the big red switch pictured above. After all, the solution comes from Washington, DC.

Bloomberg reports:

“U.S. auto-safety regulators proposed standardizing keyless ignitions to allow drivers to turn off cars faster and more easily in incidents of unintended acceleration following Toyota Motor Corp.’s record recalls. “

If course, this is not entirely true. (Read More…)

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), seeking:

“All records, documents, internal and external documentations between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and General Motors between June 1, 2009 and December 1, 2011. These requested records shall include communication regarding the Chevrolet Volt, also known as the Chevy Volt.”

That’s a lot of paper if the request will be granted. (Read More…)

GM is close to having a fix for the Volt battery that had a tendency to go up in flames after a crash. Meanwhile in Washington, senators are getting the grill ready. (Read More…)