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73–448 PDF 2012

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
(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

CONNIE MACK, Florida

TIM WALBERG, Michigan

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee

JOE WALSH, Illinois

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking

Minority Member

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JACKIE SPEIER, California

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

Chairwoman

CONNIE MACK, Florida

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Ranking

Minority Member

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JACKIE SPEIER, California

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
(III)

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

(1)

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
2

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
3

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
4

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:]
5
6
7

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?
8

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.
9

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 Novem-
10

ber. 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:]
11
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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?
17

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.
18

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
19

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 factfinding 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.
20

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 followup 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
21

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.
22

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?
23

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
24

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-factfinding 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.
25

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-thecuff 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 lefthand 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
26

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
27

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.
28

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.
29

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
30

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.
31

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
32

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.
33

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.
34

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.
35

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 discov-
36

ered a list of events where we know we needed to address lithiumion 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 lithiumion 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.
37

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.
38

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.
39

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.
40

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:]
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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—
47

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
48

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,
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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
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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
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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
52

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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.

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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 emails 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.

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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.
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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,
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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 lithiumion 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
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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:]
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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 highvoltage 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.
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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?
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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.
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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
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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.]

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