JANUARY 25, 2012 AT 4:47 PM
Akerson: GM to restructure Volt's image
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Washington— General Motors chairman and CEO Dan Akerson strongly defended the safety of the Chevrolet Volt before Congress, saying the plug-in hybrid has become "a political punching bag."
Akerson told a House Oversight and Government Reform panel Wednesday that the events cast "an undeserving, damaging light on a promising new technology.
He added that the Volt has suffered "collateral damage" from the negative publicity and denied that government safety regulators gave GM "a free ride."
"We engineered the Volt to show the world the great vehicles we make at General Motors," he said. "Although we loaded the Volt with state of the art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag. Sadly that is what it's become."
Akerson said GM never asked the Obama administration to keep the June Volt fire that occurred three weeks after a crash test a secret, and that GM had no discussions with the White House about the Volt.
Akerson said the company had gone through a painful period of bad publicity. "We're going to have go about reconstructing the image of the Volt," Akerson told reporters after the hearing, noting the company is running newspaper ads touting the Volt.
Akerson told reporters the Volt fix cost was in the "hundreds of dollars" per vehicle.
He also said the June fire of the Volt would not occur in the real world. In September, further tests could not replicate the fire.
"As one customer put it, if they couldn't cut him out of the vehicle in three weeks, he'd have bigger problems to worry about," Akerson said.
Akerson said he drove to Washington in a Volt for the hearing after taking a train from New York to DC. GM and other auto CEOS came under harsh criticism in 2008 for flying in private jets to the hearing.
Akerson recently bought a Volt that had been returned by an owner after the fire investigation.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Wednesday also defended the agency's decision not to disclose the fire in a crash-tested Volt for more than five months.
NHTSA Administrator David Strickland rejected criticism that he should have disclosed the fire earlier.
"We pulled no punches," Strickland said, denying that General Motors Co. was treated differently because it is 26 percent government-owned as part of a $49.5 billion bailout.
NHTSA was in a "pre-decisional posture" and it would have been "irresponsible" to disclose the fire before the agency had determined whether the Volt posed a risk to auto safety, Strickland said.
Strickland said the Volt was safe and added he would drive a Volt.
"Not only that but I would drive my mom, wife and baby sister," Strickland said.
But Republicans hammered Strickland, noting that many Obama administration officials have gotten in a Volt — and lavished praise on the vehicle.
"We are disappointed that NHTSA could have done a better job," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the committee chairman. "The truth is they should have been more aggressive."
They repeatedly questioned why NHTSA waited until after Bloomberg News disclosed the fire on Nov. 11 to make the news public.
"Your agency dropped the ball on this, sir," said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., a Chevy dealer.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee that held the hearing, praised Akerson's appearance.
"We've got some real concerns with the way NHTSA did this but I think Mr. Akerson handled himself very well," Jordan said.
Jordan trained his fire at NHTSA for not disclosing the June fire earlier.
On Oct. 11, Strickland testified at a hearing on fuel economy standards — where the issue of mass and safety were discussed. But he said the Volt fire wasn't relevant to that hearing, in explaining why he didn't disclose the Volt fire at that hearing.
NHTSA rejected the idea that the agency had treated GM differently than Toyota Motor Corp., which faced intense scrutiny in 2010 over sudden acceleration issues.
Strickland said NHTSA would have disclosed the fire "fairly soon" — even if it hadn't been reported.
GM this month agreed to a voluntary fix — adding new steel to the battery pack and new sensors — to prevent a battery intrusion in a severe side crash. But NHTSA didn't require a recall.
Akerson said GM plans to restart production in "a few weeks" at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant — about a month after it halted production. When it resumes production, it will include the new safety measures. It also expects to get parts to dealers next month.
GM didn't meet its sales target of 10,000 Volts for 2011, selling less than 8,000. The company also abandoned its sales target of 45,000 for 2012, saying it will match "supply to meet demand."
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