GM provides clarification on Cobasys battery recall story
While we haven't heard back yet from Cobasys regarding the minor kerfluffle over the battery recall that hit GM's mild hybrids vehicles recently, GM spokesperson Tom Wilkinson called AutoblogGreen to give us a bit more information on what happened. As we already knew, GM was having problems with around 9,000 Cobasys batteries that are used in the hybrid versions of the Chevrolet Malibu, Saturn Vue and Saturn Aura. But someone at Cobasys told HybridCars that GM had it wrong. While Wilkinson said he doesn't know what Cobasys is referring to, he did say that, "Normally, we don't disclose the name of the supplier involved in a recall, but because everybody knew the batteries in the vehicles came from Cobasys, there was no point in trying to fool people on that."
As to what the exact nature of the problem is, Wilkinson wouldn't say, but he did say the recall was intended to prevent big issues down the line. "It was not a big problem," he said. "It was something we started to see in the warranty data, but it was one of those that you could tell over the life of the vehicle, there were going to be a significant number of battery failures. The life of the vehicle and emissions system is like eight years or 100,000 miles so that gives you some idea of it. As for the nature of the problem ... it's safe to say when you combine new technology, ramping up the new production line, putting the new vehicle into production, any quality control engineer can tell you there are numerous opportunities for small problems to crop up. Often, you don't find those problems until you've got volume production going and the vehicles are in service." Hopefully, Cobasys will clarify with us their issues as well.
[Source: GM]
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