GM says it's a good idea to drain the power out of the Volt battery pack if it's in a bad accident. That makes sense. After all, if a car is totaled one of the smart things to do is drain the gas tank. This bit of wisdom is one takeaway from an excellent article in The Economist that was written in response to some recent government tests that have caused Volt batteries to catch fire—after damaged batteries were allowed to sit for days or weeks.

Gas is dangerous because it contains so much energy—orders of magnitude more than you'd find in a battery pack. But its energy density is also why gasoline-powered cars can travel hundreds of miles on a fill-up, even though internal combustion engines are terribly inefficient, while electric vehicle owners have to fret about finding an outlet.

So, in a sense, what we really need are batteries that are more dangerous--at least in the sense that they store far more power than today's batteries--so we can travel long distances in an electric car. That would allow us to get rid of the really dangerous part of the Volt—the gasoline tank used to fuel its range extending generator.

According to the Wall Street Journal, it wasn't the battery cells inside the pack that caused the problem anyway.

GM engineers believe they can fix the battery and retrofit cars already on the road without an extensive redesign, people familiar with the situation said.

The company says a damaged coolant line is behind the problem.

In the crash tests, a break in the coolant line caused coolant to leak onto wiring in the battery. After time, the coolant crystallized, causing a short.

This might explain why the Nissan Leaf, which doesn't bother with coolant, hasn't had any trouble.

Just a couple of weeks after GM had originally planned, customers are starting to receive the new Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid that uses battery power for 35 miles, before a gasoline generator kicks in to extend the car's range. The first to get the car is a retired airline pilot, who picked up his Volt today in New Jersey. He traded in his old Toyota Prius, which could perhaps be read as a ceremonial changing of the guard as GM bests Toyota to the plug-in hybrid market. But it also makes one wonder how much the new car will hurt sales of existing hybrids, rather than the market for gas guzzling cars. GM shipped the first 360 Volts to California, Texas, Washington DC, and New York this week.

Last Friday, the first Nissan Leaf, an all-electric car with an estimated range per charge of 73 miles, was delivered to an entrepreneur in California. His last vehicle was an electric bike.

Jeffrey Kaffee is the first customer to receive the Chevrolet Volt. Credit: GM

General Motors is getting into the extremely fuel-efficient delivery van business with an investment in the startup Bright Automotive, it announced today. It's buying a minority stake in the start-up, which is developing a plug-in hybrid van aimed at fleet customers. The van can travel 38 miles on battery power alone, or it can act as a hybrid, combining gas and electric power to get 36 miles per gallon.

The vehicle seems to be a challenge to Ford's successful Transit Connect, a conventional gas or diesel powered delivery van that will be offered as an electric vehicle later this year. GM says that the Bright van has the advantage of having a longer range than the Ford electric vehicle, which can only go 80 miles on a charge. The Bright van has a range of about 400 miles when using both electric and gas power.

The Bright van also has an unusual hybrid arrangement. The front wheels will be powered by a gas engine (the engine and transmission will come from GM) and the rear wheels will be powered by an electric motor. Bright has developed control systems that coordinated between them.