U.S. regulators, who ended their investigation yesterday into the Chevrolet Volt, said electric- powered vehicles do not pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline cars.

“Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in an e-mailed statement.

The conclusion by NHTSA came two weeks after General Motors Co. told Volt owners to bring the vehicles to dealerships for repair.

The government started investigating the Volt after a side- impact crash test in May led to a fire three weeks later. During that test, the lithium-ion battery pack broke open and coolant leaked into the battery. When the car was physically rotated as part of the test, more coolant leaked into a circuit board, leading to a fire. NHTSA replicated the fire in November and started an official probe Nov. 25.

“GM is proud of the technological innovation the Volt represents,” Greg Martin, a GM spokesman, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “We appreciate the confidence our Volt customers continued to provide during the investigation.”

The June fire occurred following a May 12 crash test at a facility in Wisconsin run by contractor MGA Research Inc., which notified the regulator that the blaze burned a line of cars parked near the Volt, NHTSA said yesterday in its report.

The agency and its investigators concluded in July that the fire originated in the Volt battery and performed another side- impact test on a Volt in September. That crash, which didn’t penetrate the battery compartment, didn’t lead to a fire. NHTSA, which tested Volt batteries in November with the Energy and Defense departments, hadn’t previously disclosed the September crash test.

The June Volt fire was reported Nov. 11 by Bloomberg.

The Volt blaze had little effect on sales of the vehicles, so there may not be any significant improvement with the government completing its investigation, said Jeremy Anwyl, vice chairman of auto-researcher Edmunds.com, in an e-mail.

“Volt buyers tend to be passionate about their vehicle,” Anwyl said. “They really want an electrified vehicle. The small risk represented by the potential for fire wouldn’t have been an obstacle for this group of buyers.”

The attention focused on the Volt fire was, in part, a result of the vehicle’s new technology, Anwyl said.

“We see gasoline powered vehicles blow up in the movies all the time,” he said. “A vehicle with batteries catches fire and it is portrayed as a big deal.”
Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, plans to hold a hearing on Jan. 25 about the fires and the regulator’s handling of the incidents. GM Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson and NHTSA Administrator David Strickland are scheduled to testify.

Issa has asked whether President Barack Obama’s administration kept silent about the fires because of its interest in the success of GM’s government-backed restructuring and a U.S. goal of having 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters in December it was “absolutely not true” that his agency withheld information about the Volt’s safety.

GM, based in Detroit, said Jan. 5 it would provide a fix to the 8,000 plug-in hybrids it has sold, to reduce the risk of a post-crash fire. Strickland said in Detroit Jan. 8 that the agency was pleased with GM’s plan.

The Treasury Department owns 32 percent of GM’s stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A two-year study looking for possible causes behind Toyota’s rash of unintended acceleration issues has put primary blame on driver error — but the review by the National Academy of Sciences also cautioned that some problems may have been caused by inadvertent interactions involving vehicle electronics — an issue frequently cited by the automaker’s critics.

Though there was no hard evidence of specific electronic defects, the 139-page report cautioned that “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” Warning electronic faults may be “untraceable,” it calls for stricter government involvement in setting standards for the use of electronic control vehicle systems, reported msnbc.com.

The new report completes a series of studies set in motion by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which, in March 2010, asked both the NAS’s National Research Council, as well as NASA, to see why there were so many complaints about what the media was referring to as “runaway Toyotas.”

The problem first made headlines in the summer of 2009, when a California Highway Patrol Officer and several members of his family were killed in a fiery crash involving a Lexus they had borrowed. The maker initially recalled several million vehicles due to a problem it described as “carpet entrapment,” but in January 2010 it added millions more due to a potentially sticky accelerator linkage.

Ultimately, more than 8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles were recalled in the U.S. alone. But the NHTSA received numerous additional complaints — with plaintiffs’ attorneys lining up to file lawsuits against the automaker — alleging some unknown electronic gremlin was also at work.

Last February, the NASA panel issued its report, contending it had found no indication of electronic defects. The National Research Council study echoes that, putting the primary blame on driver error. That had been the conclusion of other investigators in a number of instances — in one, police investigators found that a woman driver involved in a crash had been pressing on the gas pedal, rather than the brake, so hard she had bent its linkage.

Nonetheless, the latest study does not rule out electronic issues, which it cautioned can result in “untraceable faults,” with no physical evidence — other than a crash — to show when there might have been a problem such as a momentary software glitch.

“Some failures of software and other faults in electronics systems do not leave physical evidence of their occurrence, which can complicate assessment of the causes of unusual behaviors in the modern, electronics-intensive automobile,” the report cautioned.

Nonetheless, Louis Lanzerotti, the chairman of the panel and a New Jersey Institute of Technology physics professor, said during a conference call that, “All the data available to us indicated the conclusion that there was no electronic or software problem” that may have caused the Toyota unintended acceleration reports.”

The new study called for a number of steps to be taken to reduce the likelihood that electronic hardware and software do cause problems in the future – a critical issue considering the increasing use of digital technology in modern automobiles. Among the recommendations:

• NHTSA should convene an advisory panel to set uniform industry testing standards for electronic systems;
• New vehicles should be equipped with aircraft-style black boxes to make it easier to trace and identify defects;
• Regulators need to continue research on pedal design and placement.
The study also called for closer cooperation between NHTSA’s researchers and the Transportation Department’s Office of Defect Investigations.

While some critics questioned the latest study — as they did earlier NHTSA and NASA findings, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that in his eyes the latest report “does close the book” on the Toyota scandal.

At one point, following the second unintended acceleration recall, LaHood had said owners of Toyota vehicles involved in the recalls might think about parking those products until they were repaired.

The NHTSA ultimately levied a series of record fines against Toyota, including one for $33 million for delaying action on the sticky accelerator problem.

The maker, long known for seemingly bullet-proof quality, also recalled products in 2009, 2010 and 2011 for a variety of other issues, ranging from electronic brake issues with its Prius hybrid to excessive corrosion that could cause metal parts to fell off while driving the Sienna minivan.

As a result, Toyota had more recalls than any other maker in the U.S. market in 2009 and 2010, and with 3.5 million vehicles involved in service campaigns in 2011, came in just behind Honda, which last year recalled 3.7 million vehicles.

The long-term impact to the company’s reputation is unclear. Toyota — along with Honda — was one of only two major makers to suffer a sales decline in 2011. Analysts put most of the blame on the March earthquake and tsunami that severely limited global production for much of the year, but they also note cool consumer response to the latest update of the Toyota Camry at the same time as competitors like Ford are becoming increasingly aggressive in market segments long dominated by Toyota.

A new study by KBB.com shows that Toyota has regained its long-standing position as having the highest loyalty rate in the industry. But the maker is still heavily dependent on “conquesting” buyers from other brands. That, many analysts warn, could become more difficult in light of the hits Toyota’s reputation has taken.

FRANKFURT—German car makers Volkswagen AG and BMW AG said Monday they are recalling more than 500,000 vehicles due to possible technical problems.

A spokesman for Volkswagen, Europe’s largest auto maker by sales, said the company began a recall of 299,000 cars with diesel engines in October last year due to possible problems caused by cracks in the fuel-injection system, reported The Wall Street Journal.

VW has notified the car owners but didn’t say how many vehicles had been recalled so far.

The cracks can occur in VW’s Golf, Passat, Jetta, Tiguan and other models built since 2009. The company’s Audi, Skoda and Seat brands are also affected, according to the VW spokesman.

BMW also said it is recalling 235,000 cars of its Mini brand world-wide due to a possible malfunction of an electric water pump that cools the turbo charger.

A spokesman for the world’s largest luxury-car maker said there haven’t been any reported accidents related to the possible malfunction.

The comments follow a filing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration saying that BMW will recall 88,911 Mini and Mini Cooper cars in the U.S.

According to the NHTSA filing, the auxiliary water pump that cools the turbo charger has an electronic circuit board that can malfunction and overheat. As a result, the circuit board may smolder and possibly catch fire.

BMW will notify the car owners and dealers will replace the water pump free of charge. The recall is expected to start next month.

DETROIT – U.S. safety regulators are combing over five Chevrolet Volts to determine whether welded parts near the 400-pound battery contributed to fires that occurred following government crash tests.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a memo on its website, said it wants to know if crashes caused changes in welded areas on the underside of the vehicle, where the battery rests, reported The Wall Street Journal.

NHTSA asked its test center to take pictures of the vehicle’s “floorplan/crossmember near the battery tunnel,” and asked that the work be done “at the “earliest opportunity.”

General Motors Co. is working with NHTSA to address the issue that caused sparks or fires in three battery packs following crash tests by the agency.

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.

GM has said repeatedly that the cars are safe. NHTSA said Volt owners shouldn’t worry. No incidents have been reported in real-world driving and the NHTSA fires happened after weeks or days.

Whether GM’s fix is as straightforward as the company believes it to be will depend of NHTSA’s determination of the risk involved in the cars.

If NHTSA determines the Volt presents “a serious risk of injury” it would trigger a process that would lead to a recall, according to the agency’s guidelines.

If not, GM gets to decide what course of action it will take and would not typically require approval from NHTSA.

WASHINGTON — An auto safety advocacy group wants the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to fine Honda Motor Co. over its recall of more than 2.7 million vehicles for an airbag defect that’s been linked to two deaths.

The Center for Auto Safety said in a letter Monday to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it wants a civil penalty against Honda “for failing to initiate a timely recall of defective driver airbag inflators that rupture and send shrapnel into the driver,” reported The Detroit News.

Honda didn’t immediately comment on the letter Monday.

On Friday, Honda said it was recalling 876,000 vehicles in the United States for airbag problems. It’s the fifth separate recall for the issue since 2008.

In total, Honda has recalled 2.53 million vehicles in the United States — and 2.7 million worldwide — over faulty airbags that could injure drivers in what is Honda’s largest-ever recall.

The airbags have been linked to about 20 incidents.

Honda said it will replace airbags in 272,779 2001-2002 vehicles because some airbags may inflate with too much pressure.

That pressure can cause the inflator to rupture. As a result, metal fragments could pass through the airbag cushion, causing injury or death to vehicle occupants, Honda said.

Honda is also recalling another 603,421 vehicles to find 640 replacement parts.

This recall now includes 2001-02 Accord, 2001-03 Civic, 2001-03 Odyssey, 2002-03 CR-V, 2003 Pilot, 2002-03 Acura 3.2 TL and 2003 Acura 3.2 CL vehicles.

The latest recall was prompted by a crash and injury in August in Florida in a Honda that hadn’t been recalled, Honda spokesman Chris Martin said Friday. That prompted Honda to reassess whether it had recalled all potentially faulty airbags.

Martin said Honda is now confident it has found all potentially faulty vehicles.

At least 18 injuries and two deaths have been linked to the issue, including an 18-year-old Oklahoma high school student, Ashley Parham, who died in May 2009 when metal shards hit her after the airbag deployed in her 2001 Accord.

“Honda’s submissions to NHTSA fail to disclose what it knew and when in dragging out the recall,” the group said.

A NHTSA spokeswoman, Lynda Tran, said the agency has received the letter. “We have received the letter and will respond accordingly,” she said.

In August 2009, NHTSA sent a letter to Honda asking questions about whether the automaker had recalled enough vehicles for the issue.

Honda said it is aware of several incidents related to this recall and expansions, and is announcing this further recall expansion to encourage all owners of included vehicles to take their vehicle to an authorized dealer.

It is very rare for NHTSA to seek to impose civil fines on automakers for failing to recall vehicles in a timely manner.

In 2010, Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to pay $48.8 million in federal fines, settling three federal investigations that found the automaker delayed recalling about 6 million vehicles. In total, the three fines are the largest ever in U.S. history.

In 2004, General Motors paid the previously largest fine — $1 million — to settle charges that it failed to conduct a timely recall to correct a safety defect. The problem involved windshield wiper failure in 581,344 vehicles manufactured in 2002 and 2003.

Under the law, the current maximum fine for failing to recall vehicles in a timely manner is $17.35 million.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released final data on thefts of passenger vehicles from the 2009 model year, the most recent data available.

The final theft rate for vehicles stolen in calendar year 2009 represented a 21.3 percent decrease from that of 2008, according to the report published in the Federal Register. The rate was calculated as shares per thousand vehicles produced. In 2009, for example, there were 1.33 thefts of 2009 model vehicles per thousand vehicles produced, while in 2008, there were 1.69 thefts of 2008 model vehicles per thousand produced, according to The New York Times.

While the Audi S8 experienced the highest theft rate, the Toyota Camry was the most stolen vehicle by volume. The high-horsepower Audi had a theft rate of 8.81 per thousand vehicles produced, based on two thefts out of the 227 S8s that were made for 2009.

The Camry had a theft rate of 1.74 per thousand vehicles, but its sheer numbers — it was the best selling car in the country that year — meant that only 781 of the 447,882 units produced were stolen. That ratio put the Camry in 50th place out of the 239 models tracked.

N.H.T.S.A.’s report only ranked models that had a gross vehicle weight of 6,000 pounds or less. That is why models like the Cadillac Escalade, frequently cited among the most stolen vehicles in the United States, did not make the list.

The five vehicles with the highest rate of theft included the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 in second place, with a theft rate of 8.6 (five were stolen). Third was the BMW M5, with a theft rate of 7.57 (two were stolen). Fourth was the Dodge Charger with a rate of 6.46 (432 out of the 66,856 made were stolen). In fifth was the Honda S2000, with a rate of 5.60 (two were stolen).

Only 11 passenger-car models experienced a theft rate higher than 3.5826.

The report noted that the decrease in the theft rate was consistent with a generally decreasing trend over the last 16 years. The agency attributed the reduction to the increased use of standard antitheft devices, vehicle parts marking, increased public-awareness measures and increased and improved prosecution efforts by law enforcement.

Meanwhile, 45 vehicles had a theft rate of zero. These were dominated by exotics like the Aston Martin DB9, Lamborghini Murciélago and the Maybach 57 and 62 sedans. As to whether these were kept behind gates with guard dogs standing sentinel at each fender, the report did not say.