Rats Like to Eat the Chevrolet Volt

And why shouldn't they? On the outside, the Volt looks pretty much like any other car, but on the inside, well, on the inside, the Volt is much more welcoming than any other car. Let's see how that is so.

Rats, like any other living creature (except the exceptions, of course), like warmth. They also like living amongst us and are real suckers for wires and such. The Volt, on the other hand, is more or less a continuous source of heat (unlike ICE-powered cars, who can only keep a high temperature for so long), they too live amongst us and, as you know, are filled with wires.

So, what happens when the Volt and the rat meet? Sparks fly. Literally. And here's the very long story short (the long story can be found at the following link).

The guys from cars.com own a Volt. One they plugged last Thursday night in a parking lot, leaving it to fill up overnight. One which a rat found to be very appealing.

Sometime during the evening, the ChargePoint station the Volt was plugged in notified cars.com senior producer Joe Wiesenfelder that the Volt was experiencing some charging issues.

He thought nothing of it (despite being alerted at one point about the presence of a four-legged perpetrator), until the Volt he drove off in began to lit up like a Christmas tree: the ABS, Service Brake Assist, and Service Stabilitrak lights came on, followed one day later by the complete failure of the warning lights and rear defogger.

Apparently, a Chevrolet dealer confirmed that some of the wiring in the car had been damaged by... a rat. The price to repair the car: in excess of $600.