“Bat boxes” constructed from Chevrolet Volt car battery covers
The Chevrolet Volt has enough technology and environmental friendliness to go around, but thanks to some old-fashioned ingenuity from the automaker’s engineers, the car’s battery covers have found a second life housing endangered bats.
The longtime NASCAR manufacturer’s crafty way to find extra uses for scrap automotive materials took center stage Saturday at Pocono Raceway as part of the NASCAR Green environmental initiative. Children attending the weekend’s racing at the 2.5-mile track helped assemble the wildlife shelters affectionately known as “bat boxes,” which will help provide alternate housing for brown bats affected by a deadly fungus that gravely impacts their hibernation habits.
Finding an unconventional re-use for the Volt battery cover, which doesn’t fit easily into conventional recycling methods, has helped keep the part out of landfills. It also has helped General Motors provide homes to 34,800 insect-hungry bats as of last October, helping to keep a delicate environmental balance in order.
Saturday’s activity gave youngsters at Pocono a chance to get hands-on with the environmental issue. GM has frequently gotten school groups, youth clubs and recreation centers involved to make homes using battery covers, solidified adhesives for Corvette body panels as makeshift stalactites, and anti-chip paint coating to give bats a grippy surface from which to hang.
The 15 bat boxes that youth assembled Saturday will reside at the Pocono track’s campgrounds.