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Very interesting storm in Southeast MO tonight! This thing popped out a lightning bolt 35 miles(!!!) in front of any precip showing on radar.

– General Motors plans to stop production of its electric Chevrolet Bolt models by the end of this year, CEO Mary Barra told investors Tuesday when discussing the company’s first-quarter earnings. The Chevy Bolt EV and EUV, a larger version of the car, make up the vast majority of the company’s electric vehicle sales to date. However, the battery cells in the cars are an older design and chemistry than the automaker’s newer electric vehicles such as the GMC Hummer and Cadillac Lyriq, which utilize GM’s Ultium architecture.

The San Francisco tech startup that helped popularize a push for a four-day workweek in Silicon Valley, is now laying workers off. As first reported by the New York Times, Bolt, the payment services startup with offices near San Francisco’s Union Square, laid off around 250 of its around 900 employees Wednesday in a move to “secure our financial position, extend our runway, and reach profitability with the money we have already raised” amid industrywide financial challenges, according to a letter to staff. A Bolt spokesperson confirmed to SFGATE Thursday that "approximately a third of the company" was laid off.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors says it will start making Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles again in early April after an eight-month pause due to a series of battery fire recalls. The automaker says Tuesday that battery supplier LG Energy Solution is now making enough to supply replacement modules for the recalls as well as to resume production. The company will start making hatchback and SUV versions of the Bolt on April 4 at a factory north of Detroit. Those should start reaching dealers a few weeks later. Vehicles on dealer lots at the time of the recalls can be sold...

In the wake of a series of severe EV battery fires, one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world, General Motors has just issued safety recommendations for Bolt EV’s: Not to park your Chevy Bolt within 50 feet of other vehicles in case it catches fire. Highly recommends that Bolt EV owners not to park within 50 feet of anything you care about. Recommends parking on the top floor or on an open-air deck and park 50 feet or more away from another vehicle. Requests Bolt EV owners to not leave their vehicle charging unattended, even if they are...

GM announced that it has issued a recall on every single Chevy Bolt made to date due to the battery fire risk. The move comes after two previous recalls, which were aimed at specific models. The Bolt was first recalled in November after five cars that hadn’t been in crashes caught fire. After investigating the problem further, Chevy recalled a second batch in July. The problem was traced to two manufacturing defects that could occur simultaneously. The defects—a torn anode tab and a folded separator—created conditions that could lead to a short in affected cells. So far, the company has...

DETROIT (AP) - General Motors is recalling all Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles sold worldwide to fix a battery problem that could cause fires. The recall raises questions about lithium ion batteries, which now are used in nearly all electric vehicles. President Joe Biden wants to convert 50% of the U.S. vehicle fleet from internal combustion to electricity by 2050 as part of a broader effort to fight climate change. The recall announced Friday adds about 73,000 Bolts from the 2019 through 2022 model years to a previous recall of 69,000 older Bolts. GM said that in rare cases the batteries...

General Motors‘ shift to electric vehicles isn’t going smoothly, with the auto maker announcing last week it is recalling Chevrolet Bolts—again. The recall affects previously recalled Chevrolet Bolts produced between 2017 and 2019 over battery defects that may cause fires, the company said. The issue affects 50,932 Bolts, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. Earlier this month, General Motors (ticker: GM) advised owners of the affected Bolts to avoid parking their vehicles inside or charging them unattended overnight. That warning followed a November recall for the vehicles after the NHTSA confirmed five instances of fires and...

General Motors is recalling tens of thousands of Chevrolet all-electric Bolt hatchbacks for the second time in less than a year because of a potential fire risk. The company made the move on Friday after two Bolts caught fire without impact recently. GM is confirming that at least one of the Bolt fires was battery related and happened despite the owner getting the fix from the first recall. This time, GM said it would recall all 2017-19 model-year Bolts. In total, the recall involves 68,000 vehicles globally; of those, 50,925 are in the United States. The vehicles contain high voltage...

General Motors is telling owners of some older Chevrolet Bolts to park them outdoors and not to charge them overnight because two of the electric cars caught fire after recall repairs were made. The company said Wednesday that the request covers 2017 through 2019 Bolts that were part of a group that was recalled earlier due to fires in the batteries. The latest request comes after two Bolts that had gotten recall repairs caught fire, one in Vermont and the other in New Jersey, GM spokesman Kevin Kelly said. Owners should take the steps “out of an abundance of caution,”...

A Chevrolet electric vehicle owned by Vermont state Rep. Timothy Briglin recently caught fire while charging in the politician’s driveway, according to Vermont State Police. The fire is the most recent to highlight an ongoing concern of automakers and vehicle safety watchdogs as companies release an influx of new EVs.

Usain Bolt will not be competing in the Tokyo Olympics this summer, but he does have another life milestone to celebrate. Bolt, an eight-time Olympic gold medalist, and his partner Kasi Bennett announced the arrival of twins recently with posts on Instagram for Father's Day. And as with their oldest daughter, Olympia Lightning, the two carry fitting names. Welcome Saint Leo Bolt and Thunder Bolt. He retired from Olympic competition following the 2016 Rio games. It will be the first Olympics since 2000 in which the Jamaican will not be on the track.

Gatorade has been banned from insulting its main competitor — water — and fined $300,000 after it slandered nature’s sports drink in a video game, California’s Attorney General announced Thursday. AG Xavier Becerra sued the neon-colored beverage company over its cellphone game “Bolt!” in which players guide track star Usain Bolt around to collect coins and bottles of Gatorade but must avoid water — which slows the Olympian down.

Advice needed: It's either corrosion or a gorilla with a wrench, or both, but I cannot get the brake caliper bolts on our Ford Explorer out. FoMoCo exacerbates the problem by using bolts with shallow heads, so it is difficult to keep a socket on them. I have tried various penetrating oils such as PB Blaster, smacking the bolt heads with a medium hammer, etc. to no effect. More info. in my 1st comment...

a golden oldie of Usain Bolt from 2012

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres defended herself on Tuesday after some claimed that a humorous Usain Bolt tweet sent out from her social media accounts a day earlier was racist. *snip* DeGeneres’ popular Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts often feature funny images that have been altered to include her. On Monday, her accounts sent out a picture of her riding on Bolt’s back during Sunday’s 100 meter semifinal with the suggestion she’d like to use the Jamaican sprinter’s word-class speed to get her errands done faster.

Birthright Israel, the charity founded in 1999 to bring young Jews on trips to Israel, has witnessed an unprecedented increase in participation among French citizens over the past two years. The Observer has learned that 2500 French Jews will have visited Israel as part of the program this year—more than double the 1100 who went last year and a stunning 2400% increase over the 98 who visited as program participants in 2013. The gains come amid a string of high-profile attacks by radical Islamists in France, many targeting Jewish institutions. In March 2012, three linked shootings in Toulouse and Montauban...

BALTIMORE – People in Baltimore and other cities accuse police of sometimes giving prisoners an extra-rough "nickel ride" — a reference to amusement rides that once cost a nickel. Now, the safety of people in Baltimore's police vans is under scrutiny because of a past death and a new fatal injury, one that came after police failed to put a seat belt on a passenger. One of those, Dondi Johnson, died of a fractured spine in 2005 two weeks after he was arrested for urinating in a public street and transported by van. Johnson's family won a $7.4 million judgment...

Sound the trumpets! Here comes the next best, all-new, electric wonder-car from General Motors. The dust had not even cleared from the rollout of the new and improved 2016 Chevy Volt when GM CEO Mary Barra announced the newest Tesla-killer from GM, the Chevy Bolt. Let's hope that the engineers working on the Bolt put more thought into the design of the vehicle than the GM executives put into naming the car. Seriously, the Bolt? The name sounds like something out of a Disney animated movie. I wonder if the names Ratchet orSocket were in contention. Whatever the case,...

DETROIT — General Motors plans to start selling an affordable electric car in 2017 that will be able to go 200 miles on a single charge. A person briefed on the matter told The Associated Press that GM plans to start selling a $30,000 battery powered family car called the Chevrolet Bolt sometime in 2017. A concept version of the car will be unveiled Monday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the official announcement hasn't been made.