We've got a pool and a pond. The pond would be a good place to park your car.
Posted on 07/14/2021 4:18:52 PM PDT by george76
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,” he said. The steps should be continued until GM engineers investigate and develop a repair, he said.
“We are moving as quickly as we can to investigate this issue,” GM said in a statement.
Vermont State Rep. Tim Briglin, whose 2019 Bolt caught fire, said he drove it to work and back home in Thetford, Vermont, on June 30, depleting the battery to around 10% of its range. He plugged it into a 240-volt outdoor charger around 8 p.m. and left the Bolt in his driveway after the car messaged that it would be fully recharged by 4 a.m.
Around 6:30 a.m. the next day, he saw smoke coming from the rear of the car and called the fire department. Volunteer firefighters arrived within 10 minutes and extinguished the blaze with a lot of water, but stayed for another three hours, using an infrared camera to make sure the battery temperature didn’t increase and the fire didn’t restart, he said. Nothing other than some nearby plants were damaged, he said.
Briglin said he had the recall repairs done on June 9, and charged his Bolt to 100% of its battery capacity the morning of the fire, he said.
Briglin said he is happy GM is taking the action, because he’s heard from Bolt owners who didn’t know what to do because of the recent fires. “I’ve had a great experience with it, but at the same time, an unhappy ending for this Bolt,” he said.
GM, he said, plans to find him a 2021 or 2022 model to replace his, which was a total loss.
In April, GM announced that it had developed diagnostic software to look for anomalies in the batteries of 69,000 Bolts worldwide. If problems are found, the company will replace faulty parts of the battery.
Kelly said owners who haven’t had the recall repairs done should still take their cars to dealers to get the fixes.
In November, GM recalled the electric vehicles after getting reports of multiple battery fires. Two people suffered smoke inhalation and a house was set ablaze.
At first the company didn’t know what was causing the problem, but it determined that batteries that caught fire were near a full charge. So as a temporary fix, owners and dealers were told to make software changes to limit charging to 90% of a battery’s capacity.
GM traced the fires to what it called a rare manufacturing defect in battery modules. It can cause a short in a cell, which can trigger a fire. Under the remedy, dealers were to install software designed to warn owners of problems, and any defective cells were to be replaced.
Each Bolt has 288 battery cells, and engineers worked to analyze data from hundreds of thousands of cells, the company said.
The recall came after the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the fires last year. The agency said in documents that the fires began under the rear seat while the cars were parked and unattended.
Engineers determined the fires took place in Bolts with battery cells made at an LG Chem factory in Ochang, South Korea, from May of 2016 to May of 2019.
Some 2019 Bolts and all 2020 and 2021 versions have cells made at an LG Chem plant in Holland, Michigan, and are not included in the recall.
Once the final recall repairs are made, the Bolts’ full range will be restored. Older Bolts can go about 238 miles (383 kilometers) per charge.
But, but, but, electric cars are supposed to be so good for the environment.
Did the Bolt message him saying, “I’m ON FIRE”
Be safe, park your Bolt in front of a fire station.
We've got a pool and a pond. The pond would be a good place to park your car.
Don’t charge it unattended ?
The all new Chebe Dolt! Exploding golf carts for today’s liberal.
Making small talk, I asked my auto mechanic if they ever worked on electric vehicles. Nope! They’re too much trouble, too dangerous, and the mechanics would all need special training.
So the Chevy Bolt can be used as either a car or an outdoor grill. That’s what I call being multifunctional. Good work, GM.
Do you get that horrible electric burning smell
The military outlawed the use of anything other than lead acid batteries in their vehicles because the other technologies posed an unacceptable fire risk. Here comes GM and Tesla saying, hey, park these things in your garage. Perfectly safe. Well, there have been fires since the beginning but apparently those are acceptable, meaning the liability is outweighed by the profits.
Your car is perfectly safe when you are driving it sayeth GM.
It is just when it is parked that you have to worry....
Can’t wait to have 3 electric vehicles parked in my garage! My home could spontaneously combust at any point and burn for days. That would be really exciting! That is a lot more fun have gasoline and diesel powered vehicles.
How much would it have cost to include a smoke detector hooked to the computer ?
if smoke=yes and if batterytemp > 100c then sms for help
I believe there are additional problems if these cars get in an accident...I think the rule is....don’t touch...you risk electrocution
“Vermont State Rep. Tim Briglin, whose 2019 Bolt caught fire, said he drove it to work and back home in Thetford, Vermont”
Idiot. You don’t buy an electric car to drive it, you buy it so you can hold your nose up in social circle.
Terrorists don’t have to make bombs anymore just park one in a basement garage and plug it in
I guess it’s too late to recall the recall.
Think of it as job security.
Isn’t that the Chevy Volt?
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