Fire order: GM recalls all produced Chevrolet Bolts and stops their sales

After ten incidents of fires due to defective LG Chem batteries, General Motors Corporation has decided to issue a costly recall of all Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles manufactured from 2016 to the present and replace the batteries with them. The recall will cost GM at least $1.8 billion, and it wants to recover it from the Korean supplier.

General Motors announced the recall of the Chevrolet Bolt EV back in November last year, but then it only affected 68,677 2017-2019 hatchbacks. and the corporation hoped to eliminate the risk of fire by software, suggesting as a palliative measure not to charge the battery more than 90%. Now, after months of studying this issue, GM has concluded that the only way to fix it is through a complete battery replacement and has included in the recall campaign all Bolt electric vehicles released, including the brand new restyled Bolt EV hatchbacks and Bolt EUV platform crossovers of the 2022 model year..

Crossover Chevrolet Bolt EUV

The extended part of the recall includes 73,018 electric vehicles sold in the US and Canada. To these, obviously, should be added copies of the Bolt EV sold outside of North America, and the European clones of the Opel / Vauxhall Ampera-e, that is, at least ten thousand cars. In total, more than 150,000 electric vehicles will be subject to the recall. The total cost of the recall will be $1.8 billion. Ironically, about the same amount today costs the construction of a modern plant for the production of batteries for electric vehicles…

Restyled hatchback Chevrolet Bolt EV

In a press release regarding the recall, GM blames the battery supplier, Korean company LG Chem, for the recall: a broken anode mount and/or jammed separator occur in the same battery pack, and the defective batteries didn't just come from the main battery factory. LG Chem Ochang in South Korea, but also with other enterprises. Obviously, there is some kind of system failure that LG Chem should have fixed long ago. In February, we recall, Hyundai announced the forced replacement of defective LG Chem batteries in 82,000 of its electric vehicles (mainly Kona Electric crossovers).

The battery in the Chevrolet Bolt consists of five modules, and GM knows which module may contain defective cells, for a number of reasons that it prefers not to expand on, it will not change the potentially defective module, but the entire battery.

General Motors, like Hyundai, will try to pass the cost of the recall on to LG Chem, but heavy pressure could jeopardize GM's entire electrification program tied to the Korean supplier. The new Ultium electric vehicle platform, on which GM builds all of its key products, including the Chevrolet Silverado EV electric pickup truck, must source batteries from US-based joint ventures with LG – the first is in Lordstown, Ohio, the second is being built in Spring Hill (Tennessee). A conflict over the Chevrolet Bolt recall could result in the Koreans being unwilling or unable to fulfill their obligations in these JVs, which would be a disaster for GM. We believe that, taking into account the risks for everyone, the partners will eventually come to an agreement, but it is not certain that we will find out about these agreements.

Chevrolet Bolt assembly at GM Orion Assembly in Michigan.

So far, according to Reuters (this information is not in the GM release), sales of all Chevrolet Bolts have been suspended indefinitely. The timing of battery replacement has not been determined either – more than 150 thousand batteries have yet to be produced. For now, owners are still advised not to charge the battery more than 90%, not to drain it too much (need to keep the range from falling below 70 miles or 113 km), not to leave cars in the garage overnight to charge, and park them exclusively outdoors, away from other vehicles and objects that could spread flames in the event of a fire.

We add that the Chevrolet Bolt did not become a bestseller, although the sales results for the first half of 2021, thanks to a recent update, are the best in its career: 20,288 units were sold. The best sales year so far is 2017, when 23,297 Bolt EVs were sold. For comparison, let's say that the Tesla Model Y crossover from January to June of this year sold 76,429 units in the United States, the Tesla Model 3 sedan – 51,510 units.