The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation over complaints alleging the Chevrolet Bolt EV is prone to catching fire.
NHTSA has so far received three separate reports of fires that started under the rear seat of the Chevrolet Bolt EV while the vehicle was parked. According to a document the agency posted to its website this week, the fire damage in affected vehicles “appeared to be concentrated in the EV battery compartment area with penetration into the passenger compartment from under the rear seat.” A person also reported suffering injuries related to smoke inhalation in one of the complaints.
The Office of Defects Investigation within NHTSA is now “opening a Preliminary Evaluation to assess the scope, frequency, circumstances, and safety consequences of the alleged fires,” the safety watchdog says. A total of 78,000 Chevrolet Bolt EV units spanning the 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 model years are included in the investigation.
In August, General Motors said it would launch its own internal investigation after a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV owner said their vehicle spontaneously combusted while it sat unattended in a parking lot. The vehicle involved in that fire had severe burn damage to the rear bench seat and rear passenger compartment area.
The owner of the vehicle in that case said they reached out to GM and demanded the automaker investigate the issue, but the company refused. GM only began to look into the matter after the owner took their story to a local news publication, the person said.
GM is cooperating with the NHTSA investigation into the fires, reports The Detroit News. The agency is hoping to determine the cause of the fires, how often they may occur and the potential safety hazards they pose. The investigation could eventually lead to a recall, the newspaper also said.
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Comments
The battery used by the Chevrolet Bolt is well insulated; but recharging cycles can create issues as it is not uncommon for the battery of a Chevrolet Bolt to be replace 2-3 times and mistakes can happen during installation and create issues like that which can cause a smartphone to catch fire.
I know a huge number of Bolt EV owners (including myself). And not one of them have needed a battery pack replacement. Yes there have been some people on the forums that have had replacements because of a faulty cell but that would be completely unrelated to this.
hyundai is recalling 25K+ kona ev’s and they are blaming it on lg chem. perhaps this is related since gm used the same supplier.
Did Chevrolet not tell us the Bolt is being produced by Tesla under contract? That would make a lot of sense.
I believe that is not even close to correct. GM performs final assembly Bolt at a in Orion Township, Michigan, US factory. Many of the running gear components are sourced from LG Chem, Korea. GM is currently building an EV battery production facility in Lordstown, Ohio, US. Tesla’s battery partnership is with Panasonic. Tesla has produced EV running gear for Toyota RAV4.
This is similar to the reported fires (just smoke, not flames) in several 2021 Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrids. Those fires were located at the onboard charger module which is mounted directly above the battery and BMS. Ford has instructed these owners not to use the charger until the issues was solved (regenerative charging still is normal). I suspect that the Chevy Bolt EV fires may be the same, which is not in the pack, but at the charger module which is also located above the pack.
Calling them ‘Battery fires’ may be wrong and clumped together with Tesla fires which do happen inside the battery pack, further damaging the image of EVs.
We shall see how many instances of this there are. My understanding is that there has been very few instances. But under the rear seat is the emergency battery disconnect. And in that is also a fuse. It’s possible there might be a bad contact / or fuse on some units. Hopefully these are isolated incidents.
There was a recent recall for the 2019 Bolt involving the Fuse.
Of course nobody wants any vehicle fires, especially if it is your car and maybe your garage going up in flames. Something to keep in mind is that GM has produced 78,000 units of Bolt and there have been three fires reported to US NHTSA’s ODI and I believe at least one Bolt fire in Canada. GM actually has a lower rate of fires per unit than Tesla, which has had 55 fires in 300,000 units (the latest figure I can find). EVs likely have a significantly lower rate of fires than the US vehicle population at large.
The issue of concern surrounding the Bolt is that the fires in the three US incidents reported are similar, thus suggesting a common type of failure mode. So far there is an investigation, but not yet a conclusion.
I do have a 2017 Bolt and I am not too concerned given the very low per unit failure rate. I do have insurance on the car and structure where it parked of course.
You need fuel, oxygen, and “ignition” source for a fire. If excessive heat is being created by a component in the area in question, there’s obviously oxygen and fuel; therefore, a fire is possible. I don’t find it difficult to believe that GM/Chevy pretty much turned up their noses to a customer complaint, as I’ve had lots of experiences like that recently with my GM stable of vehicles, which I decided will most likely be my LAST GM vehicle purchases due to that fact. I purchased a GM performance part for my ‘19 Silverado, and had issues with it, yet the “best” GM could offer to resolve my issue was give me a $50 coupon towards future service in the vehicle. So now I own what is supposed to be a genuine GM part, covered by B2B factory warranty, yet GM won’t provide corrective measures for me to install their product. GM has gone downhill fast, and I’m ready to board the Tesla train for EVs, and Honda or Toyota when it’s time for my next combustion engine vehicle. Thankfully no one was injured in these fires and I wish all you bolt owners good luck!
It sounds like you received poor support from your GM dealer. It used to be that authorized GM parts and accessories were covered by a vehicle’s warranty. If the part isn’t performing to its specification, that should be addressed, provided the vehicle has active warranty coverage. I would try to get resolution from the dealer’s service manager and then then GM’s customer relations. If there is a safety concern, I would report it to NHTSA’s ODI web site and let GM customer relations know you are notifying ODI.
I have had experience with Honda, Nissan and Toyota as well as GM. GM is mostly as responsive as the the Asian manufacturers. I tried to get defects addressed by Nissan and Honda and got massive stonewalling. Toyota was better, in fact proactive, at replacing the entire badly rusted frame of my Tacoma truck well past the normal warranty. My Tacoma was built in the former GM/Toyota NUMMI facility in Freemont which is now Tesla’s factory.
I actually sent an email directly to Barry Engle, EVP and President of North American sales. Someone from his executive resolution team contacted me in a feeble attempt at a resolution. Long story short, GMPP intake came with a one use ECU tuning code. I started getting CEL after initial install, so local dealership made me pay $100 out of pocket to flash back to factory for troubleshooting. Now, after GM executive inclusion, I’m offered $50 to program ECU again in order to use GMPP intake, but I no longer have a valid ECU programming code (which was included with original purchase). I’ve been a GM guy for over 30 years, but the last 3 have really tested my loyalty to the brand.
Thanks for the feedback. You certainly have a right to assume that a GMPP part would work and you’d be able to code the Engine ECU to accommodate the part that GM itself authorized for use on your vehicle. Other cars I’ve had, authorized parts were covered under the new vehicle warranty. It is a disappointment the post bankruptcy GM doesn’t do that.
I had really strenuous pushback from Honda America on a Honda Insight I own that had its battery pack replaced three times in warranty for the first owner. About a year after I bought the car with 24,000 miles and not long after the warranty expired, I started having the IMA error light come on and OBD codes indicating internal cell overtemp. Honda basically told me to go to hell.
I had a lot of problems with a used Nissan LEAF that was certified used and still had some Nissan extended warranty left when I bought it. The electric brake boost started cutting out due to failing capacitor. It was days outside its warranty. I wrote to the NTHSA ODI because it was a huge safety issue and contacted Nissan’s customer relations in Tennessee to see if they would do a good will repair. The best I got is that Nissan would pay only one post warranty claim, but I had to have a dealer read the diagnostic codes first and that would constitute the post warranty claim. That still would have left me holding the bag for an estimated $2,500 repair on a car that was worth $3,200 at the time. The Nissan owner’s board had a number of threads of owners with the same brake problem and Nissan had a presence on the board, so they had to know. They also switched from electric boost to a hydraulic accumulator in 2014. There was absolutely no interest in making it right for their customer on something potentially very serious. That isn’t a good way to retain customers, I would say.
Toyota was better. I have an ‘05 Tacoma that had a really serious case of frame rot here in the road salt loving Midwest. Toyota sent me a letter in 2015 that they would either repaint or replace the frame if too corroded. They opted to replace the fame. I was impressed by Toyota taking ownership of the issue and being proactive about fixing it almost 11 years after I bought the truck.
I wonder how GM products of the same age as my Tacoma fared? Toyota produced my Tacoma at the defunct joint venture NUMMI plant in Freemont to get around the, “chicken tax,” on import pickups. The original frame on my truck was sourced from the US supplier Dana. The strange thing was the frame was coated with something that looked like black Vaseline rather than paint. All that coating was washed off in less than a year, and that is what led to the horrific rust. The new frame appears to be powder coat painted and it still looks great after a handful of salty winters.