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GM Issues Second Recall Over Chevy Bolt EV Battery Pack Fires

General Motors has issued another recall for over 50,000 examples of the Chevy Bolt EV electric hatchback over battery pack fires.

The automaker issued a recall in November 2020 for roughly 69,000 Chevy Bolt EV vehicles equipped with battery packs that were manufactured using faulty cells from supplier LG Chem. The recall saw GM dealers install new battery management software in affected vehicles, which was allegedly capable of detecting major battery faults before they happened. However the effectiveness of the new software was called into question after two more battery fires occurred in affected vehicles, with at least one of these fires occurring in a vehicle that had already been repaired under the initial recall campaign.

In a statement released Friday, the automaker said “experts from GM and LG have identified the simultaneous presence of two rare manufacturing defects in the same battery cell as the root cause of battery fires in certain Chevrolet Bolt EVs.” Vehicles involved in this second recall campaign will receive a new battery pack module. Just as before, Chevy Bolt EV models included in the recall campaign span the 2017-2019 model years.

Chevrolet Bolt EV battery pack

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a directive to owners of the 69,000 vehicles involved in the initial recall campaign this week, cautioning them to park their vehicles outside due to the risk of vehicle fires. The safety watchdog has also instructed owners to not charge the vehicle past 90 percent and not let it dip below 70 miles of range to lower the risk of a battery fire. This is similar to GM’s interim fix for the battery pack fires that issued last year, which included a software update that limited to battery’s capacity to 90 percent.

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Sam loves to write and has a passion for auto racing, karting and performance driving of all types.

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Comments

  1. Finally GM made the right decision… this is the right thing to do for the Bolt customers, and not let this blow up into a much worse situation.

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    1. Well stated!! This is the correct move for sure.

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    2. The previous recall helped find the cause of the fires. I think as they replaced the bad cells they were able to narrow down the defect.

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    3. COMPLETE DISASTER FOR GM.

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      1. It’s not a complete disaster, but it’s certainly a pretty sizable one. Roughly 69,000 vehicles with battery pack list prices around $15k plus labor… It could be a billion dollar blunder.

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  2. A whole new battery pack, not just a module, is probably the safest way to try to fix this issue. The irony of the huge waste of resources and labor for such a fix on a “green” vehicle should not be lost. One module equates to what? Atleast 10% of the total battery pack? The lack of transparency with gms BEV program isn’t doing them any favors.

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    1. They will likely dissect each pack they get back rebuild them with no failing components and sell them as battery backup solutions for Buildings or grids.

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      1. Yay subsidies! Making mistakes into even more profits… What a joke.

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        1. Better to recycle the batteries than to throw them away. It’s what anyone would do.

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          1. Well isn’t the risk of a failure still there with these modules? And won’t they still need to be disposed of eventually? Also this is not an example of recycling, it’s an example of reusing…

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      2. It is very hard to find cells with unusual dendrite growth before they short out and its too late. I think GM should be careful with these old batteries, they are ticking time bombs…

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        1. They never stated it was dendrite growth. Please show me where.

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          1. Agreed. Lowercase gm would never be so forthcoming with information, their current strategy is to keep everyone in the dark and make empty promises.

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          2. GM and LG are never going to state the issue on the record, but to professionals this is a known problem with LG cells made between certain dates and from a certain factory. It was first discovered after a grid level battery caught fire, and investigators looked at other cells in the array.

            GM stated on the record today that there were 2 manufacturing problems in the cells, these likely caused the breakdown of the anode and dendrite growth, which is a result of other problems, not the root cause. Dendrites short out the cells and cause the fire.

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    2. what do you expect when the battery pack is made in either korea or china? don’t blame GM for asian incompetence

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  3. Well this is good news.

    Looks like they were able to find the cause of the fires and now they can begin replacing the bad cells.

    Now the question is Full battery pack replacement or do they know the exact cell that’s causing the issue and only replacing that component of the battery?

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    1. GM and LG have known unusual dendrite growth is the problem, GM previously just tried to develop software to root this out, unfortunately it is really hard to detect dendrite growth before it penetrates the separator and shorts out the cell. In a lab testing each cell, easy, in a pack that is all cells hooked in series … hard…

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  4. If the packs need to be replaced, then that suggests the manufacturing process by LG Chem may have been flawed from the beginning. It would be hard to trust any of those cells and therefore the entire pack needs to be replaced and the old packs recycled. Hopefully gm doesn’t decide to repurpose these cells without recycling them first.

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  5. GM needs to get ahold of SK innovations, for the new battery pack replacements.

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  6. Lots of folks here say GM is way ahead in the EV race. Sure doesn’t seem like it.

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    1. You understand that at this point, the tech used in the bolt is 6+ years old right?

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  7. Like I said they should use American companies, not some questionable oligarchical, corrupt and monopolistic Korean conglomerates.

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  8. You have to think of the customers. I am sure they’re pissed off and may not consider another ev let alone another gm vehicle.

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  9. We still enjoy and prefer our 3 year old Volt. One issue resolved in an hour at dealership. Car has unlimited range when needed. Driven twice Boston to Charlotte. 43 mpg highway. 800 mpg city/suburbs. Neighbor’s Nisson Leaf had to come home twice on a rollback to get plugged in for a recharge. Not enough recharge stations yet. Need the infrastructure legislation. Just an opinion. We will keep our Volt 10 years i guess.

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    1. Instead of obtrusive progressive infrastructure legislation maybe we should let the free market dictate the growth, or lack of, for charge stations. I thought Tesla was going to open their stations up to all makes at the end of the summer, which seems like a prime example of the natural progression of the free market.

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  10. This is how you sell more EV, burn the ones that are out there and sell you a new one. Most likely another Barra plan.

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  11. Musk recently announced a universal plug for non Tesla EV’s using Tesla stations. Excellent move.

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  12. GM / Chevrolet need to replace a BOLT to the family whose Bolt caught on fire. Instead GM /Chevrolet response is sue us..Come on GM and just replace the BOLT.

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  13. Last GM offering I will buy. Bought the 2019 Bolt Ev Premiere. 3 times to the dealer, since they have no OTA updates. I can’t charge outside. Always keep my battery under 90%. Winter driving is approximately 180miles. This was my 1st BEV. Now the most aggravating part of this is not one notification telling me if my car is being recalled, what are they doing to fix the problem. Instead a bunch of utubers, mostly touting their websites. Telling their opinions does not make a problem go away. Something from GM would be more helpful, transparency, transparency not

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  14. will Bolt owner be able to replace the present battery stystem with a solid sate battery system

    Reply

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