Chevy Bolt EV, Bolt EUV Production Downtime Extended Through February
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Production downtime at the GM Lake Orion Assembly plant, which builds both the Chevy Bolt EV and Chevy Bolt EUV, has been extended until at least the end of February.
According to The Detroit News, the automaker this week notified workers at its Lake Orion plant that production would be idled through February 2022 as it continued to prioritize recall repairs for existing customers affected by the battery module fire recall.
“We will continue to inform employees at the appropriate time of any additional production schedule adjustments, as we continue to focus on battery module replacements,” GM spokesman Dan Flores told the newspaper.
Production of the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV has been offline since late August, when GM extended its battery fire recall to include all 140,000 examples of the two nameplates. GM reopened the Lake Orion plant on November 1st, however the plant was only operational for about two weeks and focused on streamlining production processes rather than building an abundance of new vehicles. GM later pushed the production restart date back to December 6th and then to the end of January before this week’s confirmation of the February extension.
Battery pack production for the Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, meanwhile, restarted in mid-September as Chevy began producing replacement packs for existing customer vehicles. GM spokesman Dan Flores said in November that the automaker remains focused on getting replacement parts to customers and that it will “continue to inform employees at the appropriate time of any additional production schedule adjustments.”
GM was forced to recall 140,000 examples of the Bolt EV and Bolt EUV after it received multiple reports of the vehicles spontaneously combusting. The problem was traced back to a manufacturing defect in the battery packs, which are manufactured by GM’s battery partner, LG Energy Solution, at facilities in Michigan and Korea.
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I hope they are making a few upgrades to the Bolt during this time. The most important of these would be 100KW fast charging. Then, the Bolt can return to market with some good news.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. They just re-released the entire drivetrain on the EUV without changing anything.
Bob – That would require double the refrigeration system that the car now has…
I suppose they COULD offer it as an option instead of the “One size fits all” that they currently offer…
I traded in my 2017 BOLT EV (69,000 miles) for a 2022 EUV which I bought last June. To my mind it (a stripped vehicle) has too much standard equipment and they should have left the added stuff optional for those who want it.
1). $1000 credit towards installation of a garage receptacle for:
2). Standard 120/240 volt 32 ampere charging cord. (I have one of these already, as well as 2 existing 32 ampere plug-in receptacles, as well as a 16 ampere plug-in receptacle (for the 3 wall boxes I already own.)
(In lieu of #1, which I don’t need nor want, I took a $500 EVGO charging credit – unfortunately the nearest EVGO location is either 250 or 300 miles away, and is not in the direction I normally go for road trips).
3). Whoppingly huge Level II (medium speed) 48 ampere car charging facility….NO ONE has asked for this even to be an optional extra over the 32 ampere model the 2017 ev had.
For Comparison, Toyota with its excellent RAV4PRIME plug-in hybrid comes standard with a 16 ampere charger, and you must spend about $10,000 extra to get the package that includes a 30 ampere charger.
4). 55 kw FAST CHARGER (that everyone complains how S-L-O-W it is). Used to be a $750 option that I did not have for my 2017 Bolt EV and never missed it…. I likewise don’t need the ‘standard’ facility on my 2022. More wasted equipment.
But the plain old ‘infotainment’ screen standard is overly huge, and the system doesn’t work as well at my 2017 Bolt Ev did.
Isn’t it all just a hopeless mess? Unless Biden bans it, the Chinese EVs will be coming soon and in about 3 years we will see the Tesla $25K sub-compact. GM will concentrate on sales of ICE cars as long as they can avoid bankruptcy. I don’t expect the company will exist by the end of the decade. The boondoggles they have lost billions investing in [Nikola, Lordstown] are laughable. They do seem to realize, finally, that they are doomed, so why build any more EVs? They lose money which will bring on the creditors sooner.
For the millionth time GM didn’t invest anything in Nikola. GM was going to be a contract supplier to them. In return GM was going to get stock in the company in addition to the cost of the goods.
The biggest investment GM made to Lordstown Motors was selling them the plant GM didn’t want anymore. It would have cost GM more to decommission the plant.
This seems like crushing blow of sorts for a fresh on the market debuting model. Sad.
This probably will have little affect in the long run. Cars catch fire all the time and people don’t stop buying them. In this case it’s rare and the problem has been fixed.
And gm is still partnering with LG? Not a good sign for the Ultium.
No worry mate, GM is Leading. Most dont know to where thoug, but as long as GM keeps leading you’l be fine:)
Bad timing. 18-24 months ago there were fewer options, now?? There are more EV’s with 200+ range everyday. I expect the “Bolt” nameplate will dropped as soon as possible.