Another Chevy Bolt Fire

[El joe]

Feel bad for Bolt owners. I had one before I got my Model 3 (which was before I got my Model Y) and it's a great car, but these fires are terrible for those owners. Hope this doesn't impact EVs overall as well. :/

Car Catches Fire Inside Garage​

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Firefighters responded to the scene just shortly after 9 o'clock this morning.
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Cherokee County Fire & Emergency Services responded to a structure fire this morning, just shortly after 9 o’clock, at 2691 Trinity Church Road off Free Home Highway.
Firefighters arrived on scene to find smoke coming from inside the garage. The homeowner stated that all of his smoke alarms started going off and he went outside to find smoke coming from an adjoining garage. The fire appeared to be coming from a 2019 Chevy Bolt electric vehicle. The vehicle was pulled from the garage; however, it had already received extensive damage. Another vehicle inside the garage, a 2017 Dodge Ram, received some smoke damage.
According to Battalion Chief, Ricky Collett, “Firefighters worked hard to keep the fire from spreading to the house that was next to the garage.” The fire is under investigation, however, General Motors reported last month that all 2019-2020 Bolt EVs are now being recalled because of one and, in some cases, two defects in the battery cells that could lead to fire.
No injuries have been reported.

Cherokee County Fire Department | Cherokee County, GA, USA

cherokeecountyfire.org

 

[mark95476]

Good thing their home didn't burn down. You figure they would have heard about the recall and taken precautions.

 

[OlderThanDirt]

I'm sure they have but if it's like several friends I have with Bolt's the charging range limits suggested by GM make the car useless to them. They need the range so have no choice to ignore the limits and take the risk. GM is clueless.

 

[yourhero]

Should’ve gotten an extension cord.

 

[Fred42]

I'm sure they have but if it's like several friends I have with Bolt's the charging range limits suggested by GM make the car useless to them. They need the range so have no choice to ignore the limits and take the risk. GM is clueless.

What's GM's recommendation?

 

[cwerdna]

Being discussed at 9/13/21 Bolt Fire - 2019 model in Cherokee County, GA.

GM's recommendations are at Chevy Bolt EV & EUV Recall | Chevrolet. Unfortunately, not everyone has been notified. I've not received any snail mail. I did receive an email from GM about this on Sept 8th. The "70 miles" is really fuzzy as Bolt has a GOM. So, many have intepreted that to mean don't go below 6 battery bars out of 20. (70 / 238 = 0.294 so probably they mean don't go below 30%.)

My '19 Bolt (US made battery) was originally not under battery fire recall (issued in Nov 2020), but General Motors to Recall Additional Bolt EVs on 8/20/21 expanded it to ALL Bolts. I knew about that day of since I keep up with chevybolt.org + some Bolt FB groups.

The original Nov 2020 recall only involved made in Korea packs (all '17 and '18 + subset of '19). Some '19 Bolts had US made packs (so not under original recall). But, some US-made packs have also caught fire and "After further investigation into the manufacturing processes at LG and disassembling battery packs, GM discovered manufacturing defects in certain battery cells produced at LG manufacturing facilities beyond the Ochang, Korea, plant. GM and LG are working to rectify the cause of these defects..."

Right now, the highest fire risk Bolts appear to be '19's with Korean packs. We have little info on this latest fire (e.g. MIK or MIU pack).

 

[RobDickinson]

What's GM's recommendation?

Charge to 90% only, outdoors, and leave at least 30% charge , means about 50-60% effective range left.


Has the Bolt in the original post actually had a battery fire? Looks quite intact for that, cars burn for other reasons too.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Charge to 90% only, outdoors, and leave at least 30% charge , means about 50-60% effective range left.


Has the Bolt in the original post actually had a battery fire? Looks quite intact for that, cars burn for other reasons too.

It could be just that they got to it quickly.

 

[RobDickinson]

It could be just that they got to it quickly.

yeah could be, scorch/smoke marks might indicate that

 

[Zorg]

Sucks for Bolt owners. Fix is probably months out minimum between root causing the issue plus manufacturing 141,000 packs plus replacing all of them. Car is unsellable, and GM is picky on its buy back program. At this point, car is barely usable, and I wouldn't dare fast charging it.

 

[Fred42]

Sucks for Bolt owners. Fix is probably months out minimum between root causing the issue plus manufacturing 141,000 packs plus replacing all of them. Car is unsellable, and GM is picky on its buy back program. At this point, car is barely usable, and I wouldn't dare fast charging it.

There's a buyback program for the Bolt?

 

[RobDickinson]

They wont have good cells until December at least. Then they need to restart new car production, service the Hummer, lyriq and then find cells for (most of) 140,000 Bolts, 10GWh+ of them, then get trained dealers to fix them.

I'm not sure Hyundai have even started fixing theirs yet and they are at least a year ahead.

 

[alexgr]

Oh no! Good the house is almost untouched by the fire. GM really needs that $4500 taxpayer donation to order more batteries from LG.

 

[Zorg]

There's a buyback program for the Bolt?

Based on the article I read, some folks are negotiating with GM to get their car repurchased. After this, I wouldn't touch a GM EV with a 10 foot pole, even with a $12K credit.

 

[scaesare]

I too find this unfortunate.

I was hoping the Bolt would sell beyond GM's wildest expectations, and help manufacturers realize the demand and ramp up their EV programs in earnest. Unfortunately, GM has not promoted or otherwise really done much to really get behind the car. Shades of the EV-1...

Nonetheless, this detracts from EV's as a whole, and just gives traditional ICE manufacturers an excuse to delay.

Whilst the competition likes to harp on Tesla fires, in turn I am bummed to hear about these Bolt fires. Sucks for the owners, sucks for EV's as a whole, and sucks for the environment. Just as a rising tide raises all boats, so too such negative developments are not good for EV adoption as a whole.

Not to mention the world needs all the batteries it can get for new cars... not to replace packs in existing cars.

 

[cwerdna]

Sucks for Bolt owners. Fix is probably months out minimum between root causing the issue plus manufacturing 141,000 packs plus replacing all of them. Car is unsellable, and GM is picky on its buy back program. At this point, car is barely usable, and I wouldn't dare fast charging it.

Not really unsellable. Just GM dealers can't sell them. I've seen people still buying used ones from elsewhere even as of yesterday.

Used prices have gone up (see https://www.cars.com/shopping/resul...stock_type=used&year_max=&year_min=&zip=00001) vs. awhile ago. They used to start there at around $12K but now they're up w/the goofy used car market. At the moment, the cheapest I see there is $14,950 and the rest are $16K+.

As for "barely usable", I disagree. I drive a lot less than pre-COVID. My commute (don't go to the office much due to COVID) is under 13 miles each way w/free L2 charging at work. My former 1 capacity bar down '13 Leaf was MORE than enough for my commute. I only needed ~1 hour of free L2 charging at work to replenish my roundtrip commute each day. Bolt takes about the same amount of time. If I WFH (which is unfortunately what I'm mostly doing), my commute is 0. Car sits.

My 11 bar '13 Leaf was usable for about 65-ish miles of mixed driving on a charge. It was my primary car until I got my Bolt at end of Jan 2019.

Over the weekend, I drove my Bolt over 115 miles and remained within GM's current constraints.

That said, people who need to use more than 60% of the battery (and not able to charge in between) within a day will have a problem. Some folks have been offered rental cars or reimbursement of that. 60% of 238 miles is 142.8, which is just a tad under a 40 kWh Leaf in EPA range rating... I drove 84 mile EPA range (on a new battery charged to 100%) '13 Leafs as my primary car from end of July 2013 to Jan 2019.

I have 0 qualms about DC fast charging it. GM has not indicated that L1, L2 vs DC FC is any more or less risky.

There's a buyback program for the Bolt?

Some people have requested buyback and succeeded. Whether it's rejected or not is unclear and how good the compensation seems to depend on how good/bad your state's lemon/consumer protection laws are. I didn't follow any of it since my '19 Bolt w/US pack wasn't in the original Nov 2020 recall so ignored it all.

Now, all Bolts are under recall, I'm in CA and have made the first step in requesting a buyback. Someone is supposed to call me back within the next 4 business days from now.

Previously, some people did get swapped into newer not recalled at the time Bolts and some people got great deals. But, swapping into newer Bolts isn't possible now since there's a stop sale on all of them.

 

[OlderThanDirt]

One of the Bolt owners I know filed a buy back request several weeks ago. He's been pretty patient but they keep telling him "We'll contact you in a week to 10 days" They never call back.. When he calls again he gets the same "We'll call you in a week to 10 days".

He likes the car enough he will never buy another ICE. But because of GM's handling of this situation he'll never buy another GM product. He and I contend GM knew for some time that this problem was bigger than they were acknowledging. The continued fires forced their hand.

Like as has already been said it's truly disappointing this is happening regardless of what brand is involved.

 

[cwerdna]

Numerous folks on chevybolt.org have actually either completed buyback (returned car and gotten check) or are in various stages. https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/bolt-buybacks-for-california.37246/ is an example of 1 of many threads on this.

I personally know someone here in CA (who I met thru charging encounters and we sometimes email/message each other) who had a '17 or '18 Bolt (MIK batteries and thus in the Nov 2020 recall). He succeeded and his car's gone. This was a few months ago.

Today, I received a phone call from GM (I had to call them back), we spoke and I've received an email for the docs they need. I'm no fan of GM but I'm actually sympathetic to their situation right now.

 

[meomyo]

i wonder if 5g/6g may have some effect on these catching fire? I mean who knows right?