Really? Is no one talking about the Chevy Bolt?

[SDBob]

GM asks Chevy Bolt EV owners not to charge overnight or park inside? JUST IMAGINE IF THIS WERE TESLA. Holy Cats, it would be the end of the world.

GM asks Chevy Bolt EV owners not to charge overnight or park inside after 2 more fires

With two more fires since the final recall was announced, GM has asked affected Bolt owners to park outside and no longer charge overnight.

electrek.co

Consumer Alert: Important Chevrolet Bolt Recall for Fire Risk

Owners of select Chevy Bolt vehicles should park their cars outside and away from homes, including vehicles that had a recall remedy completed.

www.nhtsa.gov

 

[alexgr]

GM asks Chevy Bolt EV owners not to charge overnight or park inside? JUST IMAGINE IF THIS WERE TESLA. Holy Cats, it would be the end of the world.

GM asks Chevy Bolt EV owners not to charge overnight or park inside after 2 more fires

With two more fires since the final recall was announced, GM has asked affected Bolt owners to park outside and no longer charge overnight.

electrek.co

Consumer Alert: Important Chevrolet Bolt Recall for Fire Risk

Owners of select Chevy Bolt vehicles should park their cars outside and away from homes, including vehicles that had a recall remedy completed.

www.nhtsa.gov

And Ford Mach-E have at minimum 5-10% of all vehicles sold that are already giving the owners all sorts of issues from panel gaps to battery and motor failures. For example, 6 Mach-Es were bricked on the same road in Norway in 2 weeks because of the engineering design failure of Ford and NOT a single news agency picked up the story. Ford Norway responds after six Mach-E units overheat due to regen braking use And you will NOT find easily using Google.

PR money of GM and Ford at work. Uninformed consumers are enjoying lemons.

 

[el-guapin]

WoW!!.. That's crazy!.. Stories like that buried or difficult to find! Makes me mad!

 

[alexgr]

WoW!!.. That's crazy!.. Stories like that buried or difficult to find! Makes me mad!

By standards of "professional" journalism, the author should attempt to contact all sides of the story. Imagine a C&D editor contacts GM or Ford to solicit ... comments? ... on a story about their vehicles failing and being dangerous. What would GM or Ford tell the editor of a "news" outlet that's life depends on sponsor advertiser money from GM and Ford?

 

[EVFamilyGrins]

Majority of automotive world doesn't even know the Bolt exists, so story doesn't generate eyeballs. Lack of perceived interest combined advertising dollars mean no story. BMW had a similar issue years ago with ICE cars catching fire when parked and media only mildly covered it.

As unfair as the lack of coverage is, probably best for EV adoption if it does get mainstream media attention.

 

[Watts_Up]

WoW!!.. That's crazy!.. Stories like that buried or difficult to find! Makes me mad!

Cars companies pay so much money in advertisement that news groups don't want "to kill the goose that lay the golden eggs."

But imagine if Tiger Woods was driving a Tesla when he had a car accident few weeks ago....
I am sure that Tesla and the Auto Pilot would have been made responsible for the crash.

 

[Calliope]

Things like panel gaps don't worry me much, but fires and locked-up cars are a big issue. Still, I don't read automotive news or views, so I'm not surprised I'd have missed it.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yes, cars being bricked and catching fire are a tad more important problems. The Ford Mach-E bricking problem that occurs on extended downhill regen is a software bug apparently, and can be solved with a software update … which requires a dealer visit. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragic.

 

[alexgr]

Yes, cars being bricked and catching fire are a tad more important problems. The Ford Mach-E bricking problem that occurs on extended downhill regen is a software bug apparently, and can be solved with a software update … which requires a dealer visit. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragic.

It could be an engineering design problem of the battery thermal management. Then, all a software update can do is to limit regeneration consequently limiting the range of the vehicle and affecting other performance characteristics.

 

[jabloomf1230]

If you write an EV story and it doesn't have the word Tesla in it at least ten times, no one will read it.

 

[electric miles]

GM asks Chevy Bolt EV owners not to charge overnight or park inside? JUST IMAGINE IF THIS WERE TESLA. Holy Cats, it would be the end of the world.

GM asks Chevy Bolt EV owners not to charge overnight or park inside after 2 more fires

With two more fires since the final recall was announced, GM has asked affected Bolt owners to park outside and no longer charge overnight.

electrek.co

Consumer Alert: Important Chevrolet Bolt Recall for Fire Risk

Owners of select Chevy Bolt vehicles should park their cars outside and away from homes, including vehicles that had a recall remedy completed.

www.nhtsa.gov

For all the media hype over the Mach-E, the Bolt sold more than twice as much in the US for the first four months of the year (13,611 vs 6,104). It was America's best selling EV that's not a Tesla. Given that these two models were the closest to M3 and MY sales and both are experiencing significant issues, it doesn't appear that Tesla will be seriously challenged for a while.

 

[mark95476]

GM Bolt was touted as the Tesla Model 3 killer.
Mach-E is being touted as the Tesla Model Y killer.

For all the media hype over the Mach-E, the Bolt sold more than twice as much in the US for the first four months of the year (13,611 vs 6,104). It was America's best selling EV that's not a Tesla. Given that these two models were the closest to M3 and MY sales and both are experiencing significant issues, it doesn't appear that Tesla will be seriously challenged for a while.

 

[Cosmacelf]

For all the media hype over the Mach-E, the Bolt sold more than twice as much in the US for the first four months of the year (13,611 vs 6,104). It was America's best selling EV that's not a Tesla. Given that these two models were the closest to M3 and MY sales and both are experiencing significant issues, it doesn't appear that Tesla will be seriously challenged for a while.

Correct, which is what anyone actually paying attention realized years ago. Sandy Munro just came out with yet another video demolishing the EV competition's internal design comparing the heating/cooling systems of the Mach-E and Model Y. Night and day. It's worth checking out. And more to the point of this thread, he stated several times that the Mach-E was the best of the rest. All other EVs were even worse.

 

[Darmie]

If you write an EV story and it doesn't have the word Tesla in it at least ten times, no one will read it.

There are many that won't say Tesla but the viewer or reader knows the vehicle they are comparing reviews to.

Majority of automotive world doesn't even know the Bolt exists, so story doesn't generate eyeballs. Lack of perceived interest combined advertising dollars mean no story. BMW had a similar issue years ago with ICE cars catching fire when parked and media only mildly covered it.

As unfair as the lack of coverage is, probably best for EV adoption if it does get mainstream media attention.

Let's face it, there's not much to talk about. They'll stop selling this vehicle soon or they should. The Volt didn't take long to be off the market. GM made a great EV many years ago and would have had the EV market today but politics got in the way. Bob Lutz did everything he could to promote the EV movement with GM but GM invoked to many compromises.
I agree the lack of coverage is probably best. Sure as a Tesla stock holder and someone that loves the product, we may want to see the competition go up in smoke (no pun intended) but the public looks at this as an Electric car issue across the board. They won't exempt the Tesla product. We all know Tesla has their issues but they have the knowledge and confidence to create a compelling vehicle. Tesla does more work behind the scenes then most give them credit for. Run scan my tesla and see how their BMS is in full force. Look at all the systems that communicate issues when it comes to battery management.

I feel that the other EV manufactures will come around and get these issues dialed in. I remember years ago in the Radio Controlled world when Lipos came to play, there were many examples of hobbyist burning their garages down but then became safer and you don't hear about it that much. Chargers are better and so are batteries with much higher C ratings.

 

[bjrosen]

I had really hoped that GM had found an intelligent solution to their battery problem. Adding software that can detect cell damage before a fire occurs is a much better solution than doing a wholesale battery replacement like Hyundai. Not only is a battery replacement expensive it also limits their ability to build new EVs, every battery replaced is a new EV that can't be built. These fires are bad for the EV industry as a whole including Tesla but they are terrible for GM because they've destroyed the confidence of their customers. If GM ends up replacing the old batteries with the newer higher capacity packs then GM will have the chance of restoring some goodwill from their customers but if they do something to limit the new packs to the old capacity then they can kiss them all goodbye. One bad car can cost you a customer for life, GM has done it before. My first new car was a 1980 Chevy Citation, it's transmission died when it was six years old. I didn't step into a GM showroom for 36 years until my Chrysler 300C was dying and the service had been so mind boggling bad at two different Dodge dealers (my Chrysler dealer went in the consolidation) that I went into the Chevy dealer across the street from the Chrysler dealer where I saw the Volt. The Volt was a brilliant piece of engineering and it made the perfect transitional vehicle. Unfortunately for GM their bean counters got a hold of the Bolt and it wasn't nearly the car that the Volt had been. I looked at the Bolt while the tires on my Volt were being swapped and I didn't even bother to test drive it, it's looks are terrible, I hate SUV/CUVs and I would have been embarrassed to be seen driving it, the interior was incredibly cheap looking right down to the font on the display. When the Supercharger Network finally got to Maine in 2019, which closed the last hole in the New England network, I got a Model 3 and I'm not looking back. But GM did manage to find a significant number of customers for the Bolt and now they've lost them for life.

 

[RobDickinson]

Reading /r/BoltEV is crazy.

Theres half of them getting screwed over unable to use their cars (3 years worth of cars that have been recalled for this issue and fixed twice already), most unable to get buy backs or return the dangerous car

And the other half celebrating people buying new Bolts.

Now I'm not going to have a go at them for the problem. Stuff happens. Pretending to fix it twice with software when we know it will need a pack replacement and refusing to move on this (unlike Hyundai) and treating their customers like dirt I am not OK with.

 

[mk677]

GM product. not worth talking about.

 

[outdoors]

I really feel for the journalist that writes the next "Tesla Killer" headline. Really does one not look at the various headlines over the last 3 or 4 years about what the next killer is going to be?

Everyone trips a few times when they learn to walk. Why do some still keep tripping?

My friend says GM says the battery pouch they call it is the solution. I said a pouch? Come on. Call it a satchel. Forget that. Make a battery that doesn't catch a house on fire. Problem is they don't make it. They can finger point.

 

[RobDickinson]

GM are getting a lot of press for being committed to EVs, being innovators, disruptors, having upcoming new evs like trucks etc.

this matters.

 

[ljbad4life]

wow- I thought gm fixed it with a software update, when clearly it needs a physical fix. GM needs to replace the battery asap, before someone dies. full stop. Hyundai is pulling this same nonsense with the Kona ev. IF the battery is catching fire a software fix isn't it.