GM Plans to Change Fire Prone Batteries of Recalled Chevy Bolt

GM on Monday announced its plans to start the damaged and fire-prone battery cells on some of its recalled Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles in mid-October.GM first announced a recall of the Chevy Bolt electric vehicles in November 2020 due to fire risk, but it didn’t have an immediate fix.

The company again in May made a new announcement that a software repair, but then there were two fires involving Bolts that had received that fix, prompting another recall in July of 70,000 vehicles. A month later, the automaker issued a recall on another 70,000 cars. GM recommended people not charge the battery to more than 90% of its capacity. The company also recommended owners of Chevy bolt not drain the battery to less than about 70 miles of range.

The battery supplier of GM LG has used new manufacturing processes that will prevent the production of battery cells with the sort of flaws that were causing some to catch fire. The recalled Chevy Bolts’ high-voltage batteries have been blamed for at least 13 fires globally. Newly manufactured battery modules will begin shipping to Chevrolet dealers in the middle of next month. Within 60 days, GM will begin installing diagnostic software on Bolt vehicles that will continuously monitor the battery pack for signs of a dangerous defect. In some Bolt battery cells a pair of unrelated manufacturing defects, if they happened to occur together in a single cell, could allow that process to begin a fire.