Fearing battery fires after recalls, people are selling their Chevy Bolt EVs back to GM

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(CNN)After Bart Schoenfeld's Chevrolet Bolt EV was recalled for the second time, he'd had enough.
GM had warned that some of the cars could have a manufacturing defect that might cause them to catch fire. For safety's sake, the automaker recommended Bolt owners restrict their use of the car to avoid straining the batteries, and park them away from their homes.

In an electric car, if one battery cell has a defect that allows its stored energy to be released in an uncontrolled way, that can cause it to heat up. That heat can, in turn, damage other cells nearby causing them to release their energy as heat, too. This can start a chain reaction known "thermal runaway" leading to a fire. Still, electric car fires are rare compared to fires in gasoline powered cars.

So far, Chevrolet Bolts have been blamed for 12 fires, according to GM.

The restrictions turned owning what had been a very practical electric car into a huge inconvenience, Schoenfeld said. GM offered to lend him a different car, but it would have been gasoline-powered, since GM doesn't currently sell any electric vehicles but the Bolt. GM once sold a plug-in hybrid called the Volt, but that car went out of production in 2019. To Schoenfeld, a different GM car wasn't a viable alternative. So instead, GM bought his Bolt back from him.

"I'm very eco-conscious," he said. "I've got my solar and my geothermal in my house and I don't want to burn fossil fuels."

In a process that took weeks to finally work out, Schoenfeld sold his Chevrolet Bolt EV back to GM for a price that was at about $10,000 more than he would have gotten simply by trading the car in to a dealer, he said, though he declined to provide specific numbers.

It's a solution that many Bolt owners are resorting to, according to numerous social media reports and CNN Business interviews.

GM would not say how many vehicles it has bought back from customers. The company said it is deciding whether to buy back individual cars or not on a "case-by-case" basis. Alternatively, GM is also offering to exchange the car for another GM vehicle.

Brandon Neider, an information technology manager who also owns an auto detailing company in Yonkers, New York, has also submitted paperwork for a buyback, a process he's been told could take a few weeks given the number of requests.

"I really am not comfortable having this vehicle at this point," Neider said. "I'm not done with the brand but you know, these guys don't even know how long this is going to take to resolve."

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. In May, it announced 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 spokesman Kevin Kelly said the company will begin replacing battery modules on Bolt EVs, at no charge to the owner, once it has confidence that its battery supplier, LG Energy Solution, is producing defect-free batteries. There is no specific time frame in which that's expected to happen though, he said. NHTSA is also investigating the cause of the fires.

"We don't have clear solutions yet as we're investigating the cause of the fire," a spokesperson for LG Energy Solution said.

The LG spokesperson also said that, since the issue is still being investigated, the company could not comment on whether the root cause was an LG manufacturing issue.

In the meantime, GM has recommended owners use their vehicles in ways that minimize stress on the batteries. That entails taking shorter trips and not allowing the batteries to charge too fully or drain too much.
Several Chevrolet Bolt EV owners interviewed for this story, some of whom didn't want their names published because they are still in discussions with the automaker, said they loved their electric cars and weren't upset at GM for the defect.

"You know, stuff happens," said one woman who bought her Bolt in 2017. "Things go wrong."
Although the process took weeks and involved lots of paperwork, Schoenfeld said all the customer service people he dealt with were kind, understanding and helpful.

Most of the other Bolt EV owners CNN Business spoke with were less sanguine on the customer service issue.
"I was on hold for one hour and 55 minutes listening to that god-awful music," said one man.

One woman in upstate New York, who was concerned about the safety of her home in the event the Bolt began burning, said GM offered her a 150-foot charging cable that would have allowed her to charge her car far away from her wooden house. But later, she said, another GM representative told her that no such cord existed. GM confirmed to CNN Business that there is no charging cord that long.

Several people said they are asking for buybacks because they purchased the car expecting it to be able to go a certain distance between charges, up to 259 miles for the most recent models.

In announcing the most recent recalls, GM recommended people not charge the battery to more 90% of its capacity. They also recommended that people not drain the battery to less than about 70 miles of range. That effectively reduced the driving range of even the longest-range models to about 163 miles, according to EPA estimates. In real-world driving, Chevrolet Bolts, like other vehicles, electric or not, often don't achieve their EPA-estimated range.

GM also recommended that people not charge their cars indoors overnight and that they park the cars outdoors immediately after charging. GM also recommended, when parking in a garage, parking on the top floor or an open deck and parking at least 50 feet away from any other vehicle.

"After every use, after I come home in the evening, I have get up in the middle of the night to unplug the car," said Schoenfeld.

GM customer service representatives suggested solutions, short of selling back the car, that also weren't helpful, some people claimed. Two people described being offered rental car reimbursement but they were asked to submit their rental car receipts at the end of each month. That would have meant racking up hundreds of dollars in rental car charges before even requesting repayment. GM did not confirm specifically how it handles rental car reimbursement.

Not all owners are thinking of getting rid of their cars, though. Many would rather keep their Bolt, abide by GM's suggested usage limits, and wait for the problem to be fixed.

"It seems like a small risk that we were willing to accept until Chevy can replace the battery," said Sally Heaven, a Bolt owner in Maryland. "We also don't have a garage, so our car is parked in the driveway."

For those who decide to request a buyback, the process is time consuming and there is a lot of paperwork involved. GM would not explain exactly how it decides which cars to buy back other than to say "We continue to evaluate buyback requests from Bolt EV owners on a case-by-case basis."

The formula used by GM in calculating a car's value, according to a brochure provided by the automaker, involves taking the full amount paid and deducting a small amount for each mile driven plus other things like any purchase incentives that were received from GM and the cost of removing modifications made by the customer. It's similar to calculations used in Lemon Law settlements, said Steve Lehto, a Michigan attorney who specializes in auto-related consumer law.

In agreeing to these buyback deals, said Lehto, GM is probably looking at the Lemon Laws and other warranty-related laws in each state. Every state has such laws, but they vary in details and enforcement, he said. Even though customers might not specifically invoke the laws, they provide a basis for GM to understand what it ultimately could be forced to do if a customer were to push the issue in court.

For now, some Bolt owners said they are looking at other electric cars. Both Schoenfeld and Neider said they have ordered Tesla Model 3s.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/18/cars/chevrolet-bolt-buybacks/index.html
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Saw this earlier today.

Gm Told people they should park their Bolt 50 feet away from any other car now on top of the previous restrictions. If you follow what they suggest, it is now almost impossible to use the cars…

You do get to keep making car payments though.

This is pretty much the worse case for a manufacture. Well as bad as you can get without fatalities.

But for owners they basically paid $40k for a paper weight.
 
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Saw this earlier today.

Gm Told people they should park their Bolt 50 feet away from any other car now on top of the previous restrictions. If you follow what they suggest, it is now almost impossible to use the cars…

You do get to keep making car payments though.

This is pretty much the worse case for a manufacture. Well as bad as you can get without fatalities.

But for owners they basically paid $40k for a paper weight.
This will hurt GM EV sales in the future. Word gets around about their bad battery packs. Car salespeople at the dealerships will have their work cut out for them.

GM will have to go to extra lengths to prove their battery packs in future EV's like the Hummer and GMC/Chevrolet pickup trucks and Cadillacs. Major PR campaign in the works......

I wonder what Jim Cramer will say about GM stock now? :unsure:
 

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Gm Told people they should park their Bolt 50 feet away from any other car now on top of the previous restrictions.
Note to self: Don’t park within 50 feet of a Chevy Bolt. Ever. That thing has cooties. Serious fire cooties.
 


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The Chevy Bolt recall is burning up what’s left of GM’s EV good will

The largest automaker in the US has big goals for electric vehicles, but the last half-decade is now full of stumbles

General Motors plans to launch 30 new electric vehicles around the world by 2025, and aspires to sell only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035. But over the last few years, the United States’ biggest automaker has once again squandered the advantages it held in the still-burgeoning field of electric vehicles through bad politics, bad investments, and now most notably, a massive recall of the Bolt — currently its only all-electric vehicle — thanks to around a dozen reported fires.

On Thursday, GM announced that it is extending the Bolt’s production shutdown until mid-October, as it apparently hasn’t been able to get supplier LG to produce replacement batteries that are up to snuff. It will need a lot of them, too, as GM has recalled all Bolts made to date — nearly 150,000. (The company says some vehicles will only need certain modules replaced, while others will get the whole battery pack swapped.)

In the meantime, GM gave Bolt owners something else to worry about this week, as it advised them to park at least 50 feet away from other vehicles. That’s in addition to the previous guidance owners have received, including parking away from their homes, not charging overnight, not charging above 90 percent, or letting their vehicle’s battery drain below around 70 miles of range.

GM’S EARLY PUSH INTO ELECTRIC VEHICLES IS LOOKING MORE LIKE A FALSE START

All of this has made owning a Bolt a stressful and confusing affair, despite the apparently low odds of a fire. Some owners have tried to get GM to buy back their Bolts — which the company has done in some cases — only to be rejected. Updates from the company have been intermittent since the initial recall in November 2020. It took until May 2021 for the automaker to announce its first attempted fixfor the problem (which wound up not working), and it wasn’t until July of that year that GM finally admitted what the problem was in the first place.

“This has been a very complex recall, but we’ve been moving as quickly as possible to provide our customers with information as we learned new developments alongside our supplier, LG,” Kevin Kelly, who leads Chevy’s PR team, told The Verge in an email. “We understand and can certainly appreciate the frustration that our Bolt EV owners have experienced over the past few months, but we’re committed to doing the right thing for our customers and we know we have to get the recall repair right.”

“We continue to make progress and will work as quickly possible and inform owners when we have new information to share,” he said.

THE BOLT HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST COMPETENT, CAPABLE, AND AFFORDABLE EVS

The Bolt, which launched in 2016, was supposed to help GM accomplish two things: set up GM as the first automaker to match Tesla with a mass-market, long-range electric vehicle, and also help everyone forget GM had once briefly led in this category with the EV1 — before it so thoroughly gave up on its fledgling electric car that it literally crushed most of the remaining units to pieces.

For a while, it worked. The Bolt never did gangbusters but has been one of the most competent, capable, and affordable electric cars on the market across the last half-decade.

But while GM was making modest progress on the road, it started working against that progress in Washington. When Donald Trump became president, GM was first in line with its Detroit peers when the White House opened for business. Just days after his inauguration, they reportedly lobbied the president to loosen the Obama-era clean car standards so it would be easier to sell more profitable (but more harmful) SUVs and pickup trucks.

Trump took that inch and stretched it a country mile. His administration spent the next few years slapping together a spiteful but shoddy attempt at a far more drastic rollback of one of his predecessor’s crowning climate achievements.

GM THEN SPENT TIME AND MONEY ENCOURAGING TRUMP’S DEREGULATORY TENDENCIES

Some of those automakers, like Ford, eventually wised up and struck a compromise deal with California regulators, as the legal objections mounted to Trump’s decision. But GM doubled down by joining the Trump administration’s defense, and only abandoned that position after Trump lost reelection. The company maintains it only sided with the Trump administration because it shared the belief that the federal government should have the sole right to set national standards for emissions or fuel economy, though California had a waiver to the Clean Air Act that said otherwise (which Trump fought to to revoke).

While GM was risking its reputation for the sake of constitutional posturing, it started making similarly questionable moves with its checkbook. First, it threw its weight around with buzzy EV startup Rivian. GM wanted exclusive rights to the technology that would power Rivian’s electric pickup truck and SUV in exchange for a sizable investment. Rivian politely declined and then immediately went on to raise more than $10 billion from the likes of Ford and Amazon on its way to an IPO that could see its value skyrocket to nearly $100 billion — all without an exclusive deal.

Then, under intense public pressure from the Trump administration, GM sold a recently-closed plant in Lordstown, Ohio to a brand new electric pickup truck startup called Lordstown Motors run by a guy who had recently left his post in charge of another unproven EV startup called Workhorse. GM also took a small stake in Lordstown Motors and participated in the investment portion of the startup’s merger with a special purpose acquisition company. GM even had the right to name a board member as part of that deal, but ultimately declined.

SPURNED BY RIVIAN, GM TURNED ITS ATTENTION TO TWO FAR SHAKIER STARTUPS

Shortly after that, GM announced a deal with hydrogen electric trucking startup Nikola, which had a pickup truck project of its own. But that soured quickly after Nikola’s founder and now former CEO was accused of (and later indicted for) allegedly lying about a lot of what Nikola was capable of in late 2020. GM abruptly backed out. This year, the Lordstown Motors founder faced similar allegations and was eventually pushed out. GM still holds a small stake in Lordstown Motors, though.

GM is already back in the good graces of the Biden administration. And in a few years, with electric Hummers and Silverados cruising the roads powered by the company’s next-generation battery pack, few will remember the company‘s involvement in two sketchy startups, or recall the automaker’s failed attempt at corralling one of the hottest electric vehicle companies to come to market of our time. After all, these were the kinds of metaphorical fires that tend to be easier to extinguish.

The problems with the Bolt, however, could cast a lasting pall — because this time the flames are
real.


https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/19/...l-gm-electric-vehicles-fire-tesla-competition
 

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Note to self: Don’t park within 50 feet of a Chevy Bolt. Ever. That thing has cooties. Serious fire cooties.
Hadn’t thought about that aspect of it, but that makes it impossible for Bolt owners to comply with GMs suggestion. What are they supposed to do, park then put out traffic cones to block all the spaces within 50 feet?
 
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What are they supposed to do, park then put out traffic cones to block all the spaces within 50 feet?
Just shows the absurdity of GM's advice to Bolt owners.

I am really wondering how GM will stay in business in the coming years.
 

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Just shows the absurdity of GM's advice to Bolt owners.

I am really wondering how GM will stay in business in the coming years.
Seems pretty clear GM is letting the lawyers run the show on the recall. They’ve now painted a situation where it is nearly impossible to own or operate a Bolt in a urban or suburban area. If there is a fire, then the liability is on you because you as the owner didn’t follow the recall instructions.
 
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They’ve now painted a situation where it is nearly impossible to own or operate a Bolt in a urban or suburban area.
Good point. GM is fighting buybacks. If you own a Bolt you will need to lawyer up.

If there is a fire, then the liability is on you because you as the owner didn’t follow the recall instructions.
If there is a fire they will go after GM with million dollar lawsuits.
 


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What are they supposed to do, park then put out traffic cones to block all the spaces within 50 feet?
And people have been saying that a CT was too large to find parking anywhere on the street. LOL.

If you are a downtown business where there is on-street parking out front, do you put up signs saying that it is a no Bolt zone?
 

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Seems pretty clear GM is letting the lawyers run the show on the recall. They’ve now painted a situation where it is nearly impossible to own or operate a Bolt in a urban or suburban area. If there is a fire, then the liability is on you because you as the owner didn’t follow the recall instructions.
Instructions have to be reasonable. If they're unreasonable - like this 50' one - then they don't apply to liability.

-Crissa
 

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Instructions have to be reasonable. If they're unreasonable - like this 50' one - then they don't apply to liability.

-Crissa
I honestly hate that this is happening. It gives the anti-EV crowd valid ammunition for not wanting to ditch ICE vehicles completely. I want to laugh at GM's response, well ok, I'm laughing at their response.
 

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I honestly hate that this is happening. It gives the anti-EV crowd valid ammunition for not wanting to ditch ICE vehicles completely. I want to laugh at GM's response, well ok, I'm laughing at their response.
Compared to the number of ICE vehicles that catch on fire (I regularly see either the hull of a burned-out vehicle or the charring of some pavement after a burn along the highways and bi-ways I drive) I would really not consider the total number of EV fires to be a reason yet to avoid EVs. It is certainly a reason to do better research and avoid EVs that use pouch batteries or that do not have proper fire prevention engineering included (at the moment, Tesla is the best at this but does anyone have other recommended makers?).

I don't have solid statistics to cite but based on miles driven (OK, for the Bolt you don't need to be driving so perhaps compare by days of ownership) it seems like ICE vehicles still have a higher propensity to catch fire. Possibly even to cause death because of the fire (something about a gas tank exploding leading to death as opposed to just an engine fire).

Now, there might be a problem with the statistics comparison if you compare just compare with Bolt but I wonder about the dangers of a Bolt versus something like the Pinto.
 

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Instructions have to be reasonable. If they're unreasonable - like this 50' one - then they don't apply to liability.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. But I'm not a lawyer.

Maybe: Policy set by people deathly afraid of litigation but with a poor understanding of the law.

I honestly hate that this is happening. It gives the anti-EV crowd valid ammunition for not wanting to ditch ICE vehicles completely. I want to laugh at GM's response, well ok, I'm laughing at their response.
I think all of us are in the same boat on this.


Super frustrating, in a lot of ways really stupid, but really destructive to GM's rep and to some extent EVs in general.

Fortunately there are enough Teslas on the road at this point and Tesla fires are uncommon enough that it doesn't seem to be causing a more general issue. There are over a million EVs in the US from more than half a dozen manufacturers and so far this is a GM specific thing. Or at least it's only this common on the Bolt.
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