Bolt Recall

[peakbagger]

So, Chevy is recalling all the Bolts ever made for battery fire issues. The claim by the battery manufacturer is that its two potential defects that when the battery is fully charged can cause a fire. The short term fix is park them outdoors and limit charges until they can replace the battery pack. The Bolts use pouch type batteries compared to the cylindrical cell type batteries used in Tesla's.

It mostly comes down to money, and range. In order to get electrics into the market, the price needs to come down and the range goes up. Batteries are more stressed at full charge. Getting range up means stuffing more charge in smaller batteries that preferably are cheaper to make.

 

[begreen]

LG has had this issue in other cars too. An ID3 just self-ignited in the Netherlands. Part of the issues is battery construction and design and then there have also been quality control issues. Chevrolet already did a software update to limit max charge, but not everyone has gone it for this. I don't think the older Bolts can do an OTA update, but not sure.

 

[DBoon]

Bolt owner here - it has not been explained what the technical issue really is. The first recall was to limit charging to 90% of full charge until the a software battery monitoring fix was installed at the dealer. But after that was done, two Bolts still caught fire, so the software monitoring fix was deemed incapable of predicting a catastrophic failure, which led to the second recall whereby all battery cells will be replaced (but not the entire battery pack, to the best of my understanding) with a newer cell (but not the Ultium cell).

Realistically, I can't abide by the latest recommendations. I bought a car with a given range, and I need that range, especially in the winter, during a 190 mile trip through the Catskills with zero DCFC capabilities (though if Tesla opens their network this will solve a lot of problems). The I-81 corridor is also quite DCFC deficient, and I make many trips on that from Central NY to Virginia. For now, if I go past 90% charging it is only immediately before I start to discharge the car on a long trip. I can't leave my car outside in the winter in Central NY. I also can't charge only during the day when I am around my car.

Having said that, I still like the car, and I do have a belief that the risk of fire is very, very low. I suspect that those who have had fires are routinely charging their vehicles to 100% charge level, something I rarely do. As best I know, the number of fires is in the low single digits for 100,000+ cars sold.

 

[begreen]

I think the concern is how many failures may occur in the future due to the continual formation of dendrites that may short out adjacent cells.

 

[peakbagger]

Bolt owner here - it has not been explained what the technical issue really is. The first recall was to limit charging to 90% of full charge until the a software battery monitoring fix was installed at the dealer. But after that was done, two Bolts still caught fire, so the software monitoring fix was deemed incapable of predicting a catastrophic failure, which led to the second recall whereby all battery cells will be replaced (but not the entire battery pack, to the best of my understanding) with a newer cell (but not the Ultium cell).

Realistically, I can't abide by the latest recommendations. I bought a car with a given range, and I need that range, especially in the winter, during a 190 mile trip through the Catskills with zero DCFC capabilities (though if Tesla opens their network this will solve a lot of problems). The I-81 corridor is also quite DCFC deficient, and I make many trips on that from Central NY to Virginia. For now, if I go past 90% charging it is only immediately before I start to discharge the car on a long trip. I can't leave my car outside in the winter in Central NY. I also can't charge only during the day when I am around my car.

Having said that, I still like the car, and I do have a belief that the risk of fire is very, very low. I suspect that those who have had fires are routinely charging their vehicles to 100% charge level, something I rarely do. As best I know, the number of fires is in the low single digits for 100,000+ cars sold.

My guess is the cost and potential reliability issues introduced by tearing a battery pack down to change cells would introduce more risk than just swapping them out. In theory, GM could set up a plant to do the work to rebuild them to reduce potential defects. Given the low incidence of the problems my guess is rebuilt packs have a higher chance of defects.

I also expect lawyers already are ramping up for class action lawsuit if the range ends up being lowered. State Lemon laws may also kick in.

 

[iron]

After recall #3 (which was to stop selling all new Bolts and replace all batteries in all years models), GM has been pretty silent on the topic. As a Bolt owner (bought used earlier this year just before all the recalls), it sure would be nice to have weekly updates, even if there is no solution. I know the Bolt forums are mighty pissed and it's signaling the end of adoption of this vehicle and company. Otherwise, we love the car so far.