General Motors (GM) has issued a warning for owners of Chevy’s Bolt EV after two incidents of fires involving the recalled vehicles were reported within the last few weeks. The issue looked bad enough to the company that issued some advice on its recall page. The company has said that owners must refrain from parking the vehicles inside and avoid charging them while unattended. The advice is for those who own Bolt EVs from 2017 to 2019. There are around 50,000 Bolt EVs from this period that have been recalled by General Motors. While one of the incidents was reported from outside the home of a Vermont state legislator, the other one took place in New Jersey.
The company said that the warning has been issued out of an abundance of caution. These vehicles were recalled after a battery defect that posed a possible risk of fire in Chevy’s Bolt EVs was detected. These vehicles have batteries produced by LG Chem. It was found that these batteries have the potential to smoke and catch fire if charged to their full or near full capacity. The car manufacturer decided to develop software that would cap the charging of these batteries at 90 per cent. General Motors said that it was one of the original fixes for the EVs and fully mitigates the risk.
A company spokesperson said that the company gives the highest priority to the safety of customers and is moving as quickly as possible to investigate the matter. The cause of concern here is that these vehicles are fitted with the same batteries that were at the center of exactly the same problem with the Hyundai Kona. Hyundai had to recall 25,564 vehicles after over a dozen incidents of fire were reported. As a precautionary measure, the company later replaced the batteries of 75,680 vehicles. Under the ongoing recall, General Motors not only checked and replaced battery module assemblies but also installed diagnostic software. But it seems that these things are not working as the two EVs that recently caught fire were serviced.