GM Recalling All Chevy Bolts

[richsi]

Hopefully this doesn't drop the resell value on the Mach-E. I traded in our Bolt for a Mach-E.. good choice unless LG carries over the same issues to the Mach-E.

I haven't heard if the Poland Plant has the same defective manufacturing issues as the South Korea plant. Also, I believe there is a Plant in the USA by LG, in the south somewhere can't' remember!

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[AZBill]

I haven't heard if the Poland Plant has the same defective manufacturing issues as the South Korea plant. Also, I believe there is a Plant in the USA by LG, in the south somewhere can't' remember!

Sorry, but the plant does not matter, LG processes are the issue:

Kona fires, LG pouch batteries made in China.
Bolt (2017-2019) LG pouch batteries made in Korea.
Bolt (2019-2022) LG pouch batteries made in US.
VW ID3 LG pouch batteries made in Poland. (only 1 reported fire, so far ...)

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the LG plant in Poland as a possible source for Ford batteries, including Mach E.

 

[richsi]

Sorry, but the plant does not matter, LG processes are the issue:

Kona fires, LG pouch batteries made in China.
Bolt (2017-2019) LG pouch batteries made in Korea.
Bolt (2019-2022) LG pouch batteries made in US.
VW ID3 LG pouch batteries made in Poland. (only 1 reported fire, so far ...)

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the LG plant in Poland as a possible source for Ford batteries, including Mach E.

Not sure why your sorry, I'm just looking for information and you certainly have provided that for sure, thank you. My big concern is will Ford delay any action like GM did on the Bolt before finally deciding to replace the batteries. Or worst yet wait until someone burns down their house or loss of life because of a known manufacturing defect in their processes from a company they are doing business with!!!!

 

[woody]

Remember, you are currently unable to charge your MME to 100%. (Chevy says limit Bolt to 90% as well for now)
Unclear why Ford implemented this restriction, but I would bet it is based on knowledge they are not sharing.
Fairly certain it is bet hedging.
May turn out to be a good bet for us.

 

[richsi]

Remember, you are currently unable to charge your MME to 100%. (Chevy says limit Bolt to 90% as well for now)
Unclear why Ford implemented this restriction, but I would bet it is based on knowledge they are not sharing.
Fairly certain it is bet hedging.
May turn out to be a good bet for us.

That reserve was for battery degradation due to keeping your battery at 100% for long periods of time but I do see your point, I hope your not right! I would be disappointed if FORD hurried to put vehicle on the market that was a potential hazard and they knew about it.

 

[woody]

That reserve was for battery degradation due to keeping your battery at 100% for long periods of time but I do see your point, I hope your not right! I would be disappointed if FORD hurried to put vehicle on the market that was a potential hazard and they knew about it.

I thought (rechargeable) batteries will degrade over time. I charge, as often as possible, at level 1 (110), directly form my solar panels, with that in mind (two EVs to alternate when possible).
Since the consumer has the option of setting the charge percent, it might be wise to let the owner decide what he wishes. Some folks have different miles to commute, etc.
And are we not hoping for solid state sometime soon?(I think that is the case with at least Toyota, etc.)
I can understand a small buffer, but I just think 10% is a bit much. I have not seen this in other EVs. I just wondered why, thinking there must be more to it.
The unfortunate thing about it all is that some automobile manufacturers have produced vehicles for years with dangerous defects (eg exploding gasoline tanks).
I agree with you and would be disappointed as well.

 

[AZBill]

I simply hope that Ford will discuss quality assurance issues with LG, based on what has happened with other vehicles. Maybe LG has figured this out and solved the issue, but the fact the GM just stopped selling the 22 Bolt and 22 EUV, that is really concerning.

When Hyundai announced they had found a folded anode issue, LG claimed that it was not the cause. Well now GM has uncovered folded separators and torn anodes. LG obviously has manufacturing issues, or a marginal design in their cells. By marginal, I mean something that is too difficult to manufacture properly.

Both Hyundai and GM tried to implement additional monitoring in software to catch the defects early, and that did not work, both of these cars had fires after the new monitoring software was installed.

 

[theo1000]

To be honest I think this whole thing is a storm in a teacup. About 12 bolt fires have been reported. If you take 60,000 ICE vehicles about 50 of them will catch fire at as some point. Just this year Hyundai recalled over a million ICE vehicles for defects that caused over 3000 fires!! no 3-ring circus there....

Yes a defect has been detected, but said defect only caused 12 +- fires. I actually find it reassuring that even with such a defect only 12 cars caught fire! speaks to defense in depth engineering.

 

[AZBill]

To be honest I think this whole thing is a storm in a teacup. About 12 bolt fires have been reported. If you take 60,000 ICE vehicles about 50 of them will catch fire at as some point. Just this year Hyundai recalled over a million ICE vehicles for defects that caused over 3000 fires!! no 3-ring circus there....

Yes a defect has been detected, but said defect only caused 12 +- fires. I actually find it reassuring that even with such a defect only 12 cars caught fire! speaks to defense in depth engineering.

Since I have a Bolt I me on those forums also. The number have Bolt fires is now more than 15 and most have been 2019 models, to date. Currently the rate for 2019 models catching fire is 10X the rate for ICE vehicle fires. So statistically it is bad.

Secondly, how many of the ICE vehicle fires occur while the car has been off and parked in a garage overnight? How many take out an entire house due to the fires?

I witnessed one vehicle fire, it was an F-150 driving right in front of me on a freeway. It was really bad, but the driver got out and all of the other cars, including mine, were able to get off the road out of the way.

 

[MachEnation]

Absolutely unacceptable. If a manufacturer's product is catching fire, it should be all-hands-on-deck to solve it. No questions asked. While I also fault GM, the bigger culprit is LG who clearly hasn't changed its QC and should be roasted for its destructive incompetence.

 

[JRT]

Interesting read, I have not liked LG products for years now. Here's hope ford has some reserve and great safety factor built in.

 

[ZuleMME]

This is what I keep saying. Li-ion batteries are excellent for EV's but they are scary as heck in term of potential energy that's just sitting and waiting for a manufacturing glitch to collide with an environmental factor and a roll of the dice to detonate. Doesn't matter what safety factor they build in if it shorts it's gonna take them all with it in a fireball of doom. Makes me scared to accept my MME in a couple days. But at the same time, the numbers look friendly. So far.

 

[dliunatic]

I wonder if ruptured battery modules run the same risk or not.

What problem? There has been no reported problems with Mach-E batteries?

Note that Bolt issues started happening over last summer. Thus Ford has known about "this problem" for about a year now--not that GM knew why it was happening (and thus Ford/LG would know why it was happening). Still Ford probably had many conversations with LG about this with respect to the Mach-E in that time.

Ford definitely has not formally mentioned anything about battery problems, but there seem to be quite a few folks experiencing issues/ruptures (thankfully no fires though).

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/mme-high-voltage-battery-issues.7602/

When asking Ford Support for whether there was some way to get the root cause behind why my battery module had ruptured, they didn't seem to have any good answers and claimed to not have any way of getting in touch with engineering. They just punted it to the dealership and said the dealership would have to raise an investigation of they see a lot of these cases. Sounds a little suspect but ?

 

[TTT]

Glad I traded in my Bolt when I got my MME ?‍

You say that but, I'm expecting my repurchase letter from GM in the next few days. A rep read the final offer to me over the phone Friday. My bolt has over 85k miles but because of the consumer protection laws in CA I will be selling it back to GM for over $38k. That covers most of the cost for my MMe after the rebates kick in. Note that the math will be different for every California owner, but the amount you get is not discretionary or negotiable, it is dictated by rules and formulas defined by state law. The amount my repurchase cannot vary by even a penny - it just is what it is.

GM also offers a pretty sweet deal where apparently you can do even better by applying that amount toward the trade of a new GM vehicle (albeit it won't be a Bolt or EUV at this point) because they may be offering to pay off the sales tax, title and registration fees etc. on top of that w=so if you wanted to trade your Bolt for the other kind of Blazer you could do some kind of deal there too. I'm not as clear on the details here though as I have been on the repurchase route.

The process has not be particularly fast or fun, but having GM repurchase the vehicle is working out a lot better overall than trading it in. I'll also give GM credit for making it reasonably easy to get this done - even if it wasn't fun or fast. I hope they get their pound of flesh from LG. The Bolt was a good car until it wasn't.

 

[ChasingCoral]

The Kona fires were happening at the same time as the Bolt, and in even greater numbers initially.

FYI, a VW ID3 just burned up in Europe, with LG batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/527874/volkswagen-id3-netherlands-fire-charging/

Not sure why you are blaming GM, it is LG

Because. here and on all the news stories it has been "GM Recalls all Bolts Made".

they have had fires in the following:

- Kona
- Bolt
- Battery storage home system
- Recently VW ID3

Remember Tata airbags? How many different cars got recalled because of those?

Unlike the Tata airbag situation, I'm not hearing the name LG in the news stories.

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