Heading
XingXing Auto’s Media Under the Banner, Focus on the Evolution of the Car Travel Industry Chain
Author: Zheng Wen
In 2006, director Chris Paine made a documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” about General Motors’ first electric car EV1, from birth to the mysterious downfall due to touching the interests of oil giants.
The fact also proves that no one can stop the pace of history, and electric cars have not been eliminated. After many years of wandering, the car industry still chooses electric drive, which is the most efficient way of driving.
However, this time electric cars encountered some different problems… Ironically, the protagonist is still General Motors.
Last Friday, due to the risk of fire caused by battery manufacturing defects, General Motors expanded the recall of Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles, investing 1 billion US dollars to recall 73,000 new cars including Bolt EUV, launched from 2019 to 2022 in the United States and Canada.
This is not the first time the Detroit giant has recalled vehicles. The last recall involved about 69,000 cars worldwide from 2017 to 2019, of which 51,000 were in the US market. With the additional losses of 1 billion US dollars this time, General Motors has lost 1.8 billion US dollars due to the battery module defect recall.
Prior to this, General Motors found that there may be two manufacturing defects in the vehicle battery, anode damage and separator folding, which will increase the risk of fire if they exist in the same battery unit.
After expanding the recall scope this time, all 142,000 new Chevrolet Bolt EVs sold will be recalled. You have to admit that this does cast a shadow over General Motors’ first mainstream electric car. At the same time, General Motors’ strategic plan to “transform into an electric car manufacturer by 2035” is also under the shadow.
General Motors said that it is seeking compensation from battery supplier LG Chem. In addition, it is coordinating with LG to correct the defects of the battery module and increase the production of new modules.
“As leaders in electrification transformation, we know that building and maintaining trust is critical. General Motors’ customers can trust us without reservation for the commitments we make to vehicle safety,” said Doug Parks, executive vice president of product, procurement, and supply chain at General Motors, in a press release. This explains to some extent why General Motors has expanded the recall scope.In the previous round of vehicle recalls, there were at least 9 confirmed cases of fires. In this round of recalls, one case was a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV that caught fire on July 1, 2021, as announced by the Vermont State Police. The owner of the car was Timothy Briglin, a Congressman from Vermont and a Democrat who has been involved in various legislative activities related to the electric vehicle industry.
It is well-known that automakers are spending billions of dollars transitioning to cleaner and more environmentally-friendly electric vehicles. However, this new technology has brought many more expensive side effects, such as spontaneous combustion, recalls, sudden power failures, and startup problems. This is a real problem as the Biden administration pushes for “50% of all new cars sold to be electric vehicles by 2030”.
Although expensive recalls have occurred in traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, many current electric vehicle fault points are in software and batteries. This is not the core expertise of Detroit’s powerhouses. For traditional car companies, battery technology is very challenging, and Tesla faces similar problems.
“Whenever you enter a new field of technology, there is always more to learn than what you already know,” said Doug Betts, President of J.D.Power’s automotive department, to CNBC.
These issues have already appeared in corporate financial reports. Last year, General Motors, Hyundai, and Ford, three highly anticipated recalls involving about 132,500 electric vehicles, cost a total of $2.2 billion.
Recalls are very common in the automotive industry, and they are even more prevalent after applying many new technologies to cars. “When you transition from traditional energy to electrification, you will encounter a series of new problems that you have to face, and then we have to figure out how to deal with them,” said Sam Abuelsamid, Chief Analyst of Guidehouse Insights.
J.D.Power’s research has some classic cases. Recently, recall events caused by software and battery issues include:
・General Motors recalled a car due to an increase in fire hazards caused by battery manufacturing defects.
・Previously, Porsche recalled its flagship electric car Taycan due to a software issue that caused the vehicle to lose power completely while driving.- In April this year, Ford said that a small number of early-arriving Mustang Mach-Es had software issues that caused their 12-volt batteries to fail to charge. In addition, Ford recalled 20,500 plug-in Kugas in Europe last year and suspended sales over concerns that the battery pack could overheat and cause fires, with a recall cost of $400 million.
-
Hyundai said earlier this year that it would spend $900 million on recalling Kona EVs that had experienced 15 fires.
-
BMW, Volvo and other companies have also recalled new energy vehicles due to battery system problems.
Betts, who has previously worked for Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, and Apple, said he believes that traditional automakers will find the root of the problem as more electric vehicles are launched. It’s just a matter of time.
“I won’t say whether traditional OEMs have more or fewer problems than Tesla,” he said. “But obviously, traditional automakers have more relevant experience now.”
While Tesla has avoided mass recalls of electric vehicles due to battery problems, lawsuits and investigations by federal officials in the United States and Norway could cause trouble for the automaker.
Since October 2019, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating Tesla’s high-voltage batteries. The investigation began after the NHTSA received a petition alleging that Tesla had released one or more software updates to control and conceal a potential defect that could cause non-collision fires in affected battery packs.
California lawyer Edward Chen, who submitted the petition, also filed a class-action lawsuit against Tesla in August 2019 for its problems. While Tesla recently agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the lawsuit, the NHTSA investigation remains unresolved. After the settlement, Musk admitted on Twitter that “we were wrong about this issue.”
In another class-action lawsuit in California, Tesla was accused of deliberately exaggerating the capacity of the high-voltage batteries in its vehicles and using remote battery health checks and software updates to cover up battery degradation and refusing to replace the batteries for owners within the warranty period.
According to the complaint, the main plaintiff’s Model S lost more than half of its mileage in just six years, dropping from about 265 miles to about 144 miles.According to Nettavisen, a Norwegian newspaper, a lawsuit in the US similar to Norway’s involves more than 30 Tesla owners who claimed that a software update in 2019 shortened their car’s range and increased charging time. The court’s preliminary stance is in favor of the owners, and Tesla might have to pay up to $16,000 per customer affected, totaling approximately $163 million in compensation.
In April of this year, Musk said during a earnings call that they faced more challenges than expected in the development of the new Model S/X, including the Model S Plaid, and that a significant amount of effort went into ensuring the safety of their batteries. The new Model X has yet to be delivered, and many Model S orders have been delayed this year.
Although currently, electric vehicle sales amount to only 2% to 3% of new vehicle sales in the US, automakers and battery suppliers must be extremely cautious when producing electric cars or batteries.
Abuelsamid pointed out that “production management must be strengthened, which is an important part in dealing with battery issues. They don’t like high temperatures, nor impurities, and are extremely sensitive.” Even sparks produced during welding or other production issues in the manufacturing process could lead to serious problems with the battery.
Experts are still trying to determine the rate of electric vehicle fires, and data collection on this issue is difficult. However, according to a report that presented a small sample case, London Fire Brigade records in 2019 showed that the fire rate for traditional gasoline and diesel cars was 0.04%, while that for plug-in hybrids exceeded twice that figure, reaching 0.1%.
(This article is a compilation of relevant reports from CNBC.)
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.