Recently, experts from General Motors and LG Chem stated that due to battery manufacturing issues, there is a potential fire hazard for the BOLT EV model. As a result, General Motors (GM) announced a recall of 69,000 BOLT EVs released between 2017 and 2019, with 51,000 in the United States.
General Motors recommends the following actions for owners of affected vehicles who have not been recalled:
- Limit the vehicle’s maximum charging capacity to less than 90%;
- Avoid depleting the battery’s charge each time and try to ensure a range of at least 70 miles;
- Park the vehicle outdoors and avoid leaving it charging overnight.
According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation, the recalled Bolt EVs are prone to smoke and ignite under unsupervised conditions due to the battery pack located under the rear seat.
Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk replied to related news on Twitter, stating that “large-format batteries will significantly change in volume under high-pressure charging. However, the fire risk of electric vehicles is far lower than that of gasoline vehicles, with 200,000 engine fires in the United States every year.”
Clearly, everyone is quite sensitive to the issue of electric cars catching fire. As the leader of the electric vehicle industry, Tesla’s CEO ‘debates’ gasoline vehicles. However, Tesla’s 2020 vehicle safety report shows that there is only one fire for every 205 million miles driven, compared to the National Fire Protection Association and the US Department of Transportation’s data that states that one fire occurs every 19 million miles traveled for internal combustion vehicles.
From the numerical data, the probability of electric vehicles (or just Tesla cars) catching fire is much lower than that of internal combustion vehicles. Therefore, the average electric vehicle user may not need to worry too much about self-ignition issues.But based on the number of recalled Chevrolet vehicles this time, a considerable number of car owners are worried about the battery issues in their own cars, after all, no one wants their daily driven vehicle to bring risks to their own safety.
GM’s handling of the matter was timely, but what we need to pay attention to is GM’s attitude towards the owners of the recalled vehicles and how to solve such safety hazards from the root cause afterwards!
🔗 Source: teslarati
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.