GM Expands Recall of Chevrolet Bolt

Recently, General Motors was forced to recall over 142,000 Chevrolet Bolt vehicles due to the potential of battery-related fires. Unfortunately for General Motors, this recall will include virtually every Chevrolet Bolt sold thus far.

Previously, General Motors requested that owners limit the charging, but then went ahead with the recall announcement.  Among all the EV vehicles recently recalled by General Motors, this comes at a cost of nearly two billion dollars.

With the current administration pushing for 50 percent or more of all vehicles being electric by 2030, General Motors has a new lineup of electric vehicles or EVs set to be released. The new EVs soon to be released by General Motors is the electric Hummer pick-up and electric Cadillac Lyriq. This new lineup will use different battery technology than that currently used in the Chevrolet Bolt.

It appears that Hyundai has suffered a similar problem as General Motors, recalling some 90,000 EV models this year due to the increased risk of fire while driving or charging. Both Hyundai and GM purchased the batteries from LG Chem, a South Korean manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries.

To put some perspective on the situation, there were 212,000 gas and diesel vehicle fires in the United States in 2018, or about .07 percent of all U.S. vehicles. Clearly, there are safety improvements that need to be addressed, but currently, the number of EVs that have caught fire is very small.

If you or someone you know has suffered injuries or the loss of a family member due to an electric vehicle fire-related incident, contact an attorney at Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz, & Stogner by calling 713-396-3964 or toll-free at 1-800-594-4884.