Right here’s the unique endeavor, posted on the Transport Canada web site:
Normal Motors will notify homeowners by mail and exchange faulty battery modules.
Right here’s the revised recall restore:
Normal Motors will notify homeowners by mail and advise you to take your car to a dealership to put in a complicated diagnostic software program that may monitor the high-voltage battery and warn you if it detects an issue. In the event you see this warning, you must contact a dealership to rearrange substitute of the affected high-voltage battery module.
For more information, go to the Chevrolet web site.
GM’s up to date car software program replace will allow the automotive to watch itself over the following 10,000 kilometres. If the batteries are deemed “wholesome,” your Bolt is free and clear below the recall. The software program will robotically restore full charging functionality with out necessitating a go to to a dealership. If not, the battery module (the pack that features all the person little batteries) should get replaced by GM.
It’s possible that solely a small share of the battery modules from these years poses a danger of fireplace. The diagnostic software program improve will keep away from the big waste concerned in changing good battery packs and scale back the demand for essential electrical car (EV) battery metals, that are in brief provide worldwide.
Can GM’s Bolt software program replace actually decide if the battery is protected?
The brand new software-based resolution is probably going an efficient repair. Typically talking, car producers have been extra delicate to fires of their EVs than in gasoline autos, as a result of they wish to guarantee a clean uptake of this new expertise. GM applied a lot better inside controls for figuring out and correcting security defects after a 2010 ignition key recall that was answerable for 124 or extra deaths. GM’s discipline reporting, recall compliance, engineering and finance departments had been all upgraded to search out and repair security defects extra proactively. And, in keeping with printed experiences, many of the monetary value of this recall is being coated by LG Chem—the battery maker. So, GM possible just isn’t the first beneficiary of the price financial savings.
When did GM drop the guarantee extension?
In June 2023, GM took the guarantee extension off the desk for Bolt homeowners receiving the software program repair. Because the proprietor of a 2020 Bolt, you’ll not obtain the extra guarantee protection supplied to the homeowners who obtained substitute battery packs, which was accompanied by a “reset” of the unique 8-year/160,000-kilometre guarantee. And you continue to gained’t have a ultimate reply concerning the well being of your car’s batteries, nor full charging functionality, for an additional 10,000 kilometres. For a low-mileage Bolt driver, that might quantity to a different 12 months of ready for a definitive final result.
Even when the unique batteries in your Bolt are growing old usually, degradation within the vary of three% to 4% yearly is taken into account regular. So, the batteries in your Bolt are possible a little bit degraded in comparison with a Bolt that acquired a brand new module.
Doing it your self just isn’t an answer
One complainant to the Car Safety Affiliation (APA) inquired about changing their Chevy Bolt batteries at their very own expense and claiming a reimbursement from GM. At $28,000 plus set up for a substitute battery module, this resolution doesn’t seem like practical. A greater choice can be to discover a supply that gives extra guarantee protection equal to what GM reneged on and ask the automaker to refund the price of buying it. Up to now, the APA just isn’t conscious of any mechanical insurance coverage supplier for autos that provides that kind of protection on a battery module.
What to do concerning the GM Bolt battery recall
There’s not a lot you are able to do concerning the revised Bolt recall, sadly. The APA not too long ago requested that Normal Motors do the next two issues:
- Provide to increase guarantee protection to eight years from the day of the recall restore no matter which resolution applies: Stage 1 software program replace or Stage 2 battery pack substitute. (That’s a no brainer.)
- Provide significant compensation to homeowners for the inconvenience and diminished driving vary which will finally final for 2 or extra years. This might embrace a no-charge subscription to an in-vehicle service. Nonetheless, some homeowners will contemplate the inconvenience of parking exterior over one or two winters is price greater than that.
For more information on this, go to apa.ca.
An analogous EV battery recall was dealt with higher
GM might take a web page from Hyundai Canada’s playbook. Hyundai devised a intelligent resolution for the same battery substitute recall for the Kona EV. It supplied homeowners $5 a day for day by day their Kona EV needed to be parked outside whereas ready for substitute batteries. Complaints to the APA evaporated after this system was introduced. Kona EV homeowners had been surprisingly not in a rush to be first in line for substitute battery packs! From the angle of many Kona homeowners, $150 a month was ok to cowl the inconvenience.