General Motors is halting production of the Chevy Bolt EV electric vehicle after a number of battery fires prompted a recall that has already cost the company nearly $2 billion, according to news site The Verge.
The automaker will not resume making the 2022 Bolt and Bolt EUV until at least mid-September. It had initially stopped production last week because of the global chip shortage.
The recall repair process is also on hold, as GM is still waiting to get new battery modules from its supplier, South Korean conglomerate LG, that it is confident are free of defects. It comes as GM was getting ready to dramatically increase the number of EVs in its lineup, also powered by batteries from LG, which makes the cells that GM identified as the cause of the fires in the Bolt.
GM first recalled 2017–2019 Chevy Bolts in November 2020 after a handful of fires had been reported. But it was not until May 2021 that the company explained it would attempt to prevent future fires by installing new software on those older Bolts as well as on all new models being made. That fix, apparently, did not work as at least two more Bolts caught fire by July that had the new software. GM issued a second recall and also finally started to share that it believed certain defects in the cells were causing the fires.
Then, on August 20th, just days after a 2020 Bolt caught fire, GM issued a third recall for all Bolt EVs ever made, some 140,000, including the two new 2022 versions that launched this year.