GM will start making the Chevy Bolt again on November 1st 2021

GM will start making the Chevy Bolt again on November 1st

General Motors will begin making the Chevy Bolt again on November 1, after shutting down production at the end of August following the global return of the electric vehicle due to the risk of battery fire. Production will resume at the company's Orion assembly plant in Michigan for at least two weeks, as Reuters reports, although GM is not saying what will happen after that.

Just weeks after production resumed, GM announced that battery supplier LG had agreed to a $2 billion bill for the recall. And it comes at a time when global supply chain constraints have left much of the auto industry dealing with over-demanding customer demand – which is also driving more people to buy EVs than usual.

GM first issued a recall for the 2017 to 2019 model year Bolt in November 2020 after some reports of a battery fire. It announced a preventive measure for the problem in May 2021, which involved installing software that would monitor for early signs of fire in the battery pack. But by July, two more vehicles with the new software caught fire, forcing GM to recall those same bolts again. In August, GM recalled all model year Bolts — including two new versions coming to market this year — because it worked with LG to fix the underlying problem.

That problem had to do with the manufacturing process of the LG battery powering the Bolt, which made it possible for two separate defects in the cells to appear simultaneously. If and when those two faults are present, there is an increased risk of fire, especially for owners who repeatedly take the battery down to almost zero and back up all the way.

GM and LG began manufacturing fault-free battery modules earlier this month. Most of them are scheduled to replace modules in over 140,000 of the recalled Bolts, but Tuesday's announcement could be a sign that the automaker will be bringing the 2022 Bolt and Bolt EUVs back to dealers as well. Getting close to having enough battery to handle. very.