General Motors intends to launch 30 new electric cars around the globe by 2025 and to aim to be selling zero-emission vehicles by 2035. The United States' largest automaker has lost the opportunities it had in the rapidly growing field of electric cars over the past few years through bad politics and bad investments. Now, however, General Motors is recalling the Bolt, which is currently the only all-electric vehicle, due to around a dozen fires.
GM announced on Thursday that it will extend the Bolts production shut down until mid-October. It apparently couldn't get replacement batteries from LG, its supplier. It will also need a lot of them as GM has recalled nearly 150,000 Bolts. The company states that some vehicles only require certain modules to be replaced while others will need the entire battery pack swapped.
GM advised Bolt owners to park at least 50ft away from other vehicles. This is in addition to previous guidance that Bolt owners received. It advised them to park away from their homes and not charge their vehicles overnight.
GM's initial push for electric vehicles looks more like a false beginning
All this makes owning a Bolt stressful and confusing, despite the low likelihood of it catching fire. Some Bolt owners tried to get GM back their Bolts, but the company rejected some of these requests. Since the November 2020 recall, updates from GM have been inconsistent. The automaker took May 2021 to announce a first attempt at fixing the problem. It wasn't until July that GM finally acknowledged the problem.
Although this has been a complex recall, we have been working as fast as we can to give our customers information as we learn new developments along with our supplier, LG. Kevin Kelly, who heads Chevys PR team, informed The Verge via email. While we understand and sympathize with the frustrations that Bolt EV owners have felt over the last few months, we are committed to doing the right things for our customers. We know we must do the recall right.
He said that we are making progress and would work as fast as possible to inform owners of any new information.
The Bolt is a highly capable, affordable EV.
The Bolt was launched in 2016 and was meant to help GM achieve two things. It would place GM in the lead in mass-market, long range electric vehicles, matching Tesla, and it would also make it forget that GM once led this category briefly with the EV1. Before it gave up on its fledgling electric cars, it literally crushed all remaining units.
It worked for a time. Although the Bolt didn't go gangbusters, it was one of the most capable, affordable, and reliable electric cars available in the last half-decade.
GM made modest progress on the road but it began to work against progress in Washington. When Donald Trump was elected president, GM was the first to line up with its Detroit peers at the White House. They lobbied President Trump to relax Obama's clean car standards to make it easier to sell SUVs and pickup trucks that are more profitable, but more dangerous, just days after his inauguration.
Trump took that inch, and extended it a country mile. His administration made a shoddy, but spiteful attempt to reverse one of his predecessor's most important climate achievements over the next few decades.
GM spent money and time encouraging Trump's deregulatory tendencies.
Ford was one of those automakers that eventually woke up to the fact that there were legal objections to Trump's decision and reached a compromise agreement with California regulators. GM joined the Trump administration's defense and then resigned after Trump lost his reelection bid. The company claims it only supported Trump's administration because it believed that the federal government should be the sole authority to set national standards for fuel economy and emissions. However, California had a waiver to Clean Air Act which stated otherwise (which Trump tried to repeal).
While GM was putting its reputation at risk for the sake constitutional posturing, it began making similar questionable moves with its bankroll. It first partnered with Rivian, a feisty EV startup. GM demanded exclusive rights to the technology behind Rivians' electric pickup truck and SUV in return for a large investment. Rivian politely declined, and the company went on to raise over $10 billion from Amazon and Ford to fund an IPO. This could have seen its value rise to almost $100 billion.
GM sold a closed plant in Lordstown to Lordstown Motors, a new startup for electric pickup trucks. It was run by a man who had just left Workhorse, an unproven EV startup. GM also invested in Lordstown Motors, and was part of the special purpose acquisition company's investment portion. GM had even the right to nominate a board member in that deal. However, GM ultimately decided not to do so.
Rivian was the catalyst for GM's attention turning to two much more risky startups
GM made a deal shortly thereafter with Nikola, a hydrogen electric trucking startup. Nikola had a pickup truck program of its own. The deal fell apart quickly when Nikolas founder, and former CEO, was indicted for lying about some of Nikola's capabilities in the latter part of 2020. GM abruptly resigned. The Lordstown Motors founder was also subject to similar allegations this year and was ultimately expelled. GM holds a small share in Lordstown Motors.
GM is back in the good graces with the Biden administration. In a few years, electric Hummers and Silverados will be cruising the roads, powered by the next-generation battery pack. Few people will recall the company's involvement in two dubious startups or the failure to bring to market one of the most innovative electric vehicle companies of all time. These were the types of metaphorical fires that are easier to extinguish.
However, the problems with Bolt could be a lasting shadow because the flames are still real.
