July 26, 2021—A week after the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration recommended Chevrolet Bolt owners park their vehicles away from their home due to fire risk, General Motors has issued a formal recall, Reuters reported.
GM issued the notice Friday, saying nearly 69,000 Bolts worldwide would be recalled. The largest U.S. automaker said "experts from GM and (battery maker) LG have identified the simultaneous presence of two rare manufacturing defects in the same battery cell as the root cause of battery fires in certain Chevrolet Bolt EVs."
“The question is whether GM has the technological capability to detect and identify defective batteries. If there is not, they may have to replace the total batteries, which will be costly, like Hyundai did,” South Korean battery expert and professor Park Chul-wan told the outlet.
