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Bolt Recall not Expected to Delay HummerEV, and Lyriq launch

2130 Views 29 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Tom E-Tron, Sep 14, 2021

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · Aug 22, 2021

This article has good detail into the working between LG and GM, and I am now under the impression they are cooperating to work their way through the issues with the Bolt, and will as expected add additional inspection on the batteries made for the HummerEV, and Lyriq.

Great news for us!

www.detroitnews.com

GM expands Bolt recall, ups total cost to $1.8 billion

The automaker confirmed Friday it found the defects in current Bolt EVs and the new Bolt EUV after further investigation.

www.detroitnews.com

Reactions: 2

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INgolfer

· #2 · Aug 22, 2021

This is great news!

Reactions: 1

azbill

· #3 · Aug 22, 2021

Unfortunately the Bolt production line will have to be shut down and many people will now be out of work. They really have no choice, since the cars cannot be sold anyway. I guess the chip shortage is well timed in this case.

Maybe those people could move over to the Hummer plant and get things ramped up faster, lol.

Reactions: 2

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #4 · Aug 22, 2021

azbill said:
Unfortunately the Bolt production line will have to be shut down and many people will now be out of work. They really have no choice, since the cars cannot be sold anyway. I guess the chip shortage is well timed in this case.

Maybe those people could move over to the Hummer plant and get things ramped up faster, lol.

Some of those Orion workers will likely be refitting some of the cars on site (there are 1-2K new builds outside the plant as of yesterday), and some of the workers will be transferred to other plants that need help, like Flint that has been trying to hire an additional 400 without success (Pot tests being blamed) Factory Zero is also bringing in a couple hundred this month, so while its not optimal for the workers, GM will make adjustments where they can.

I expect Bolt production to be down at least a month, possibly more, as GM is still working with LG to figure things out. Likely new more robustly inspected packs will not begin arriving for a week or more. I am sure QC folks from GM and LG are in the Holland factory as I write this working through the QC and production issues. If they know what the defects are it should be easy to implement inspection to root out these problems. Likely LG's cell reject rate will rise in the short term as they figure out the why this has been happening in their production system. I wonder what the rate of defective cells is 1 in 1000? 1 in 10K? 1 in 100K?

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azbill

· #5 · Aug 23, 2021

Tom E-Tron said:
I expect Bolt production to be down at least a month, possibly more, as GM is still working with LG to figure things out.

I am hoping they cease production for at least the rest of this year. They are going to need replacement batteries for a minimum of 70K cars and possibly 140K cars.

Reactions: 1

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #6 · Aug 23, 2021

azbill said:
I am hoping they cease production for at least the rest of this year. They are going to need replacement batteries for a minimum of 70K cars and possibly 140K cars.

Ya, that is certainly a possibility, I think this 140K car recall is going to take a couple years to cycle through, It's hard to say how GM, and LG will pull this off. I think GM will want to keep the supply chain running and the sales chain supplied with Bolts. Shutting down the entire Bolt supply chain (for a long factory stoppage), would have too many unintended consequences, lower tier suppliers would be financially devastated. We will have to wait and see how they proceed...

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #7 · Aug 27, 2021

azbill said:
I am hoping they cease production for at least the rest of this year. They are going to need replacement batteries for a minimum of 70K cars and possibly 140K cars.

Bolt production is planned to re-start on the week of September 13th per Detroit News

Reactions: 1

azbill

· #8 · Aug 27, 2021

Tom E-Tron said:
Bolt production is planned to re-start on the week of September 13th per Detroit News

Someone on the Bolt forums claimed that their new EUV was being built, and were told by GM that all batteries after August 1, were good. I am not sure if that is believable or not. They have to either fix the machines that fold and tear the anode/separator, or they have to institute additional inspections and checks. Currently they do use cameras, but apparently that has not worked well. I think they would need to "slow down" production to make it more reliable.

At any rate here are some numbers to ponder:

LG claims the Holland plant capacity is 5 GWH/year.
Current Bolt production requires 3.6 GWH /year.
Replacing 70K Bolt batteries requires 4.6 GWH.
Replacing 140K Bolt batteries requires 9.2 GWH.
Holland plant is also building initial Ultium batteries, unknown GWH at this point.
Can LG ramp up Korea and China to build excess Bolt batteries?

Long ago, when I was a kid, "Mission Impossible" was one of my favorite TV shows.

Reactions: 1

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #9 · Aug 27, 2021

azbill said:
Someone on the Bolt forums claimed that their new EUV was being built, and were told by GM that all batteries after August 1, were good. I am not sure if that is believable or not. They have to either fix the machines that fold and tear the anode/separator, or they have to institute additional inspections and checks. Currently they do use cameras, but apparently that has not worked well. I think they would need to "slow down" production to make it more reliable.

At any rate here are some numbers to ponder:

LG claims the Holland plant capacity is 5 GWH/year.
Current Bolt production requires 3.6 GWH /year.
Replacing 70K Bolt batteries requires 4.6 GWH.
Replacing 140K Bolt batteries requires 9.2 GWH.
Holland plant is also building initial Ultium batteries, unknown GWH at this point.
Can LG ramp up Korea and China to build excess Bolt batteries?

Long ago, when I was a kid, "Mission Impossible" was one of my favorite TV shows.

I think you will see GM direct half the production to new builds and half to recall or something like that (its too expensive to shut down Bolt Production long term), they also may begin bringing them in from Korea, China, or Poland. Ultium is a different chemistry, and process, and cell, so that production equipment is not interchangeable.

I think I would assume first that LG and GM have a plan, and just wait for announcements directly from them as to guidance. Anything else is purely speculation.

Reactions: 1

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #10 · Aug 30, 2021

azbill said:
Someone on the Bolt forums claimed that their new EUV was being built, and were told by GM that all batteries after August 1, were good. I am not sure if that is believable or not. They have to either fix the machines that fold and tear the anode/separator, or they have to institute additional inspections and checks. Currently they do use cameras, but apparently that has not worked well. I think they would need to "slow down" production to make it more reliable.

At any rate here are some numbers to ponder:

LG claims the Holland plant capacity is 5 GWH/year.
Current Bolt production requires 3.6 GWH /year.
Replacing 70K Bolt batteries requires 4.6 GWH.
Replacing 140K Bolt batteries requires 9.2 GWH.
Holland plant is also building initial Ultium batteries, unknown GWH at this point.
Can LG ramp up Korea and China to build excess Bolt batteries?

Long ago, when I was a kid, "Mission Impossible" was one of my favorite TV shows.

This article throws the accuracy of the August 1st date into doubt. I think Bolt owners are going to be waiting a while..

www.freep.com

GM 'not confident' LG Chem will build defect-free Bolt batteries

But GM is working around the clock with battery-maker LG Chem to find the cause of battery defects that pose a fire risk in the Chevrolet Bolt EVs.

www.freep.com

Reactions: 1

INgolfer

· #11 · Aug 30, 2021

Man that’s a bummer for Bolt owners and the employees of that plant. I hope they get it figured out quick so they can get those people back to work.

Reactions: 1

BigJonEV

· #12 · Aug 30, 2021

Tom E-Tron said:
This article throws the accuracy of the August 1st date into doubt. I think Bolt owners are going to be waiting a while..

GM 'not confident' LG Chem will build defect-free Bolt batteries

But GM is working around the clock with battery-maker LG Chem to find the cause of battery defects that pose a fire risk in the Chevrolet Bolt EVs.

www.freep.com

Well that is definitely an iffy headline. Going through the article it seems as both parties are cooperating and doing everything they can to figure this out.

Reactions: 1

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #13 · Aug 30, 2021

BigJonEV said:
Well that is definitely an iffy headline. Going through the article it seems as both parties are cooperating and doing everything they can to figure this out.

Ya, I have understood LG started off very arrogant, but have since been cooperating and working hard to solve the issues. This is scary news for the Hummer Launch, as if the problem is production related and not simply inspection, it could cause significant problems. Cylindrical cells might start looking better at some point?

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #14 · Aug 30, 2021

INgolfer said:
Man that’s a bummer for Bolt owners and the employees of that plant. I hope they get it figured out quick so they can get those people back to work.

this situation is bad for EV's in general...

azbill

· #15 · Aug 31, 2021

The 1000 employees at Orion are laid off. And another 2017 Bolt just went up in flames, this time while at a low state of charge and not having been charged recently, It took out two other cars as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoltEV/comments/pesn3h

Reactions: 1

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #16 · Aug 31, 2021

azbill said:
The 1000 employees at Orion are laid off. And another 2017 Bolt just went up in flames, this time while at a low state of charge and not having been charged recently, It took out two other cars as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoltEV/comments/pesn3h

Wow, more bad news

Shaved Ice

· #17 · Aug 31, 2021 (Edited)

The photos look like a car bomb went off. GM’s narrative is going to have to change…again. I love so many things about the Hummer, but I am questioning parking something in/around my house that has ANY possibility of exploding this forcefully. I am literally an explosives expert, and this is concerning.

Reactions: 2

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #18 · Aug 31, 2021

Shaved Ice said:
The photos look like a car bomb went off. GM’s narrative is going to have to change…again. I love so many things about the Hummer, but I am questioning parking something in/around my house that has ANY possibility of exploding this forcefully. I am literally an explosives expert, and this is concerning.

As an explosives expert what evidence do you see there of an explosion? I am not seeing any evidence of an overpressure event. Car structure and roof are deformed in (melted), not out, and the doors, hood, and hatch are aluminum, so they melted, do not seem to have been blown off.

azbill

· #19 · Aug 31, 2021

Tom E-Tron said:
As an explosives expert what evidence do you see there of an explosion? I am not seeing any evidence of an overpressure event. Car structure and roof are deformed in (melted), not out, and the doors, hood, and hatch are aluminum, so they melted, do not seem to have been blown off.

It was not an explosion, the fire happened overnight, that is simply an exaggeration in the headlines.

Reactions: 1

Tom E-Tron

Discussion Starter · #20 · Aug 31, 2021

azbill said:
It was not an explosion, the fire happened overnight, that is simply an exaggeration in the headlines.

That was what I thought, but I wanted to ask @Shaved Ice as he is perhaps seeing something I am not. So far I have only seen or read about one EV battery fire that was a definite overpressure event, it was a Kona EV, in Canada a couple years ago and blew the garage door clear across the street.

Ether way, this is another piece of bad news, as this Bolt battery was not at a high state of charge. Has this been confirmed as a battery fire?

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