A Chevy Bolt is being charge.
Courtesy of GM
After a recall with a $1.8 billion price tag, General Motors and battery partner LG Chem are ready to fix the all-electric Chevy Bolt.
General Motors (ticker: GM) announced Monday that two LG Chem plants have resumed production of Bolt batteries and that replacement batteries will be shipped to dealers as soon as mid-October. The new batteries have an extended battery 8-year/100,000-mile limited warranty.
GM has recalled roughly 140,000 Bolts since late last year because of the risk of battery fires. The auto maker GM blamed the recall on a rare manufacturing defect.
“Resuming battery module production is a first step and we’ll continue to work aggressively with LG to obtain additional battery supply,” Doug Parks, GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, said in the announcement.
Parks also touted improvements to battery management software, which should improve performance.
Until the fixes are made, GM is still recommending that owners limit a Bolt charge to 90% full, avoid running the battery down to less than 70 miles of range, and park their cars outside to avoid catching any structures on fire.
The recall has taken some of the starch out of GM stock. Shares are down about 16% since Aug. 4, when the company disclosed more details of the recall cost. The S&P 500 is down about 3% over the same span.
GM stock was down about 5% Monday. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were off 2.6% and 2.7%, respectively. Fears of a credit crisis fomented by Chinese real estate developer China Evergrande (3333. Hong Kong) had investors nervous to start a new week.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
