General Motors has finally resumed production of the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV after months of delay, The Detroit News reports.
The automaker had halted production of the vehicles at its Orion assembly plant in Michigan after issuing a recall last August of more than 141,000 Bolts due to battery fire risk. GM has confirmed 18 Bolt fires globally, which the automaker and its battery supplier, LG Chem, attributed to two manufacturing defects: a torn anobe tab and a folded separator. As a mea culpa, LG picked up the $2 billion tab for the cost of the recalls.
Supply chain issues caused the reopening of the plant to be repeatedly pushed back over the last seven months, stretching far beyond GM’s initial plan to reopen in September. In October, GM began sending out replacement battery modules to dealers, where owners with recalled Chevy Bolts could swap out old modules with new ones, something the automaker is still doing to mitigate the lack of supply until vehicles make it off the assembly line.
While the Chevy Bolt has been GM’s most popular EV brand, the automaker said last July it would invest $35 billion through 2025 in the development of EVs and automated technology. It’s pouring money into its Ultium platform, the underlying EV architecture and batteries for its next-gen EVs, including the Hummer EV, Chevrolet Silverado, Buick crossovers and the Cadillac Celestiq and Lyriq (GM just began production on the Lyriqs last month).
In addition, on Tuesday, GM said it would partner with Honda to make millions of affordable EVs on the Ultium platform.