GM WARNS SOME BOLT OWNERS TO PARK OUTDOORS DUE TO FIRE RISK

General Motors is telling owners of some older Chevrolet Bolts to park them outdoors and not to charge them overnight because two of the electric cars caught fire after recall repairs were made.

The company said that the request covers 2017 through 2019 Bolts that were part of a group that was recalled earlier due to fires in the batteries.

Owners should take the steps “out of an abundance of caution,” GM said. The steps should be continued until GM engineers investigate and develop a repair.

“We are moving as quickly as we can to investigate this issue,” GM said in a statement.

In April, GM announced that it had developed diagnostic software to look for anomalies in the batteries of 69,000 Bolts worldwide. If problems are found, the company will replace faulty parts of the battery.

Owners who haven’t had the recall repairs done should still take their cars to dealers to get the fixes.

In November, GM recalled the electric vehicles after getting reports of battery fires. At first the company didn’t know what was causing the problem, but it determined that batteries that caught fire were near a full charge. So as a temporary fix, owners and dealers were told to make software changes to limit charging to 90 percent of a battery’s capacity.

GM traced the fires to what it called a rare manufacturing defect in battery modules.

Engineers determined the fires took place in Bolts with battery cells made at an LG Chem factory in Ochang, South Korea, from May of 2016 to May of 2019. Some 2019 Bolts and all 2020 and 2021 versions have cells made at an LG Chem plant in Holland, Mich., and are not included in the recall.