https://cherokeecountyfire.org/ This is like playing Russian roulette with our Bolt. Who is going to be the next unlucky one? In the meantime GM and NHTSA are not concerned and twiddling their thumbs doing nothing waiting for a fatality before springing into action.
Well, they do have a recall out on all Bolts. And the recommendation is not to park in the garage just after charging. Though they are a bit vague on that. We're parking outside all the time. What else can they do while GM and LG try to come up with a solution? It's going to be awhile.
I am now charging outside, for various reasons including the risk of fire, and using my Tesla portable charger at 120 volts. This slow charging decreases the rate of charge and should keep the heat down I think. I am keeping my fingers crossed on the fires, but I firmly believe that odds of a fire for any one of us is many thousand times less than something going wrong when having a procedure done in a hospital! Its a crying shame to see tha picture of that poor little Bolt EV burning in Georgia. Makes me sad. I see that guy has solar panels on his house, and has probably been really proud of his Bolt EV. We should commiserate with him.
I tried to dig deeper into Bolt fires and find out how bad it is. I found this IIHS report from December 2018 (I couldn't find a newer report, but it should be available). https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539e05/uIu4tg/HLDI%20Research/Fire%20losses/HLDI_FireLosses_1218.pdf Based on this report, excluding fires due to crash and vandalism, there has been one fire claim for every 7,002 Model 2016 to 2018 cars by the end of 2018. The 21 fires in 140k Bolts is about one fire per 6,666 cars, so about average. Interestingly they report 10 Tesla Model X and 10 Model S fires out of 37500 Model X and 43000 Model S cars (Model years 2016 to 2018). This is easily more than 2 times the Bolt fire rates. Unless I am missing something I think the Bolt fire risk is not much higher than other ICE cars and probably significantly less than Tesla Model S/X.
Tesla fires mostly seem to happen after crashes, while Bolt fires happen sitting still. That's a significant difference.
The IIHS report I referenced above is is for Non-crash fire claims. They exclude claims due to crash and vandalism. They say it clearly on the coversheet.
I agree with all theses posts that point out that the risk of fire on a Bolt EV is actually very low. If I was really worried, I would have entered the buyback program months ago. I felt those people going into buyback were just panicking.
I agree that the odds are low for my Bolt catching fire. With all the nay saying happening it is hard not to fall prey to the negativity and feel like you have a fire bomb sitting outside sometimes. I have taken heed to GM advice put on hill top reserve and try to keep the range above 70 miles. However last weekend we took an extended trip and had 30miles left on arrival home. I waited to use the free charger at the Nissan dealership by my work and did a “quick charge” for over an hour and half to 190 miles and no issue. I kept monitoring the “flow” screen and occasionally reached under car to feel for heat. Nothing. I have decided to charge this way a few days per week. I leave early and read while I charge for 30-40 minutes for free. This keeps me between 100-200 miles of range. Plus I can monitor the car while charging. This works for me and will probably keep this routine as I really enjoy the time to sit quietly before work. Namaste!
