Company will resume GM Production of the Chevrolet Bolt and larger Bolt EUV electric cars in April after the automaker and its battery partner, a LG group company, resolved manufacturing errors.
GM halted production of the Bolt in August and recalled nearly 143,000 vehicles, which includes every vehicle the company has ever made, due to a manufacturing defect at an LG battery plant that has led to at least 13 fires. The company did not manufacture any new unit because it was redirecting the limited supplies of new batteries to replace the faulty storage system in the towed vehicles, according to Bloomberg and Al Arabiya.net.
Even with the Bolt back in production, GM’s biggest push to compete with Tesla and rivals like Volkswagen and Ford Motor in the burgeoning electric car market depends more on new and future models.
GM began building the new electric Hummer in December and is preparing to sell the Cadillac Lyric SUV this spring, both of which are more in line with current consumer tastes than the Bolt Compact.
For its part, General Motors said it has thousands of orders for both cars and is expanding production.
With Bolt production restarting, GM is trying to put a long and awkward chapter behind it. The recall costs $1.9 billion, mostly borne by LG Chem, but GM still has to manage customer complaints.
The suspension of Bolt sales led Ford, the largest US competitor to General Motors, to overtake it in electric vehicle sales behind Tesla.