General Motors warned Chevrolet Bolt owners that they should park at least 50 feet from other cars inside parking garages.
Courtesy of GM
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General Motors
is going all in on electric vehicles, but the past couple of days have set the legacy auto maker back on its heels.
On Thursday, GM (ticker: GM) extended a shutdown of an assembly plant that produces its Chevrolet Bolt until mid-October after issuing another safety notice related to the vehicle, Reuters reported.
Just the day before, GM warned Bolt owners that they should park at least 50 feet from other cars inside parking garages because their EVs could catch fire.
“Additionally, we still request you do not leave your vehicle charging unattended, even if you are using a charging station in a parking deck,” a company spokesman said in an email.
The Bolt has been dogged for almost a year now. Since November, GM has recalled model years 2017 through 2022—about 141,000 vehicles—because of battery defects. About a dozen of the EVs have caught fire, Reuters reported. GM has said it won’t sell or produce the vehicles until the safety issues are resolved.
GM is working on a fix with battery supplier LG Energy Solution. The auto maker has put a $1.8 billion price tag on the recall.
Thursday’s shutdown is another blow to GM, which is pouring billions of dollars into EV technology. The company’s goal is to sell 1 million EVs a year by 2025 and sell only EVs by 2035. Making the numbers will be a challenge: Of the 2 million vehicles that Chevrolet sold in 2018, 36,325 were electric; in the same period, EV pioneer
Tesla
(TSLA) sold 197,000 cars, according to data from EVadoption website.
Shares of GM fell 0.6% Thursday. The stock has increased 64% in the past 12 months; Tesla stock has gained 68%, and legacy competitor
Ford Motor
(F) has soared 87%.
Write to Rupert Steiner at rupert.steiner@dowjones.com