Bolt, the mainstream flagship electric vehicle from GM, has had the misfortune of catching fires due to faulty batteries. It didn’t help when people started posting videos and photos of Bolt’s on fire all over the internet. According to GM, there were at least 13 cases. This led to a massive recall.
GM has been selling Bolt’s since 2016 and they were forced to recall each and every one of them. Fixing the vehicles, including completely replacing some batteries entirely, is expected to cost $2 billion, GM stated. That’s up from a previous estimate of $1.8 billion.
LG and GM agreeing on the settlement is a major win for the automaker which had been forced to put money aside to handle the fixes. Even if the reimbursement wasn’t done in full, it covered a significant part of the expenses and GM is happy with the outcome.
“LG is a valued and respected supplier to GM, and we are pleased to reach this agreement,” said Shilpan Amin, GM vice president of global purchasing and supply chain, in a statement. “Our engineering and manufacturing teams continue to collaborate to accelerate production of new battery modules and we expect to begin repairing customer vehicles this month.”
The settlement seems to have put the two companies relationship back in good terms and they are carrying on with their joint project of building two battery plants in the US, specifically in Ohio and Tennessee. The plants will be in charge of manufacturing their next generation batteries called Ultium.