Chinese EVs... may be better than we think

[3rdgenfan]

Chevrolet says they are going to bring a new Bolt out, maybe for 2025.

Yeah I caught that Chevy will be making a new one that slots under the Equinox. Hopefully it does better than 50kW DCFC this time lol.

I was more meaning in the grand scheme of things, other MFG need to look at that formula and apply it to their offerings. Throw out an EV Maverick, or an EV Escape; bring the Focus back stateside. (maybe I'm just partial to liking the new focus when I was in England a few months ago...)

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[climateguy]

So tired of this myth. The latest research shows that electric cars are 10 to 20 times LESS LIKELY to catch fire than an ICE car.

I own one of the Bolts that was suspected to have a self-igniting battery. The problem was if two rare manufacturing defects occurred in the same battery, self-ignition became more likely, and at the time no one could tell which batteries had the faults.

I decided that the number of fires compared to the number of Bolts was lower than the number of fires in ICE vehicles compared to the number Ice vehicles there are. Notwithstanding the fact that I could have had Chevrolet buy my Bolt back, I kept it. I liked the sound of what I thought was a promise to replace my battery when they could get around to it in a few years too.

The problem with Bolts, as opposed to all the ICE vehicle fires, is the cause was this particular manufacturing quality control issue. If a few years production of a popular ICE vehicle started having fires where the only explanation that held up was a manufacturing quality control issue that could appear in any one of years worth of production of the vehicles at any time, that brand of ICE vehicle would be in PR trouble.

Bolt fires were a big PR problem for GM. Perhaps GMs problem was compounded because Chevrolet initially denied that there could be a design or manufacturing defect. Time would pass and there would be another fire. So to dig themselves out, GM let everyone believe all the Bolts made until they changed the manufacturing process would get new batteries for free. The retail price on a Bolt battery at the time was $17,000.

I think they were able to lay off a lot of the billion or billions of dollars this whole thing cost on the Korean battery manufacturer.