EV Buyers Beware — Fires, Scarce Charging, and Parking Restrictions

In the wake of a series of severe EV battery fires, one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world, General Motors has just issued safety recommendations for Bolt EV’s:

• Not to park your Chevy Bolt within 50 feet of other vehicles in case it catches fire.
• Highly recommends that Bolt EV owners not to park within 50 feet of anything you care about.
• Recommends parking on the top floor or on an open-air deck and park 50 feet or more away from another vehicle.
• Requests Bolt EV owners to not leave their vehicle charging unattended, even if they are using a charging station in a parking deck.

General Motors previously told Bolt owners

• to only charge the battery to 90 percent,
• charge more frequently,
• and avoid depleting the battery below about 70 miles of remaining range.
• And that they should also park the vehicle outside.

The recent General Motors safety announcement comes after they recalled all 143,000 of the Bolts for fire risk to replace new battery modules. A major expense to GM as that EV recall could, as Morningstar analyst David Whiston told the Detroit Free Press, cost GM some $1.8 billion.

With product liability attorneys staging on the sidelines, will other EV manufacturers start issuing similar safety recommendations to their potential EV buyers?

Internationally, electrical grid stability has become a concern, as the supply chain of generation of continuous uninterruptable electricity from coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants are being shuttered in favor of intermittent electricity generation from breezes and sunshine.

The UK has concerns about their electrical grid being able to handle intermittent, spiked electricity that comes from breezes and sunshine; or if the grid can handle tens of millions of electric vehicles charging at the same time. Under current technological, and future scenarios, that type of grid has not even come close to being invented yet. Britain will also need more electricity to make their entire transportation sector electrical. A new electrical grid will need to be built.

Read the rest of this piece at CFACT.

Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.

Photo credit: CFACT.org.