General Motors’ electric vehicle department was rocked last year by an issue in the battery systems that could cause a fire in the Chevrolet Bolt. Now, model year 2017-2023 Bolts are being recalled again as a result of a potential fire risk, but for an entirely different reason.
In this case, the risk of combustion has nothing to do with the batteries, nor the fact that the Bolt is an electric vehicle. Weirdly, the burn risk stems instead from the seatbelts and the surrounding carpeting.
The automaker must recall around 140,000 Chevrolet Bolt EVs in North America, with 111,242, specifically, being located in the United States. The automaker estimates, though, that just one percent of these vehicles actually have the default in question.
Read: Over 72,000 Hyundai Venues Have Seat Belt Pretensioners That Could Explode
Bolts built between July 26, 2016, and October 25, 2022, have a seatbelt pretensioner that helps keep occupants in place in the event of an accident. In certain scenarios, documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reveal, exhaust from the deployed pretensioner could ignite fibers in nearby carpeting on the B-pillar, and a fire may develop in that area.
General Motors first became aware of the issue following a tip that was submitted internally through its Speak Up For Safety program on September 15, 2022. The tip followed a report of a 2018 Chevrolet Bolt that had been in an accident in Korea and experienced a fire, originating on the right-side lower B-pillar.
The automaker opened an investigation into the matter in October and, unfortunately, found three relevant field incidents in which carpet fibers were ignited by the exhaust from the seatbelt pretensioner. On December 8, 2022, it decided to initiate a recall campaign.
Owners will, therefore, start being reached out to on January 30, 2023. General Motors will ask them to return their vehicle to a dealer, where a technician will install metal foil over the carpet near the pretensioner exhaust to prevent ignition of the carpet fibers. Some vehicles may additionally need to have a pretensioner cover installed. Vehicles built after October 25, 2022, have had metal foil added at the factory in an effort to prevent this issue from occurring.
