In a process that took weeks to finally work out, Schoenfeld sold his Chevrolet Bolt EV back to GM for a price that was at about $10,000 more than he would have gotten simply by trading the car in to a dealer, he said, though he declined to provide specific numbers. “I’ve got my solar and my geothermal in my house and I don’t want to burn fossil fuels.” So instead, GM bought his Bolt back from him. To Schoenfeld, a different GM car wasn’t a viable alternative. GM once sold a plug-in hybrid called the Volt, but that car went out of production in 2019. GM offered to lend him a different car, but it would have been gasoline-powered, since GM doesn’t currently sell any electric vehicles but the Bolt. The restrictions turned owning what had been a very practical electric car into a huge inconvenience, Schoenfeld said. So far, Chevrolet Bolts have been blamed for 12 fires, according to GM. Still, electric car fires are rare compared to fires in gasoline powered cars. This can start a chain reaction known as “thermal runaway” leading to a fire. That heat can, in turn, damage other cells nearby causing them to release their energy as heat, too.

In an electric car, if one battery cell has a defect that allows its stored energy to be released in an uncontrolled way, that can cause it to heat up.

For safety’s sake, the automaker recommended Bolt owners restrict their use of the car to avoid straining the batteries, and park them away from their homes. GM had warned that some of the cars could have a manufacturing defect that might cause them to catch fire. After Bart Schoenfeld’s Chevrolet Bolt EV was recalled for the second time, he’d had enough.

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