More Class Action Lawsuits Claim Chevy Bolt Lithium Ion Batteries Can Suddenly Catch Fire [SETTLEMENT]
Last Updated on October 3, 2024
Rankin v. General Motors LLC
Filed: December 11, 2020 ◆§ 2:20-cv-13279
GM faces another proposed class action alleging the lithium ion batteries in 2017-2019 model year Chevy Bolt vehicles can suddenly catch fire when fully or close to fully charged.
October 3, 2024 – Judge Preliminarily Approves $150M Chevy Bolt Settlement Over Battery Defect
The $150 million Chevy Bolt settlement detailed on this page was preliminarily approved by the court on September 26, 2024.
Per the judge’s 22-page approval order, notice of the settlement will be mailed to eligible class members within 60 days of the deal’s preliminary approval.
ClassAction.org will update this page when the official Chevy Bolt settlement website goes live, so check back often for updates on the class action settlement.
Learn more about the $150 million Chevy Bolt settlement.
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May 20, 2024 – GM, LG Agree to Pay $150M Chevy Bolt Battery Defect Settlement
General Motors and two LG Electronics units have agreed to pay a $150 million settlement to resolve class action lawsuits filed over an alleged battery defect plaguing more than 100,000 2017-2022 model year Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles.
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If approved by the court, the proposed settlement would cover all persons in the United States who bought or leased, other than for resale, a 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022 model year Chevy Bolt built and shipped to dealers on or before August 9, 2021—i.e., the “class vehicles”—and who have not received a buyback of their vehicle from General Motors or a GM authorized dealer. Monetary benefits from the proposed settlement will be available to all owners and lessees of the class vehicles, court documents express.
ClassAction.org will update this page if and when the Chevy Bolt settlement receives preliminary approval from the court, and when the official settlement website is launched, so be sure to check back often.
According to a memo submitted in support of the plaintiffs’ unopposed motion for preliminary settlement approval, the proposed Chevy Bolt settlement would provide eligible consumers with “significant monetary benefits,” taking into account “the value of final recall remedies and extended warranties GM is providing,” after more than a year of “hard-fought negotiations.”
Court documents state that all class vehicles are now eligible for final recall remedies, whether it be the installation of the advanced N2.2 battery or, for other vehicles sold with an N2.2 battery, software upgrades, referred to as the “software final remedy,” that will actively monitor battery health.
The proposed settlement terms recognize that roughly 22,560 people who own or lease a model year 2020-2022 Chevy Bolt made with certain N2.2 batteries “have received and will continue to receive access to the ‘software final remedy,’” which involves a GM dealer installing “new advanced diagnostic software” designed to detect “anomalies” that could indicate a potentially defective battery.
The remainder of the Chevy Bolt class, owners and lessees of more than 80,000 vehicles, is eligible for the so-called “battery replacement final remedy,” which provides a replacement battery, court documents share. Replacement batteries from the proposed settlement come with an extended eight-year/100,000-mile limited battery warranty.
Broadly, Chevy Bolt class members who submit a timely, valid claim will be entitled to a share of the proposed deal’s $150 million common fund. More than 22,500 people are set to receive a minimum $1,400 payment if they have had or have the software final remedy installed on their vehicle at an authorized GM dealer, court documents relay.
Should the settlement be approved, eligible class members who sold or terminated the lease of their eligible Chevy Bolt before the software final remedy became available will receive a minimum $700 payment. Those who are eligible for or have already received the battery replacement final remedy will also receive a minimum $700 payment.
In the event that more than one class member submits a valid claim for the same vehicle—meaning the vehicle changed hands during the relevant time period—the payment will be allocated among those consumers by the settlement administrator “in accordance with their respective lengths of ownership” and as stipulated by the proposed settlement agreement.
Court documents add that, to ensure that all eligible Chevy Bolts are “remedied as promptly as possible,” class members with eligible vehicles who obtain the final software remedy, even before the deal receives preliminary approval, were given the option to accept their minimum $1,400 payment early by way of a Visa eReward card, and may be entitled to a second distribution of settlement benefits.
Lastly, court documents state that, to ensure all class members are “fairly compensated,” the proposed deal also would allocate payments to and between those who obtained an affected Bolt during the period in which restrictions on their use of the car could have been imposed, even if they later sold the vehicle or terminated their lease before a remedy became available.
Are you owed unclaimed settlement money? Check out our class action rebates page full of open class action settlements.
General Motors faces at least two more proposed class action lawsuits that allege the lithium ion batteries found in 2017-2019 model year Chevrolet Bolt vehicles can spontaneously catch fire when charged to full or near full capacity.
The lawsuits, filed on December 11 in Michigan federal court, claim the defect allegedly plaguing the Bolt’s 60 kWh 350 V lithium ion batteries poses an unreasonable safety risk to drivers, passengers and any property near which an affected vehicle might be parked. According to the suits, the defect poses a fire risk even when a Chevy Bolt is off, parked and not receiving a charge.
According to the complaints, drivers have been shortchanged in that GM’s interim fix for the defect—reprogramming the vehicles to limit their batteries’ full charge capacity to 90 percent of their actual charging capacity—has robbed them of the advertised driving range while necessitating that affected vehicles be charged more frequently.
General Motors issued on November 13, 2020 a recall of more than 50,000 Chevy Bolts, citing a fire risk with the cars’ batteries. According to the lawsuits, however, GM sold and leased Chevy Bolts despite “what it knew or should have known” about the fire risk, and continued to sell the vehicles without launching an investigation into the problem even after adverse event reports started piling up:
“For more than a year after the first fire, GM operated with a cynical ‘business-as-usual’ attitude, even going so far as to reiterate to Class Members that they could and should charge their vehicles to 100%, before opening a formal investigation into the fires in August 2020. After opening this investigation, it took months for GM to communicate to Plaintiffs and Class Members that the danger from the Class Vehicles was so high that the Vehicles should be parked outside.”
In recall documents, GM acknowledged that a certain number of Bolts equipped with high-voltage fuel cells made at LG Chem’s Ochang, Korea facility posed a significant safety hazard. Both lawsuits say GM’s recall is an insufficient remedy given the automaker’s software updates have drastically cut the Bolt’s driving range.
To date, GM has failed to provide an adequate fix for the battery defect that does not diminish the cars’ batteries or lower their driving range below drivers’ expectations and the automaker’s own claims as to the vehicles’ range, the suits say. The lawsuits argue buyers and lessees have suffered harm in that they paid money for the Chevy Bolt in part due to GM’s material claims of the vehicle’s battery capacity and single-charge travel range.
“GM actively concealed and/or failed to notify Bolt purchasers of the existence and nature of the defect and of the safety hazard created by the defect,” one lawsuit alleges, summarizing that GM has “failed to diagnose the cause of the defect; it has not offered to replace the defective battery pack to its customers; and it has not provided assurances to owners, present or future, that their vehicles’ battery capacity will be fully restored, to include the full driving range of their vehicles.”
Both lawsuits can be found below.
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