General Motors Co (GM) said it would extend downtime at its Chevy Bolt electric-vehicle plant for another three weeks due to a battery pack shortage, as the company recalls the vehicles over fire risks.
The company is now to idle the plant through the week of Oct. 11 after earlier saying it would stop production through the week of Sept. 20.
GM said it would continue to work with its supplier to “update manufacturing processes” and would evaluate additional production schedule adjustments.
Photo: Reuters
The plant in Lake Orion, Michigan, has been idled since Aug. 23. With the recall under way, GM has urged some owners of Chevy Bolt electric cars to park the vehicles at least 15m away from other cars to reduce the risk that a spontaneous fire could spread.
GM added that it is cutting production at six other North American assembly plants because of an ongoing chip shortage.
The Detroit automaker has recalled almost all of the approximately 142,000 Bolts sold since 2016, because the battery can catch on fire. GM has taken a US$1.8 billion charge so far for the cost of the recall and has been buying cars back from some disgruntled owners. The company expects to recoup much of the cost from battery supplier LG Corp.
The new advice is likely to rankle owners who are already limiting their use of the Bolt to avoid overheating the battery and risking a fire. The parking guidance is especially difficult for owners in urban areas. GM has confirmed 10 fires.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has found 13 fires in Bolts, but the company has not confirmed that the additional three are part of the current recall issue.
The Bolt normally can be driven 417km on one charge, but that has been limited by GM’s guidance to avoid a fire. The automaker told Bolt owners to limit the charge to 90 percent, plug in more frequently and avoid depleting the battery to below about 112km of remaining range. Owners are also advised to park their vehicles outside immediately after charging and not leave them charging indoors overnight.
GM has said the fires are a rare event and are the result of two uncommon defects that stem from a manufacturing problem in LG plants in Michigan and South Korea.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained