We have been really happy with the Bolt up...until now. This catastrophic power failure is frightening. This issue could be really dangerous. When the car loses power, the entire system locks up. What happens if you are driving on the highway? Fortunately, in our case, the car was parked. Our only issue was finding a way to unlock the car, get it into neutral and get it towed.

Ironically, the main battery was fully charged. When we jumped the starter battery, it gave us only enough juice to put the car in neutral. After a week in the shop, the dealer informed us that they are still working with the Detroit engineers to try and understand what is wrong. That is not encouraging.

At this point, I am not sure we will ever feel safe driving the car. We will need a full explanation from the engineer with reassurances that they fully understand the issue and that there is no way for this to happen again.

I hope GM steps up and does the right thing here. If they need to fully recall these cars while they iron out the issue, they should do it now. There is no reason to wait until there is an issue that involves bodily injury.

Update from Sep 4, 2018: After 2 weeks of back and forth with the dealership, they were finally able to identify the problem and fix the issue. Apparently the software had a bug that affected the ability of the car to re-charge the starter battery (yes, there is a separate starter battery just like you would find in a traditional gas powered engine). Since the update, we have not had any issues and are happy with the vehicle. We were also reassured by the dealer that the issue would not cause the car to fail while driving. However, it would prevent the car from starting. So we are no longer concerned about the safety aspects.

We love the car, but are less than enthusiastic about GM's handling of the issue.

We would still recommend this car to others looking for a basic, no frills electric vehicle with a very good range (average of about 200 miles per charge).

Same problem........Took car to Y and grocery shopping, then home. About 3 miles before my home the icon chimed and the mileage dropped to Lo and I managed to get into the driveway.

Spent time online reading instances of this problem and noticed that GM has replaced batteries in some of the Bolt’s

Where I summer, the nearest Bolt sales and service center is about 120 miles away. If Chevy assistance has my car towed, only the first 25 miles are covered and I pay the rest. As it is, my first tow was 17 miles, but the second was 35 miles and I had to prepay the $40 extra because I was over 25 miles.

Today, my Bolt is at home and 60 miles from the dealer who has the Bolt technician. I was told that the tech goes on vacation This Friday (today is wed). Dealer is looking for a loaner today, will call me tomorrow. Maybe the Bolt will get there tomorrow.

In the meantime I am unhappy with GM. This problem has been being reported for at least 8 months. It is time to cut the delays and replace my battery.

A brand new car with 1281 miles on it and On Star tells me it's suffered a catastrophic failure. If that's not enough the dealership can't figure out what is wrong so they call GM and involve the GM engineers. They have now been involved for four days and cannot determine what is wrong. They keep asking the dealership for information and saying they'll get back to them with an answer. When the GM engineers get back to the dealership it's to ask more questions, seek more information and have the service tech run more diagnostics.

Today I was told they "hopefully" will have the needed repair figured out by the beginning of next week. Not Monday but "the beginning of next week". The nice young man at GM that this has been escalated to explained that he specifically said "beginning of next week" because they want me to have "reasonable expectations" as to the "repair".

I explained that this was not the "repair" we are talking about but the determination of what needs repaired. And I asked him if it was his car that was less than two months owned, brand new with only 1281 miles on it would he think it was a reasonable thing for it to take over a week to figure out what needed repaired. He didn't answer but said he just didn't want me to have an unrealistic expectation. I explained we were way beyond that point.

I heard back from the dealer. The GM engineers have told them they think it's a battery or conductor assembly issue. The service guy told me they've been asked by the GM engineers to run two more tests first with the hood up and then with it closed. He mentioned that was the oddest request they've made yet.

My research has shown that the Bolt doesn't yet seem to have a high percentage of service and repair issues - but that when you have them they are incredibly significant - like wishing you'd not bought the car. And for the record it was probably my favorite car yet - right up until now. At this point I wouldn't recommend a Bolt - unless it was to an enemy!