GM reportedly stops providing battery
pack replacements for the Chevy Spark EV
Verge,
by
Emma Roth
Original Article
Posted By: NorthernDog,
4/24/2022 2:24:45 PM
General Motors will reportedly no longer provide battery replacements for the all-electric version of the Chevy Spark, according to a report from EV-Resource (via InsideEVs). The Chevy Spark electric vehicle (EV) was first released in 2013, and GM continued to make new models until 2016. A GM district executive confirmed to EV-Resource that the company is “no longer going to supply that [the Spark EV’s] battery.” GM’s inventory of Spark EV battery packs has reportedly run out as well, and the company doesn’t plan on making any more. The Verge reached out to GM with a request for comment but
Reply 1 - Posted by:
FLCracker 4/24/2022 2:31:24 PM (No. 1137048)
Well, I guess Spark users will just have to buy a new EV.
Making the whole vehicle obsolete whenever they want to, this has to be "Detroit's" wet dream.
32 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
konocti95 4/24/2022 2:41:08 PM (No. 1137052)
FTA GM only sold 7,400 cars over three years so the number of unhappy customers will be relatively small. A good lesson for future buyers to have after-market replacement batteries available before going green.
16 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 4/24/2022 2:41:51 PM (No. 1137054)
So, when does Biden come out with "Cash for Clunkers 2.0"?
20 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
slipstik 4/24/2022 2:42:05 PM (No. 1137055)
All y'all buying those fancy schmancy EV things are getting EXACTLY what you asked for. Didn't it ever occur to you that these batteries are inherently unrepairable yet unpredictably expirable?? So now GM has decided to turn all these $26000+ cars into $14.95 wheelbarrows and there isn't a thing you can do about it.
Bravo!
30 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 4/24/2022 2:44:22 PM (No. 1137057)
And so it begins. The veil is pulled back. You buy an ultra expensive EV. It has short range, and takes many hours to charge unless you have access to an ultra expensive high power charger, which takes maybe 45 minutes to charge - while damaging the battery from excessive heating (something that they deny, but is true).
And after a few years, when any normal car would be running just fine - the battery craps out and you CANNOT GET a replacement. So - you have a car which:
1) costs a lot extra to buy
2) has a very short range
3) is extremely slow and inconvenient to "refuel"
4) craps out irrevocably in 5 years or so.
Hell of a deal for a car maker - not so good for the poor fool who buys one.
36 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 4/24/2022 2:47:20 PM (No. 1137062)
Electric cars, the wave of the future!
20 people like this.
Those not familiar with the German word Schadenfreude, please look it up and snicker at the suckers with the new boat anchor they own but can’t use.
19 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Ragman73 4/24/2022 2:51:12 PM (No. 1137068)
Now doesn't that make you want to go out and buy a GM product? Now how did that go in the movie Animal House? Oh, I remember. Bluto to Flounder : "You f**ked up, you trusted us". Sadly, that is exactly what those GM buyers did. And way back when, this was a great American company.
20 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
SkeezerMcGee 4/24/2022 3:12:15 PM (No. 1137077)
published April 17, 2017
https://www.mychevysparkev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4827
"Today, a replacement HV battery for the 2015 / 2016 Spark EV - GM p/n 23468683 - is about $10,800 each and that is not installed! It will be interesting to see how fast the price drops by the time our Spark EV HV batteries degrade by more than 35% or 8 years or 100K miles - whichever comes first."
11 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Ashley Brenton 4/24/2022 3:15:03 PM (No. 1137079)
If you live anywhere in America where it snows and temperatures drop into single digits, you are a moron if you buy an electric car.
16 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Wetenschapper 4/24/2022 3:18:41 PM (No. 1137082)
There's nothing inherently wrong with an EV, which has many things to recommend it: fewer moving parts, simpler drivetrain, lower maintenance. The problem lies with the batteries, as this article demonstrates. So far, no battery exists that can store energy as efficiently in Joules/Kg as good old fuel, nor as cheaply as an old-fashioned gas tank. Perhaps if the electricity came from a hydrogen-based fuel cell instead of a battery, but nobody has come up with a good way to tank up with hydrogen, either.
The dumbest idea, though, has to be a hybrid, which costs more, weighs more, has two independent drive systems for things to go wrong, and saves you only a miniscule amount of fuel as compared to a modern, electronically-managed gas engine - far less in the real world than the fact-challenged fuel economy claimed by the manufacturers.
12 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Ribicon 4/24/2022 3:19:32 PM (No. 1137083)
FTA: "As GM works toward making and replacing battery packs in over 140,000 electric Chevy Bolts that were recalled last year due to fire risks, perhaps GM just doesn’t have the bandwidth to create battery pack replacements for the Spark EV." Bet your bottom dollar that the American taxpayers will bail out both GM (again) and the buyers (never mind all the tax credits and subsidies they already got), because it's been decided that we will drive electric cars, and we will like it.
9 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
rikkitikki 4/24/2022 3:29:59 PM (No. 1137096)
Correction to #10: "If you live anywhere in America, you are a moron if you buy an electric car."
There, I fixed it.
17 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
rikkitikki 4/24/2022 3:34:32 PM (No. 1137101)
Just for discussion's sake, assume it takes 4 to 6 hrs to charge an EV at a charging station.
There is not enough open real estate in any city center in the USA for thousands of EVs to sit idle while they charge.
And only true morons will sit for 4-6 hrs at a remote station away from home waiting on their EV to charge.
Therefore, the only practicable path forward for EVs is for every user to charge them overnight, at their own home.
Therefore, be sure to add in the cost of a home charging station before you spring for an EV.
9 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Axeman 4/24/2022 3:43:05 PM (No. 1137107)
I offer my expertise for engineering to install gas generators to replace the battery packs. Even better would be diesel turbine generators. Probably about the same cost as the original batteries. Weigh less too.
6 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
hershey 4/24/2022 3:52:23 PM (No. 1137116)
Still waiting to see the picture of them fueling an EV with a banana like the DeLorean in Back To The Future....
7 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
thefield 4/24/2022 3:57:43 PM (No. 1137123)
I smell a major class action suit.
10 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
DGCanelli 4/24/2022 4:17:46 PM (No. 1137137)
Yeah, sign me up to buy 10 of those! At least with a combustion engine you might consider converting the engine to run on biofuels if the activist libs are successful in shutting down the oil industry!
6 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
navybrat 4/24/2022 6:01:36 PM (No. 1137193)
I have not read any information as to what would happen to the power grid if the majority of people convert to electric cars. It would seem to me that there would be massive blackouts and brownouts. The grid does not seem to work well in the hot summers or cold winters when overloaded in many areas. Would windmills and green energy cover all the added used. I have never heard that brought up.
10 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
ronniethek 4/24/2022 6:27:11 PM (No. 1137204)
If Americans continue to buy this companies crappy cars which they now render obsolete they are stupid and deserve what they get .DO NOT BUY GM.
9 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Strike3 4/24/2022 6:45:25 PM (No. 1137223)
There you have it, the first group of EVs to be permanently parked alongside our highways while those mean fossil-fuel vehicles whiz by and laugh. Did I mention that a woman is running GM? She looks young enough to still be in a sorority and this decision makes it very likely.
6 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
DVC 4/24/2022 6:52:33 PM (No. 1137229)
Re #15. If you mean what you typed "diesel turbine generators", turbine engines, especially in the smaller HP ranges below perhaps 1000 hp, have extremely poor fuel specifics. Brake specific fuel consumption is typically 2-4 times worse than a standard spark ignition engine.
Now if you meant "diesel turbo generators", they are extremely efficient when running at about 75% of rated power. But personally, while I am perfectly capable of engineering the swap - I have zero interest in wasting my time and money on such a sad mess.
Until batteries have about 4 times the energy density and 10 times the recharge rate WITHOUT DEGRADING THE LIFE of the battery, EVs will remain "the car of the future", or more properly, "the car of the sucker".
And how long before these batteries appear on the market? I would bet a very large sum of money that it will be a few weeks after the "12th of Never". Battery technology was pretty mature in the 1930s, and with huge efforts, a small improvement has been found in the last half a century, at a cost of billions. We are now to the point, technologically that the field has been plowed so many times with so many billions that literally every single rock has been turned over and looked under. Every possible combo of materials that has the electodynamic potential to be a battery has been tried and tried and tried.
It is a dead end. We are all the way out at the extreme tip of the techno development path. Future improvements will be a few percentages for huge financial costs. There are no "huge improvements" lurking right around the corner.
8 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
lakerman1 4/24/2022 7:16:42 PM (No. 1137241)
My late friend, Hubert, had a son graduate from RIT with an electrical engineering degree. The son moved to California, totaled his car, bought an EV, (I think it was the Volt) and returned it to the dealer the next day.
Separate from that, Dementia Jo did his pig whisper about a month ago, bragging that GM was going to manufacture batteries in the U.S.
(GM is going to do a joint venture with a Korean company.)
And I remember how GM built the Chevy Vega/Pontiac Astre pile of junk, where you couldn't even change the air filter - the entire assembly was disposable., and had to be replaced.
And then there was the Chevy Corvair, in the V6 engine, when it was time for a tuneup, the engine had to be lifted to replace one of the spark plugs.
Now GM has a girl CEO, who decided to stop making any gasoline powered vehicles within the next few years.
8 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
bad-hair 4/24/2022 8:08:58 PM (No. 1137273)
Welcome to Greenie Weenie World. You got a 6 year old GM car that won't work and you can't get parts.
I've got a fun 20 year old well kept Nissan 350Z GASOLINE car that runs like a top. I haven't made a car payment in 15 years and have no plans to start them. Ah but the air is soooo clean !
8 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Venturer 4/24/2022 8:10:18 PM (No. 1137275)
I have a 2005 Toyota Camry.
Parts are still readily available and at 250,000 miles it is just broken in good.
6 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
DVC 4/25/2022 1:32:33 AM (No. 1137395)
I drove my previous Accord 347,000 miles and everything was working fine when I sold it for $2000. 5 speed manual and the original clutch.
No rust.
Currently, my Accord has 75,000 miles - tons left.
Wouldn't take a free EV if offered.
6 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
ussjimmycarter 4/25/2022 2:13:27 AM (No. 1137398)
New Cevy truck says will get 400 miles on a charge, probably 250, then next year 150, then 100, then 50, then “that will be $15,000.00 for your 5 year old ruster special please!
3 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
MickTurn 4/25/2022 11:25:11 AM (No. 1137725)
GM is run by idiots, PERIOD. Now they will never sell another electric car, who wants a POS Boat Anchor?
3 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Rabidrabbit1 4/25/2022 1:27:24 PM (No. 1137832)
I quit buying GM after the bailout. Won’t ever consider one again.
4 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
Axeman 4/27/2022 4:29:46 PM (No. 1139957)
#22, I make jokee ;) ;)
Think Batmobile from the old TV series.
0 people like this.
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There is no comparable replacement battery either. So the car will be worthless once the battery needs replacement.