Detroit airport bans parking of faulty Chevy Bolts

The Wayne County Airport Authority prohibits motorists from parking at the Detroit Metro Airport Chevrolet Bolts that have not received the repairs recommended by a recall notice from General Motors. The authority cites concerns that the vehicles could catch fire.

“For customer safety, Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles that have NOT been repaired by the recent recall are prohibited from parking at all DTW facilities,” said the notice on the airport’s website.

Screenshot of Detroit Metro Airport's website.

Bolts that lack the needed repairs could cause catch on fire, Matt Morawski, director of communications at the airport authority, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. The airport is reviewing parking policies for electric vehicles, he added.

“This work is being done under an environment of changing regulatory and technological requirements,” Morawski added.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned Bolt owners on Aug. 20, 2021, to park their vehicles outside, citing safety concerns.

The concerns expressed by the airport authority show what happens when government policies get ahead of markets and technological development, said Jason Hayes, director of energy and environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“When governments force products into the market before they have been adequately tested and vetted, you often end up with bad (or even dangerous) results,” Hayes told CapCon in an email.

Mandates and financial incentives from state and federal governments encourage automakers to produce electric vehicles, Hayes said.

Consumers, not the government, should take the lead in using new technologies, said Theodore Bolema, senior editor at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a member of the Board of Scholars at the Mackinac Center.

“When the government tries to artificially speed up the adoption of a technology by pressuring manufacturers to accelerate their development of new products, there will be more unanticipated problems and less opportunity for manufacturers in the industry and related markets to address the problems before the products hit the market,” Bolema wrote to CapCon in an email.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer mandated all state-owned vehicles to be electric by 2040.

Consumers have taken a more cautious approach, with approximately 50,000 EVs registered with the state, compared with millions of gas-powered vehicles. Nationally, sales of electric vehicles declined in the first quarter of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration

Ford Motor Co. announced in April that it was slowing production of its electric vehicles.

General Motors gave notice in 2023 that it would discontinue making the Chevy Bolt. It then reversed course and said on Oct. 8, 2024, that production would resume, with a new Bolt to be offered in 2026.