Stellantis recalls around 20,000 plug-in hybrid minivans over fire risks

Stellantis has issued a recall of 19,808 plug-in hybrid minivans after 12 fire reports in parked vehicles have been noted. The company also urged owners to stop recharging their minivans. The recall constitutes about 16,741 vehicles in the United States and 2,317 in Canada along with another 750 outside North America.

The parent company of Chrysler has advised owners to refrain from recharging the vehicles and to park them away from structures and other vehicles. The automaker mentioned it is working to determine the cause of the fire. It has also directed owners to keep operating the vehicles using the internal combustion engine.

Previously, General Motors had paused the production of its electric vehicle Chevrolet Bolt in August last year and has extended that halt through the end of this month. The largest US automaker in August widened its recall of the Bolt EV to more than 140,000 vehicles to replace battery modules after a series of fires. The company has also indefinitely paused retail sales of new Bolt vehicles.

According to a report last year, GM had also announced that it started to roll out a software update for all 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVs that were yet to receive a battery module replacement in order to avert fire risk while charging. The new update intended to limit battery charging in Bolt EVs to 80 per cent and allowed owners to fully discharge battery charge, if necessary, to extract more driving range. The company had stated owners of the mentioned EV with model years 2017–2018 and 2020 or later would receive the new software update.

(with inputs from Reuters)

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