California Man Claims His Chevrolet Bolt Took Itself for a Ride

Michael Accardi
by Michael Accardi

(Update: Fred Ligouri from Chevrolet Communications confirmed GM is aware and is currently investigating.)

One Bolt owner thinks Skynet may already be here.

Fresh off it s North American Car of the Year victory (despite being classified as a crossover) and just days ahead of its official media launch next week, something strange happened in Southern California.

This owner alleges his Bolt turned itself on, selected reverse gear, and backed into the work bench in his garage. The incident happened with the car shut down and in Park, both keys in the house, and the owner nearly 40 miles away on business in the family’s third vehicle.

There are no kids in the household, and his wife was inside when she heard a loud crash from the garage. The cynic in all of us wants to accuse the missus of lying, but the owner is adamant his wife has no interest in the Bolt and is happily in love with her own car.

The owner readily admits the car was parked without using the Bolt’s electronic parking brake, as he hasn’t used one for 40 years.

“I did not press the P (parking brake) button on the left side of the shifter.

I did this:

1. Hold the brake pedal down.


2. Press the button on top of the shift lever to shift into P (Park).


3. The P indicator on the shift lever turned red when the vehicle went into P (Park).


4. Turn the vehicle off.


5. Exited vehicle, and the vehicle’s horn sounded and the doors locked.”

In a later post, the owner writes that when his wife went out to the car immediately after the crash, the doors were locked and the dash was dark. When she opened the doors and pressed the power button, the Bolt showed itself as being in Park.

The Bolt is Chevrolet’s first use of General Motors’ new Electronic Precision Shift system. Like other by-wire shifters, it digitizes user control over gear selection — Park essentially being an electronic command to the transmission from the top mounted button. It’s possible that a fault could have occurred there, but there are nearly 40,000 Cadillac XT5s in American driveways using a similar system without any glitches.

GM reps from Michigan have been in contact with the owner, a case has been opened, and arrangements are being made for GM’s engineers to fly out and inspect the Bolt’s black box data.

We reached out to Chevy for a statement but have yet to hear back.

[Image: General Motors]

Michael Accardi
Michael Accardi

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  • SoCalMikester SoCalMikester on Jan 22, 2017

    wouldnt the black box be able to tell if the doors were ever opened, the car unlocked, the seat sat in? im thinking it should, since there are sensors in every other car that could tell those things. shouldnt be too difficult to figure out.

  • SC5door SC5door on Jan 23, 2017

    It's not Christine! It's Christine's millennial ancestor, Christina.

  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
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