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Chevy Bolt electric car came alive, reversed into my workbench, says stunned bloke

Self-driving ride take on a whole new meaning

The future of self-driving cars is already with us – although maybe not in the way we had hoped.

The owner of a Chevy Bolt claims that his car randomly turned itself on, put itself into reverse, and crashed into the workbench at the back of his garage.

Writing on a Bolt owners' forum, user SoCalif told other Bolt owners to be careful after his wife heard a crash from the garage and opened to door to discover it had decided to, well, bolt.

"BOTH keys were out of the vehicle, car self-locked and shut down in park from the previous night," he reported over the weekend, adding that at the time of the crash he was 40 miles away.

The Bolt was locked in the garage and in park, he claimed – he had pressed the "P" park button and when he got home it was still set to park. Besides, he noted, if he had failed to put it into park, the car would have rolled forward – not gone into reverse.

As posters tried to troubleshoot the issue, SoCalif confirmed the parking brake was not on (there is an odd belief among many Americans that putting on a parking brake is bad for your car) but that his garage is flat.

All of which has led to Bolt owners scratching their heads. It was enough to spook his wife, he reported, prompting him to place tire blocks under the wheels to prevent any further movement.

So what happened? We don't know – yet. A representative from General Motors turned up on Thursday and according to the owner stayed for four hours going over every detail. He's waiting for a report back. We're waiting for an explanation, too.

For those of you thinking the story sounds oddly familiar, we should point out that Christine was in fact a Chrysler Plymouth Fury. ®

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