There are a lot of elements that go into car design that aren’t exactly obvious, at least not initially. You can draw a lovely design for a car, sketch and render and model how the various doors and hatches will open, but until that car actually becomes something that interacts with reality and humans, you can’t be certain of everything. That’s what seems to have happened with the Chevy Bolt, which has a hatch design that incorporates what owners are calling “fangs of death” because of their ability to make heads bleed.
This isn’t just hearsay or something we picked up on some online forums – though, to be sure, there are plenty of people talking about how their Bolts’ hatch made their heads bleed online – we got an email from a reader named Jordan who survived a Bolt hatch attack himself:
“OK, the thing: I rented a pre-2022 refresh Chevy Bolt this weekend in San Jose. As I’m loading up in the rental car garage, I come back from doing something in the front seat and come back to load through the rear hatch, and BAM! I’m staggered.
I crouch in pain for a bit, and move on, groaning. Seems like I’m fine. A few seconds later, I feel something running down my face to my neck. Blood! Gushing! My wife gives me a handkerchief, which quickly gets red with blood. I finally find the bathroom and enough paper towels and time to stanch the flow.”
Yikes! What the hell happened here? Well, it appears that this happened:
See those? The two sharp, fang-like protuberances on the sides of that hatch? See how they look like, you know, fangs? How they’re sharp, pointed bits of sheet metal? That seems to be the issue here.
I mean, look at those things! They’re not exactly subtle. They’re sharp, hard, and right at head level. Here’s another angle, from the side:
In some ways, this is all a result of the Bolt’s confusing approach to taillight design; the turn indicators and brake lamps are in the bumper, while the basic taillight is above, and part of the hatch. It’s a confusing setup, and while Bolts aren’t the only ones to use it, as you can see here, it’s still not great:
In their attempt to incorporate the somewhat useless upper lights into the hatch itself, Chevy has designed a hatch with those fangs. So it’s not like the fangs are even there for a good reason because there really isn’t one. In fact, Chevy showed they could design a Bolt that doesn’t eat heads with the Bolt EUV, a different body design that features a fangless hatch:
Of course, that doesn’t help current Bolt owners who must still be wary of the twin Fangs of Damocles hanging over their heads. One person on a forum showed a way some owners have been dealing with this:
See that? They’ve cut reflective tape and put it on the black fangs, which at least will make them more eye-catching, especially at night. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s hardly a real solution.
Then again, it’s not like there is a real solution for a design issue like this. You can’t re-design the hatch without changing all of the other sheet metal that the hatch meshes with. Perhaps that triangle of metal could be replaced with a rubber panel or at least covered in rubber, which could help, but would introduce all sorts of aesthetic and fitment issues.
It’s just a bad design, really, and it’s one of those things that makes me baffled that no one seems to have noticed any issue in the car’s presumably extensive testing and focus-grouping. I mean, look at some of the comments on this one forum:
“I’ve bonked my head twice on the “head-knocker”, which is one time more than I like to admit.
I smacked it good. Saw stars, and all that. Drew blood, the second time. My wife thought I was dying. Even relatively minor scalp wounds bleed like crazy.”
Ouch. And then there’s this one:
“Only took one hit, smacked the crap out of myself.”
This one uses an alternate nickname:
“It took me less than a week of ownership to be assaulted by what someone on here called “the triangle of death”.”
I should note this other forum calls it a “head hatchet.” There’s more:
“Count me in too! I have hit my head 2 maybe 3 times. The last time being just about 3 days ago. I am 6′ 2″ tall and it gets me too.”
…and look, it’s not all tall people:
“5-8 officially, 5-7 by recent measurement, though it depends on shoes and such. And yes, I’ve made the acquaintance of that corner a couple of times. I now take a wide berth of the tailgate, back up and go around! I like that reflective tape hack, though – may try it.”
You get the idea. The point is – maybe literally – that GM designed a tailgate that seems to be a hazard to heads, and if you own a Bolt or are considering buying a Bolt, maybe take extra care under that hatch. It’s also a reminder that seemingly innocuous details of car design can have some pretty significant consequences, and you would think not drawing blood would be pretty high up on that list of consequences to avoid.
Be careful out there! There are fanged tailgates, hungry for head-blood out there!
Back in the late ’90s and early 2000’s, my dad had an old Chevy Lumina Van as a “spare”. Due to the unreliability of my own cars and also the stunning ability of that old van to haul massive amounts of stuff, I ended up driving it a lot. The top of the driver and passenger doors came to a point. It never happened to me, but it always felt like I would lose an eye one day while getting in the van (placed at just the right height). At some point, Chevy had recalled the van to “fix” the problem by putting a warning sticker on the inside of the door near the pointed corner. I don’t remember what it said, but basically “don’t put your eye out”.
I can personally confirm this is the second most irritating thing about the Chevrolet Bolt, next to the overly aggressive “auto” setting on the climate control that basically says “YOU SAID YOU WANTED IT TO BE 72 SO I AM GOING TO MAKE IT 72 DAMMIT”.
It is like back seats, car designers/sellers never sit in them and are always put out if anyone does sit in them during a test.
Especially if said person arrives with their knees around their ears, or cannot get their feet under the seat in front.
I expect no designer ever, actually opened the boot of the Volt.
At least they seem to have rated the supports correctly.
My C5, (and a couple of other citroens from the time) had such weak supports that the boot would sometimes crash down on my head/fingers like a guillotine, before I swapped them for something, non-original but stronger.
Anybody on here with an SJ-platform Jeep Wagoneer will be familiar with what I’m going to call the “hook of death” under the hood.
The hook for the hood latch is very sharp, and hangs down from the hood right where your head goes when working under there.
I’ve made myself bleed from it countless times, and every mechanic that works on it makes the same comment.
It came from the factory painted yellow, but I can’t see that when it’s above/behind my head.
Sometimes I’ve resorted to wrapping a rag around it with a cable tie, which I inevitably forget to remove and try slamming the hood shut with it in place.
Jaws of Life; Fangs of Death. You gotta take the good with the bad.
I hit my head on the corner of a Tesla Model 3 boot lid once. While there was no blood, it fucking hurt like hell.
It’s just a bad design, really, and it’s one of those things that makes me baffled that no one seems to have noticed any issue in the car’s presumably extensive testing and focus-grouping.
You do know this is GM we’re talking about?
Count Bolt: “I vant to suck your blood!”
This is why you just make REGULAR FUCKING SIGNALS/LIGHTS!
I Bang my head on anything with a hatch and occasionally the hood. Thankfully, few draw blood. Another example of the tall tax.
When that shark bites, with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread.
Now, in Walmart’s parking lot on Sunday morning,
Lies a body just oozing life,
And that tailgate’s standin’ high, boys
Could that car be a Chevy Bolt?
Excellent!
I thought getting bitten by a hatch/hood/engine lid was just a right of passage? I’m hanging out with the wrong cars…
I wonder if some manufacturer will come up with a hatch that slides over the roof after it’s lifted. Tall people will be happier and it would be handy when it’s a tight squeeze behind the car.
The problem is that a hatch is very helpful to have when it’s raining.
I do like the idea of one that slides up and out of the way though
Not quite the same, but GMC did have the Envoy XUV where the roof slid forward and had a truck-like tailgate on the lower half.
I have a 2017 and at least the brake lights are the actual tail lights, turn signals are down in the bumper but they are at least amber which stand out a little better. It’s a fairly Korean thing as Hyundai/Kia was doing that for years with the tail lights.
Haven’t bonked my head on the fangs, think they’re also a little duller on the earlier models, but if the Bolt has taught me anything it’s going forward when test driving the car, check the hatch and get out and have the wife work the pedals and indicators to see what’s doing what. It’s something I’d never thought of before, what are the brake/tail lights doing, just so weird.
The fangs have tagged me and my son multiple times, but without bloodletting. Tough to miss when pulling groceries out of the back in the garage. My wife and daughter are short enough it’s not an issue for them.
One note though, your line “the turn indicators and brake lamps are in the bumper, while the basic taillight is above” is not quite accurate. The brake and tail lights are the same and up high – part of the fangs. In the bumper below are the reverse and turn signals.
I think this design element exists on a lot of car-hatches due to the requirement that tail/brake lights are on non-moveable portions of the rear. Moreso when the lights are slightly higher.
See fangs on this EU Accord wagon: https://youtu.be/8o9ZpZ-gklk?si=JRhxs-jtELD4kPz1&t=148
fangs on Golf hatch https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2I3SEtlKhIVvLMfNtsyWk1TdDzfmYXwrDfkWb_CVpBh-eAb-NmTBbcvkH6kJ4Plv__Z4VTOewwCB1lMi21LxOfUvpceeuPq6RoLB3JirEetjQE8xvQMEUkR-QrbggfqVBrthjIwWxMNtP/s1600/IMG_8678.jpg
Model Y fangs:
https://di-uploads-pod5.dealerinspire.com/currentautomotive1/uploads/2020/07/03-ModelYHatch.jpg
Yaris (hard to tell but you can see the negative space above the light module that it has fangs:
https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/5/2019/04/2020-Toyota-Yaris-Hatchback-hatch-open-e1554150057277.jpg
Mazda has seemed to escape this issue by either rounding the corner and putting the fang on the quarter panel, or by just not extending the hatch to the sides needlessly.
The other part of the problem is design departments’ seemingly going out of their way not to use vertical taillights affixed to the main car body, which the Bolt has plenty of room for based on a cursory look at the huge difference between the clamshell area covered by the hatch and the actual opening for cargo.
Not fully the problem I think, here’s some vertical taillights on an early-2000s Ford Focus that has the same fang issue:
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53ea6294e4b089fd92ae8f57/1457643587106-B3T9GUJ3NDOD4K0HWLNM/image-asset.jpeg
I think the bigger problem is just them expanding the panel around any lights, which could be an ease of manufacturing thing.
Long time Focus hatch driver here. This is a non-issue on that car. As you can tell in your picture, that little point is well inward of the bumper and the Focus is tall enough where you wouldn’t hit your head on the open hatch.
Also as a Focus driver, as the struts wear out and it sticks down it starts to become more of an issue. Though I will admit that is likely because I am quite tall. I have hit my head on the hatch, including the notches, about ~ten times in the last ~5 years, usually when it’s not been pushed all the way up by the struts. This happens enough that I walk around the back with my hand on my forehead when the hatch is open.
What are you, like 6’7″?
The bigger problem i’ve found is that a lot of modern cars’ front doors have the trailing edge pointy so they’re shin destroyers. Less so on SUVs with lower body cladding but still happens.
Not far off… – I just went out to my car and opened the hatch and while wearing flip-flops the hatch edges comes to squarely the center of my forehead at max lift. So if I hug the edge of the car and don’t duck, I will hit the fangs squarely in the center of my face/forehead. Luckily the hatch lifts up enough that it’s almost directly over the bumper so as long as it goes all the way up it is difficult to hit coming from behind, but I do have to be somewhat careful.
What does it think it is, a Cybertruck?
No. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t think its an over priced, over hyped, impractical, community college art school project.
When the Cybertruck draws blood its owners blame the victim. Glad to see that particular cult behavior hasn’t crossed over into other EV makes.
I did this on my Golf GTI hatch. enough blood that I got it checked out.
I’ve only had my bolt a few months, but I’ve never noticed this issue. I drive it for work, to job sites and use the hatch 4+ times a day, but I am stooped all the time I’m using it because the access is so low. I was also always stooped under my honda FITs hatch, even though I couldn’t hit my head on it.
But now that I’m aware of it I’ll probably hit my head tomorrow morning.
It is a great car, I just wish it was as big inside as the Honda FIT
Right??? Every time I drive ours I think about the packaging. Conversely, every time I see a Fit I think “Honda why didn’t you just make an EV out of it?”
They did, for a while. Came out in 2012, only lasted a few years. I think they only sold it in California.
I have an outback, and accidentally hit the “memory” function on the liftgate a month or two ago, and walked directly into the metal latch because the gate was 3″ lower than normal. Nothing like stumbling back into the house in front of a horrified wife a toddler with blood streaming down your face to really start the week off right.
Has anybody called a local Dominos and asked how the delivery drivers feel about this?
The Bolt is clearly not a lifestyle vehicle.
There was a similar thing on the late 90s Jettas. (I had a 96 and a 97) Something about the shape of the top corner of the front doors would occasionally catch you between the chest and shoulder as you were getting in. It wasn’t just me getting in weird or something – it would happen to passengers too. No blood, but it hurt like a mofo.
Even worse is a Peugeot 206. The top corners of the front doors were curved back quite a long way, and in a perfect place to jam into your chest if you couldn’t open the door fully, and tried to climb in too fast.
Didn’t draw blood, but gave me some nasty bruises.
Are you folks getting into the Halloween spirit a little early? We have a skeleton Charger and now a Vampire Bolt
These things suck, we haven’t had blood drawn, but many, many head hits into these stupid things. They are plastic though, not metal at least. If it wasn’t for resale value, I would have taken a hatchet to mine years ago and not so delicately trimmed them down.