Why does the panic horn go off when I disconnect the charge cord?

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I think there's a setting for that. You probably have it turned to "on". It's there because some are worried about others unplugging their car, and possibly stealing their charger. Most people I know set it to "off"
 
There are two stupid alerts that for some dumb reason GM rudely leaves on by default when they ship their cars: cord theft alert and power loss alert. Turn them both off.

It is super rude to leave those on in shared public and workplace charging settings where it is fine and expected to unplug cars that are done charging. It can scare people who unplug (even if the car is done charging) as it sounds ~10 seconds after unplug.

Pre-COVID, my primary means of charging were free L1 and L2 charging at my work and a smaller amount was at formerly free public L2 charging.

It can also piss off neighbors in residential area (yes, I've seen complaints about this in Volt and Bolt forums), esp. for people that don't know about how to disable or avoid them.

Instructions are on page 142 of my '19 manual. Energy button is the green button.
To view and change the Charging
Options, touch Energy and then
touch Charging Options. Use the
arrows to scroll through the list.
The following list of menu items may
be available:
...
Charge Cord Theft Alert : This
feature allows an alert to sound
when the vehicle is locked and
charge cord is unplugged. Set
the charge cord theft alert.
. Charge Power Loss Alert :
This feature allows an alert to
sound when the vehicle is
charging and loses power at the
electrical outlet. Set the charge
power loss alert feature to On
or Off.
If you don't disable them, you'll be "treated" to the stupid honk alarms unless you unlock your car before unplugging.

I've been driving BEVs as my primary car since end July 2013. Since my work is in Nor Cal, we have almost every consumer EV/PHEV brand that's been sold in the US since Dec 2010. I can't think of any other automaker that includes such stupid loud alerts (at least on by default) for unplugging or power loss. At most, it might be a one or a few not very loud beeps or they're silent.

I've met and known people who didn't know they could disable the above two dumb alerts on their GM EV/PHEV. I don't know how long long theothertom has had a GM EV/PHEV, but it looks like it's at least 1.5 years, so if he doesn't know, this illustrates my problem w/having them ON by DEFAULT and not providing the driver any hints or UI affordance about how to shut them off.

BTW, OP, if you can, I'd suggest a better thread title so that it can benefit others who might stumble across this later. It could be something like "why does the honk alarm go off when I unplugged?"
 
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