GM is about to release the third model year of the Chevy Bolt EV, its only all-electric vehicle, and we’ve got a glimpse at the updates that the automaker is bringing to the vehicle through dealer documentation.
For people hoping for any kind of powertrain update with the new model year Bolt EV, it doesn’t look like that’s happening.
Electrek obtained the 2019 Bolt EV equipment list documentation that GM sent to its dealer network and it still lists the same 60 kWh battery pack and 150 kW electric motor.
The only updates seem to have to do with new connectivity features, like smartphone access for car sharing, and 3 new colors:
- Green Mist Metallic
- Shock
- Slate Gray Metallic
We couldn’t find an example of ‘Shock’ from GM, but the automaker has been offering ‘Green Mist Metallic’ for the Volt and ‘Slate Gray Metallic’ on other vehicles:
GM also seems to be putting more emphasis on car sharing with a new option called ‘Smartphone interface’, which includes “vehicle entry, start and operation, and car sharing.”
The automaker had already been making such functionalities available through its Maven car-sharing network, which uses hundreds of Bolt EVs in its fleet.
Now it looks like buyers could order that feature for their vehicle – indicating that GM might enable Bolt EV owners to add their vehicles to its car-sharing service, which is not unlike Tesla’s plan for its ‘Tesla Network’ autonomous car-sharing fleet with both company-owned and customer-owned vehicles.
The Chevy Bolt EV 2019 is expected to reach dealers closer to the end of the year.
Here’s the equipment list document:
[scribd id=378573511 key=key-hZKTGZGtHltUM328C7VZ mode=scroll]
Electrek’s Take
We are talking about a very minimal update for the new model year 2019, but I am more interested in the potential for a higher volume year.
Chevy Bolt EV sales have been slowly getting back to normal after a slow start to the year, but we are still talking about fewer than 2,000 vehicles per month.
Earlier this year, GM’s CEO announced that they are increasing Chevy Bolt EV production, but she didn’t elaborate on how significant an increase it will be.
We haven’t seen much evidence of that planned production increase yet, but it could potentially be linked to the new model year.
We will have to keep an eye on that over the next few months.
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