Seth Weintraub

2020-2022 Chevy Bolt owners, starting yesterday evening, began receiving messages that their high voltage battery/module replacements would no longer be happening. Instead, a software diagnostics tool would be used to verify if the batteries had problems before a replacement would be performed. As you might imagine, affected Bolt owners are up in arms.

Perhaps it was a coincidence that Porsche unveiled its Mission X concept electric vehicle a mere week after Tesla’s Model S Plaid with Track Package took the electric Nurburgring crown from the Taycan. The first bullet point in the Mission X press release was:

“Be the fastest road-legal vehicle around the Nürburgring Nordschleife”

Or perhaps not. But now we’re getting a better look at the concept and can make our own assumptions on whether or not this thing, or some variant of it, will make it to production.

In an NPR interview before the news of the big GM move to NACS charging, CEO Mary Barra hinted at something we here at Electrek have been jonesin’ for – a Chevy Bolt with an Ultium battery. A Boltium?! Let’s discuss…

Volvo’s EX30 will also come in an off-roading cross country trim and hits the streets in 2024. The small ‘B segment‘ EX30 EV is a big deal for Volvo, and here’s why…

Big Update here: Luna priced the Talaria XXX at $2995. It is safe to say this is a gamechanger of a electric moto bike.

Eric Hicks, the founder and CEO of LunaCycles, went onto Facebook last night to tease the next big (little) electric moto bike from the high-end manufacturer and importer. The “Talaria XXX” already has us salivating. There are no spoilers here, but let’s dive into what we know and can ascertain from what’s been teased…

Update: Upway has graciously offered an exclusive to Electrek readers: $100 off a purchase of $500+ with code ELECTREK

Upway is a Gennevilliers, France-based startup ebike reseller with a super interesting sales model. The company takes overstock new ebikes from manufacturers, last year’s or floor models from bike stores, and even buys ebikes online (maybe yours!) to refurbish and sell at a 20-60% discount with a one-year warranty. It recently opened a US location in Brooklyn to add to its Paris and Berlin warehouse locations and invited us by for a visit…

Volvo’s PR department has been drip-dropping its EX30 compact SUV imagery alongside the patent department and website design teams ahead of its June 7th reveal in Milan, Italy. Head below for the latest installment with some interesting interior shots…

GM just announced the Cadillac Escalade IQ EV, which is a huge deal in automotive circles and comes coincidentally while Ford is having its Capital Markets Day announcing its own 3 row EVs.

Taking place in Topeka, Kansas, from June 27 through July 2 at Heartland Motorsports Park, this year’s Electrek Formula Sun Gran Prix puts an international group of 22+ school’s solar vehicle teams against each other in an on-track race.

GM – along with its earnings announcement this morning – also announced the end of the Chevy Bolt EV and EUV with the last cars rolling off the Orion assembly line “late this year”. This marks the end of the Bolt EV as the most affordable/capable EV in the US market and a pioneering electrification milestone.

Autel, a Chinese company long known for making solid automotive supplies and diagnostic tools (and drones) recently jumped into the residential EV charger market with its MaxiCharger (currently $458). As an auto company with technology in its DNA, we hoped to see some innovation. And we did – but not where we expected.

During a recent family trip to Southern California, Mercedes lent us two of their flagship electric vehicles. We picked up an EQS SUV at the airport, drove it around Los Angeles and to Big Bear Mountain and back, stress testing that huge battery against elevation and high speeds. Then, to switch it up, I drove the slightly less family-friendly but more fun EQE to destinations around LA for the second half of the week. Yes, $130K cars are so much more decadent than the Hertz vehicles we’d planned for, but here are my big takeaways.

Like many autonomous driving systems, Ford’s BlueCruise (also called Lincoln ActiveGlide) has been a work in progress since we first used it on the 2021 Mustang Mach-E. Things have changed a lot in two years, however. For version 1.2, the following are the major new features that Ford is hyping and I am testing.

You want a Sur Ron light motorcycle battery and power specs but put on a $1,549 kick scooter with an optional seat that makes it look like a mobility scooter on steroids? Today’s your lucky day…

The news that Tesla officially allows other electric vehicle makers to charge on its Supercharger network is just a few hours old, but we’ve already gone out to one of the 10 Superchargers that are enabled to give our little Chevy Bolt some Tesla juice. Here’s how it went.

Tesla overnight dropped the price of its CCS Combo adapter to just $175, making the prospect of fast charging at any DC fast charging station a relatively easy prospect for most Tesla owners.

Ford today announced a significant move to LFP batteries for its electric vehicle line. The Dearborn company is tapping China’s CATL first for Chinese LFP batteries and then technology licensing for the previously rumored factory Ford plans to build in Michigan.

Blink Charging is a leading manufacturer of charging products for commercial charging stations and home EV consumers. At CES we caught five of their new commercial products. But on the residential side, we got the opportunity to unbox and install the new Blink HQ 200 smart EV home charger in my garage. Here’s how it went:

The BYD Seagull looks a lot like the venerable Chevy Bolt EV, but comes in at a literal fraction of the price… but with a fraction of the specs as well. As BYD expects to pass Tesla in Global EV sales this year by expanding its markets with significantly lower-priced vehicles, will we start seeing these hyper-cheap products outside of BYD’s home market of China?

Chevrolet posted a teaser of the upcoming “Electrified” Corvette E-Ray complete with internal combustion engine revving noises and silent EV “stealth” driving, side-by-side. While we’d obviously prefer to see a fully electric Corvette, we’re certainly still interested to see what Chevy has got in store…

For those of us who love EV sedans, there’s one more coming down the pike, this time from Volkswagen as the ID.Aero prototype morphs into the ID.7 … prototype …

When Kias are beating Ferraris and Lambos off the line and priced lower than premium sedans, you know something special is happening.

Kia flew us out to the desert landscape outside of Las Vegas to drive the new GT version of the popular EV6. We’ve been anxiously waiting on this one for a while and finally got to sample the delicious speed and handling of Kia’s new flagship vehicle.

The lowest-priced EV in the US is somehow also one of the best. Now in its sixth year, the Bolt EV is also seasoned, having worked through a battery fiasco/recall and significant lapses by GM’s decision-makers while receiving modest but significant updates.

With a clean bill of health, the Bolt is now a huge outlier in bang-for-buck. But the 2023 Bolt is also quick, fun to drive, useful, and often more so than cars twice its price. In fact, I think we should be looking to the diminutive Bolt as the future of transportation.

When Chevy announced it was dropping the price of the Chevy Bolt EV by $6,000 earlier this year to $25,600, it went from a good EV option to a great one. This is a 5-star-safety-rated sporty hatchback EV with 259 miles of real range, lots of space inside, and a great interior.

So good, in fact, I decided to do the unthinkable: buy one for my 70-something mom. Here’s how it went.