The Chevrolet Bolt EV

The Chevy Bolt EV is finally about to hit the road, and it seems to be a great car.  It’s already winning lots of awards, including Motor Trend’s Car of the Year and the Green Car of the Year award.  But GM, via their European subsidiary Opel, is already showing signs of the same tone-deaf sales strategy that has relegated their Volt to second-or-third place in sales behind much more expensive (Model S) or range-limited (Leaf) models.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_juEthb-8

Their new ad for the Ampera-e, the European version of the Bolt EV, depicts some cockroaches trying to cross a road in the countryside, thinking that they will be safe because they’ll hear any cars coming and that they’re far enough from the city that they won’t have to worry about a quiet EV sneaking up on them, as no EV has the range to get that far.  Then one of the cockroaches is squished by a fast-moving Bolt EV’s tire.

So the idea was to highlight the Bolt’s class-leading range and smooth, quiet operation.  But the problem is that, in doing so, they put a negative light on both aspects of the car, rather than a positive one.

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Battery capacity degradation is to be expected with any battery-powered electric vehicle. The questions are how much degradation, how fast, and what is covered under the warranty. GM released the owner’s manual for the Chevy Bolt EV this week and in it, the automaker warns of potential battery degradation of up to 40% during the 8-year warranty period or within 100,000 miles.
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There seems to be an unlikely rivalry brewing amongst charging networks, and while at first it could have been seen as a good thing since competition is generally good for customers, it now seems to have reached a point of weird misinformation that is becoming detrimental to EV customers.

It started back in September after GM launched its marketing efforts for the Chevy Bolt EV and partnered up with ChargePoint for charging. Forbes immediately tried to make a pageview-grabbing war, ‘Tesla Supercharger vs ChargePoints’, but I think we shut that down quickly. (TL;DR: Tesla owners can use ChargePoint’s DC stations, and do often, but not as often – see below – as ChargePoint asserts)

It didn’t end there, as GM is now using CHAdeMO and Tesla Superchargers in its advertising of its new all-electric car, even though the vehicle doesn’t have the capability to use either of those two types of charging stations. 
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While the Chevy Bolt EV is currently only available in California and Oregon, it will soon make its way to the east coast thanks to a deal between GM and the city of New York. The de Blasio administration is ordering 50 all-electric Chevy Bolt with the first ones set to arrive in the spring and the order is expected to go up to 80 vehicles by the end of the fiscal year.

After a discount from GM and federal incentives, the city of New York is getting the vehicles at a very attractive price.
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In this week’s top stories: Tesla Enhanced Autopilot gets a release date, Audi’s first all-electric vehicle heads to the moon with SpaceX, countries make bids for Tesla Gigafactory 2, the latest Chevy Bolt EV news, and much more.

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I received a lot of negative comments after I called the Chevy Bolt EV a compliance car following GM’s cancellation of the nationwide availability at launch. My suspicion and some whispers I’d heard pointed toward GM losing thousands of dollars on each Bolt vehicle before accounting for ZEV credits in California and other markets.

Electrek talked off-the-record with a few people familiar with the Bolt EV program, and the figure of $10,000 was thrown around as the anticipated average loss per vehicle before incentive. Now Detroit News is corroborating today with a similar story citing a person familiar with the matter, claiming the anticipated loss on the $37,500 base price is roughly $8,000 to $9,000.
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As GM is starting to deliver the first Chevy Bolt EV shipments to select dealers in California, the company also launched its online design studio for potential customers to “build their own” Bolt EV. It’s our best look yet at all the options and pricing of GM’s first long-range all-electric vehicle.
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While we were disappointed to learn that the Chevy Bolt EV will not have a nationwide rollout until next year, GM is still going to deliver the electric car in California and Oregon by the end of the year and it is likely going to be one of the cheapest ways to get into electric vehicle ownership or leasing.

Yesterday, GM launched the Chevy Bolt EV’s leasing program and in short, you can get the Bolt EV for $309 a month and $0 cash down after incentives.
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In this week’s top stories: Tesla Model 3 prototype sightings and new details, GM delays its Chevy Bolt EV rollout into 2017, the latest solar and energy news, and much more.

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Since all of GM’s all-electric cars have so far been compliance cars produced only to comply with ZEV mandates, it wasn’t out-of-bounds for people to doubt them (myself included) when they announced that the Chevy Bolt EV will be available in all 50 states at launch.

It now looks like the doubt was warranted since after months of weakening their language about the launch, GM has now made it clear that only California and Oregon will get the Bolt in 2016, and the rest of the US will see a “slow flow” throughout 2017.
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The reviews are in, and the 2017 Chevy Bolt EV has topped all competition to become Motor Trend’s 2017 Car of the Year.  This is GM’s second electrified car to win the award, and the third electrified car and second pure EV overall (2011 Volt, 2013 Tesla Model S). Among other electric cars considered by Motor Trend were the Model S and X, both of which became finalists in their categories. More on them below.

Motor Trend praised the Bolt’s performance, packaging and roominess, ground-up engineering as an EV, efficiency and value at $37,495 or $29,950 after $7500 US Federal Tax rebate.

Of particular interest are the Bolt’s performance numbers, which time the Bolt EV at a 0-60 of 6.3 seconds.  With performance like that, Motor Trend said the Bolt could make “a helluva hot hatch” and that in “fun per mile” it competes against the Mazda3 or Golf, with similar performance and price range as a Golf GTI.  It’s no P100D, but for a small front-wheel-drive EV, the car has a lot of power.
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The Chevy Bolt assembly line began putting together customer cars today in Orion Township, Michigan according to the AP.  Unfortunately for most of us, the cars will only reach California and Oregon in 2016 before a wider rollout next year…
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On a recent Saturday afternoon, Kim Reynolds from Motor Trend brought a Chevy Bolt to a Tesla meetup in Orange County, California, to see what a group of local Tesla owners thought about Chevy’s new entry into the market.

This longtime EV driver was fortunate enough to be at the meetup, and I must say I was quite impressed.  I’m predisposed to being impressed by any serious EV, but Chevy really does seem to have done a good job with this one.

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There has been a lot of speculation around GM’s production capacity for the Chevy Bolt EV, a $37,500 all-electric vehicle with 60kWh battery and 238 mile range. We’ve heard numbers between 25,000 and 50,000 units per year. Now LG Chem, GM’s battery supplier for the Bolt, says that they are expecting to produce “over 30,000” battery packs for the vehicle program next year.
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GM is still promising to start shipping the Chevy Bolt EV by the end of the year. After some fear of delays, it looks like it is about to keep its promise as dealerships in California and Oregon are reporting being granted their initial allocation for the upcoming all-electric vehicle.
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If you listen to the media and industry analysts, there’s an ongoing battle between the Tesla Model 3 and the Chevy Bolt EV over market shares in the midsize electric vehicle segment. That’s even before either car hits the market. I’ve already argued that it’s a nonexistent battle but it feels like we need to clarify further.

Over a year ago, I wrote “GM is making a $37,500 car that would sell for $20,000 if it wasn’t electric, while Tesla is trying to make a $35,000 car that would sell for $35,000 if it wasn’t electric,” and I still think it’s true today now that we know more about both vehicles.

Now that doesn’t mean that the Bolt will not sell, I actually think it will sell quite well, but I don’t think they will be stealing reservation holders from Tesla. Of course, GM disagrees. In reference to the ~400,000 Model 3 reservation holders, Steve Majoros, Marketing Director for Chevrolet, said last week: “I think we’ll get some of those people”.
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GM confirmed the base price of the Chevy Bolt EV today. It reiterated that it will start at $37,495 before any EV incentives for the base LT trim. And now, the automaker also confirmed the price for the Canadian version of the car.

Surprisingly, it will be significantly cheaper in Canada and I’m not talking about electric vehicle incentives.
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GM has been slowly trickling down information about the Chevy Bolt EV in the past few weeks ahead of a release in “late 2016”. Last week, the automaker confirmed an impressive range of 238 miles on its 60 kWh battery pack.

Today it continued releasing information by confirming that DC fast-charging will be offered as a $750 option. GM also confirmed that the Bolt EV will be offered in two trims: LT and Premier.
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…You’ve done the first 240 miles of California highway with relative ease. But how do you do the second 240 miles? And 3rd…? In short, can you drive cross country?

I’m more than impressed with the Chevy Bolt so far – it has exceeded my expectations by at least 20 miles of range and during my test drive at CES earlier this year in Las Vegas I found it to be very roomy and sporty and frankly a lot of fun to drive. Chevy should absolutely be applauded. We covered the recent reviews here.

But as an EV buyer, I’m not yet satisfied with Chevy’s solution to cross country driving…you know: the quintessential American Road Trip…
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Now that mostly everyone has had a chance to catch up on GM and Chevy’s recent announcement about their Bolt EV, we thought it would be helpful to roundup some of the initial first impressions about the car from members of the press that were flown to California by Chevy to test the Bolt’s range…

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After only talking about “more than 200 miles” for over a year now, GM finally announced today the expected EPA-rated range of its upcoming all-electric Chevy Bolt EV. The automaker expects the EPA to give the Bolt an impressive range of 238 miles.
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