The Chevrolet Bolt EV

The situation around the availability of the Chevy Bolt EV in Europe, where it is sold as the Opel Ampera E, has been even more difficult than in the US.

So much so that Opel has now asked its Norwegian dealers to stop taking orders for the new all-electric vehicle as supply can’t match demand.
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It’s often expected for new models to receive low reliability ratings, but Chevy has bucked that trend with the Bolt.  In Consumer Reports’ new reliability ratings released yesterday, while Chevy as an overall brand scored relatively low (18th place), the Bolt came in as the most reliable car the manufacturer sells, out of 15 models (the highest number of models of any manufacturer ranked by CR).

This is great news, because the Bolt is a great car in pretty much every other way too.  It won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year and many other awards, and we really like it, even though it’s not without its quibbles.  Despite all these awards, sales initially lagged (though they’re picking up as the car is made more available nationwide), so perhaps CR’s rating will help GM sell some more Bolts – if they actually want to. We’ll see if Chevy puts the Bolt, their most reliable car, front and center in its national ad campaign about winning awards for reliability.

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After testing their all-electric and autonomous Chevy Bolt EV prototypes in California, Michigan, and Arizona, GM’s Cruise Automation vehicles are going to New York City to further test their system in a difficult traffic environment.
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On Thursday, GM announced a pretty big move in promoting Pamela Fletcher, who led the team that successfully launched the Bolt EV, to the newly created position of ‘Vice President, Global Electric Vehicle Programs’. Before that, her title was Executive Chief Engineer Autonomous & Electrified Vehicles and New Technology so it can be assumed that this is more of a creation of a new group inside of GM rather than a promotion for Fletcher.  She was also chief engineer behind the impressive Volt Propulsion System (Voltec) so I’d be hard-pressed to find someone more qualified to lead GM’s EV programs.

The creation of the group could be a big deal not just for Fletcher but for GM’s electric vehicle programs and hopefully, it is the first step to bigger changes within the organization. Here’s why…

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GM’s Chevy Bolt EV sales steadily moved higher leading to national availability in August, but last month it got its first more serious jump in deliveries.

The automaker confirmed its September delivery results today and it delivered an impressive 2,632 Bolt EVs.
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While GM has often talked about believing in the electric future, the American automaker had yet to announce specific goals when it comes to its electric car lineup after the Chevy Bolt EV.

Today, GM updated those plans with a more serious commitment to electric vehicles.
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Let me preface this by highlighting the fact that there’s currently no fully self-driving car on the roads and the prototypes currently in test programs are far from perfect and therefore don’t represent the potential of a true level 5 autonomous driving system.

Now with this out of the way, it seems like people just can’t stop crashing into GM’s ‘self-driving’ Bolt EV prototypes.
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Chevy Bolt EV’s range on a single charge keeps impressing. Officially, the vehicle has an EPA-rated range of 238 miles , but owners have been able to get more out of the vehicle – often up to 300 miles.

But now hypermilers have pushed it even further and achieved a range of over 750 km (466 miles) on a single charge.
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As part of its effort to bring self-driving vehicles to market, GM has claimed today that their autonomous driving division has produced “the first real self-driving car (really).”
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A few months ago, we reported on how the all-electric Chevy Bolt EV has the opportunity to take away VW Golf GTI’s “hot-hatch” crown based on impressive performance in the segment.

GM seems up to the challenge and invited us to test it out at an autocross event last week.
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The Chevy Bolt EV is now officially available in every state and it helped GM deliver a record 2,052 units last month – about 100 more electric cars or 5% higher than in July.
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On Friday, GM sent out a message to some early Bolt EV owners warning them they are recalling a few battery packs after detecting an issue that could cause them to shut down inexplicably.
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Today, LG Electronics announced plans to establish a new U.S. factory for “advanced electric vehicle (EV) components” in Michigan.

The Korean electronic manufacturer made the announcement after it saw its revenue from vehicle components grow 43% to more than $1.5 billion, which they attribute “in large part to the successful collaboration with General Motors on the popular Chevrolet Bolt EV.”

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Maven, GM’s own car-sharing and mobility platform, has a special rental service called ‘Maven Gig’ just for ride-sharing drivers, like Lyft and Uber drivers.

The all-electric Chevy Bolt EV is already an important part of the program, but they are now expanding the vehicle’s presence as they expand Maven Gig across the US.
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GM’s autonomous driving division, Cruise Automation, announced the launch of the beta version of its autonomous ride-sharing app currently being used by employees in San Francisco, where they operate a fleet of autonomous Chevy Bolt EV test vehicles.

The new service is called ‘Cruise Anywhere’ and the company claims that it is already becoming the primary mode of transport for some of its employees.
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Today, GM confirmed having delivered a record number of Chevy Bolt EVs in the US last month: 1,971 units. It brings total delivered since the launch in December last year to over 10,000 units and 9,563 units since the beginning of the year.

While it’s a few hundred more than last month, GM is still lagging behind its original projections and inventories are increasing. 
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A little nugget of information came our way while reading a Reuters report on UAW and their reaction to a car sale slump at GM.

GM is reviewing whether to cancel at least six passenger cars in the U.S. market after 2020, including the Chevrolet Volt hybrid, which could be replaced in 2022 with a new gasoline-electric crossover model, Reuters has learned from people familiar with the plan.

Gosh it is hard to believe how slow the auto industry is compared to others like the electronics industry. Can you imagine Apple’s iPhones in 2022? Who will be President then? Will we have a civilization on Mars?

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GM is trying to get some traction behind its Chevy Bolt EV as sales have been mostly flat for the first half of the year and now inventories are piling up.

In a bizarre press release about the vehicle today, GM pitches the Chevy Bolt EV by favorably comparing it to a 45-year-old lunar rover.
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GM has confirmed that its Orion plant, where they build the Chevy Bolt EV, will see an extended shutdown as part of the automaker’s broader effort to reduce inventories.

It is sending mixed messages about the all-electric vehicle program.
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Albeit slowly, GM’s Chevy Bolt EV sales are still growing – reaching a new high of 1,642 units in the US last month.

It brings the total delivered of the new all-electric vehicle in the US to 7,592 units since the beginning of the year and just over 8,000 since its launch in December 2016.
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