Featured Chevrolet Bolt- 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

Leaf in the US, looks to sell about 14,000 in a year. I don't expect the bolt to compete in Europe or Japan or China, but it could easily do 25,000 per year (world wide). We can hope a new redesigned leaf in 2017 does better.

Agree model 3 will kill these figures. I expect at least 150,000 in 2018, and that is production constrained. If they can figure out how to produce it faster, it will sell more.

 

a lot of people want a tesla because of the hype, but the bolt may be more practical.

 

I'm one of those people but not because of the hype.

Model 3 after the tax credit will probably be less than $10K more than a bolt, but act more like a bmw model 3. How much does a bmw 3 cost? Well probably more than a tesla model 3 if it has similar performance. A bolt will be like a well performing honda fit. If you want a electric fit, are you willing to pay that much of a premium to go electric? My guess is probably not, but YMMV.

If tesla does not deliver, well the reservations will go away. If they do, they can sell 400,000 units in 2 years .... Which is why they can afford to give that much performance for cost. They are designing for volume.

 

I guess I don't have it too bad here. The Chevy dealer I bought the Volt from and the Tesla repair facility are less than a mile from each other.

 

good luck getting a model 3 for base price. but the same may be said for bolt, we'll find out.
and yes, i drive a prius, a bolt will be fine for me, and i suspect a lot of others. i'm not interested in an Impractical electric sports car, but i'm sure many will be. may the best car win!

 

I guess Bolt would primarily need to be charged at home by level 2 (is it?). So, wouldn't a Bolt owner need to be a homeowner to install garage charger? A home renter would be at the mercy of landlord's permission to install a charger and the circuit to support it. And condo, townhouse owners ... are some HOAs allowing access to charging? Some apartments have any EV charge spots?

So, to buy a Bolt, you pay or sign up for the base price at purchase time, $37,500 - discount. Then at tax time hopefully can take advantage of credits. So, you can get down to about $29k for a car that's about the size of a VW Golf is it. I think a Bolt is for people who happen to be looking for an EV. And that would be folks who are looking to be green and clean.

 

you can charge a bolt on 120v or 240v. home charging is nice unless you know of places you can charge where regularly parked. these are more available in some area's than others, and some people can charge at work.
29k is not a lot of money for this size car anymore. who will want one? no one can answer that question, it is what it is.

 

As with a lot of things in life, it depends.

If you do a lot of daily driving, more than 120v can resupply, then yes level 2 would be beneficial but that's actually a lot of miles (14 hrs charge time @ 4mi/hr=56miles x 365=15,000+ miles). And that's just to keep the battery 100% full every morning. With 240 miles in the bank, plenty of cushion.

If someone drives 100 miles/day like my wife (~25k/yr), then 240v would be needed.

 

Thank you for the responses. I'll keep an eye on EV car happenings. My cordless lawnmower is working out great and it's a step in right direction towards EVing.

 

I said $10K more ;-) The bolts base price is higher than the projected model 3 base price. My guess is the bolt will be discounted by the time in 2018 my number comes up (I deposited the first day). Tesla does not inflate the sticker, but I'm sure I will end up buying options like the upgraded sound system and awd and auto pilot to get my car faster.

What is better about the model 3 to me (and of course this may change if tesla is not able to perform, but they did wonderfully on the model S)?

1) Better drivers and passenger seats
2) Charger network so I can drive to houston or dallas and easily make it back home
3) Autopilot is really cool.
4) Safety including being able to lock things in a frunk and trunk
5) Luxury
6) Acceleration
7) Handling

The bolt has
1) Longer range
2) Availability
?) hatchback versus trunk - which is a benefit to some but a disadvantage to me.

Hopefully both cars will do well. If you didn't sign up early you aren't getting a model 3 until probably 2020. The backlog of over 300,000 cars is going to take time to clear.

I've moved and have just a small yard. Electric lawnmower is definitely great here. If you have a big yard I'd probably go gas. Easy to segment.

 

Still using a 36 year old Craftsman corded electric lawnmower here.

 

Got an Ego leaf blower last year. Handy, powerful, but suffers from the same problems EVs do:
1. Extra cost (in this case $200versus half that for gas or corded, additional battery ~$150)
2. Every so often you have to charge the darn thing. Nice charger, maybe half an hour, just time enough for a drink.

On the GM versus Tesla comparison:
1. Availability sooner to the impulse buyer - GM (here Tesla's waiting list counts against it)
2. Dealer availability - GM (though only some dealers will be trained)
3. Build quality - GM (traditional car makers generally score higher. Tesla has gotten dinged in reviews recently.)

Will be interesting to see how the ramp up in production goes for both.

Bolt delivering now to some CA and OR dealers with a first year 20-30k vehicles planed, to 50k/year thereafter depending on sales.

Anyone seen the "made in the USA %" content on the sticker?

 

some people make the assumption that because tesla has x number of reservations, that they will have that similar demand every year. i hope it's true, but i believe that once pent up demand is over, that annual number will shrink to a much smaller one.
i think tesla has to be careful about ramping up production capability too high and sitting idle after a few years.

 

I think tesla has been dealing with that for a long time. People thought they would never get to 20,000 cars, then never to 50,000 in a year, then ...

Even if they only sell half the current reservations, they will have proven all those doubters wrong. If a model 3 with 215 mile range, and sports sedan comfort, luxury, and handling, ends up costing less than a bolt in 2020, why would it not sell at least 100,000 copies a year? Can they do 500,000 per year in 2020, I doubt that but there's a chance. Remember they still have the S and X, and plan on a Y (for S3XY) built on the 3 platform.

If they build for 2 shifts to do 200,000 model 3s and Ys, and demand is 100,000 instead, you simply run one shift. If they do actually get 500,000 demand, they need a plant in china or europe too for that demand.

 

It's high enough to count has a domestic car for CAFE.
GM had planned on rolling out the Spark EV to a much wider market. The industry was expecting the domestic and foreign fleet designations were going to be abolished for cars with the CAFE changes, but that didn't happen. Being foreign, the Spark EV became less valuable for CAFE considerations.

 

anything is possible, but anything is not probable. cheaper than bolt? who knows. will there be more competition by 2020? maybe. will they regularly sell 100,000 or more per year? no idea, i hope so.

 

Well the base model 3 is $35,000 - and yes it won't be available for a while because they have around 400,000 orders, and will build the more expensive versions first. If it is like the model S, some of these orders will disapear (deposits are refundable) but more will take their place as it gets closer to a 6 month wait window. At that time I'm sure the nicely equiped base model will ship. Will it still be $35,000? I don't really know, it depends on costs, and tesla probably doesn't even know these yet, even though its only a year away from production.

The base bolt is $36,620 + destination. 2017 Bolt EV: All-Electric Vehicle | Chevrolet. This is more than the model 3. The battery from lg chem is $145/kwh which is similar to what tesla should be able to do in the gigafactory. Still the non-recuring engineering (NRE) and tooling should cost a lot more per car given the projected much lower sales. If the bolt is a hit, then the gen II will likely grow bigger and price will fall. GM stated that they expect if the bolt is a hit battery prices will fall to $100/kwh. That would be a price reduction of $8,700 for today's pack down to $6000 for a lighter smaller pack with the same energy in a redesign 5 years from now.

As a gut check for 100,000 volume for the model 3 and Y (SUV version) once back orders are filled. Tesla in the last quarter sold 24,500 model S and X, which puts them on a run rate of 98,000/year world wide on a much more expensive car. Tesla of course wants to sell 500,000/year in 2019 or 2020, so to them "only" 100,00 3 and Y would be very disappointing. If that happened S and X would probably drop to 40,000, and roadster might make 10,000 so we are only at 150,000 vehicles per year, not nearly a industry changing force. I expect tesla to be agressive at price reduction while keeping quality up to try and get to high numbers.

 

what are we discussing again?

 

I think the Model 3 will do just fine once they get them out on the roads. As people see them in person and watch review videos on them, chances are they're going to want one for themselves as well.

My concern for the Bolt is that GM won't market it outside of certain areas aside from California. And not every dealer is willing or able to put up the expensive CCS chargers at their dealership that GM is demanding in order to sell the Bolt, when you realize that most of them can't even sell the Volt unless they massively discount it first.

Sure, they'll sell a Volt or Bolt to someone specifically asking for one. But for that person who comes in and is wondering what car they could get that uses less gas and requires less maintenance, I'm sure the dealer is going to recommend those 20 Chevy Cruzes they have, instead of the Volt or Bolt that's hiding out in the back of the lot.

I'm hoping that both cars will succeed, because ultimately the goal is more plug-ins on the road, and less need to burn gas. I just hope GM is committed to selling them, and at a minimum, puts them in regional car shows so as to expose people to the Bolt.

 

Don't discount regulatory uncertainty and the tax law uncertainty.

Will the Fed Rebate even be available when Tesla is selling the Model; 3? In what form or amount? How will that affect pricing and thus sales?

Fun times we live in.