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Bolt EV: 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year
- Thread starter Jeff N
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- Electric Vehicles
Maybe he's friends with that SoCal dealer that told Cleantechnica the Bolt was being delayed to 1st quarter 2017 in Cali. Lol
That must be so cool to have Mary's personal phone number and a crystal ball for fact checking. Sweet.
A dirty little secret is that not all states have citizens who are willing to buy electric cars.
Maine is one such state. There are about 1100 plugins registered, Fewer than 1 per 1000 drivers use an EV.
Compare to Oregon, with over 10,000 EV's, has 1 per 400 drivers using EVs.
In order for them to sell pizza in Maine, there must be pizza eaters. It's not Domino's fault.
3Victoria
Active Member
Yeah, even a "EV nut" Chevy dealer in Maine probably is only selling 1 or 2 Volts a month, which means barely any allocation for Bolts.
Who knows? We often forget that the internet is a small fraction of life. Very few car owners actually post on auto enthusiast sites.
I thought I properly gave my confidence in that statement.
No, Maine is not a populous state, and so total volume of sales is not high, so in order to buy (for example) a Tesla, we need to drive 200 miles. So electric cars are not easily available. So sales are low. There is plenty of INTEREST, I can assure you. We have the same problem with many commodities. There are other factors as well, of course, like long distance drives being common, aging population, and lack of a strong middle class.
No crappy pizza is Domino's fault. /analogybroken
Thank you kindly.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I would expect GM to do a first delivery PR event for this car like they did with the original Volt, so when it happens, I'm pretty sure the media would get notice.
3Victoria
Active Member
So how did the Bolt win that award then ... the criteria say "car have been sold" - past tense 
So how did the Bolt win that award then ... the criteria say "car have been sold" - past tense
GM paid off Motortrend, of course!
*sarcasm off*
BluestarE3
Active Member
Maybe waiting to see if the letter they're a party to will yield favorable results?
Automakers ask Trump not to make them produce electric cars in first lobbying effort since election
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I question GM's ability to produce (as in "acquire batteries in order to provide") 10K units p.a. for sale in Germany - GM talk of 30K units p.a. globally; I expect that is a modest prediction, and for sure GM could manufacture many more "cars", I am just sceptical that GM have access to the battery production capacity, right now, for production of far more EV cars
Tesla aren't going to ship any M3's for quite some time yet, but they talk of tooling up for 500,000 units p.a. from 2018 onwards (I think?) - i.e. they expect to have battery production capacity for that sort of volume. Whether they will, or they won't, we will see in due course ... but comparison of 30K GM units in 2017 with 500K Tesla units in 2018 doesn't look comparable, however much Tesla-hype and GM-modesty I chuck in the mix ,,,
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
My last count has GM able to manufacture about 50k Bolts a year, with LG Chem's current capacity. Depending on if LG Chem's plant planned for Europe is a cell plant or a pack plant (and whether it manufactures the same type of cells the Bolt will use), that may expand.
Germany is a special market that Tesla haven't really penetrated much into, with the government heavily favoring its domestic automakers, Germany Big 3, in policy (for example the recent tax credit cut off at 60k Euros was designed to keep Tesla out, although Tesla went around it by offering a stripped base model in the last couple of days). I wouldn't be too surprised even if the Ampera-e outsells the Model 3 in Germany (at least in the first couple of years, hard to tell long term).
Currently the i3 (1748 YTD Sept) is handily outselling the Model S (1178 YTD Sept) and Model X (237 YTD Sept) in Germany, but in the US and worldwide, it's flipped.
EV Sales: Germany September 2016
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
Over here, I bet you a base Ampera-e will be cheaper than a base Model 3.
Going by the experience with Model S and Model X pricing in Germany, it is reasonable to expect the base Model 3 to start at about 40K Euro, perhaps for marketing reasons they will start a little below 40, say at 39.5K Euro.
The Ampera-e is competing against the updated i3 and the soon updated e-Golf, both of which start at about 35K Euro. And it's an Opel, which means their offerings traditionally tend to always undercut the pricing of VW by a couple of Euros.
Add to that the fact that we don't know yet, whether Tesla will join the German EV incentive programm. Opel can be taken for granted, but as the current scheme seems to be designed to specifically exclude Tesla, I can't see them joining. This would mean another 4K Euro disadvantage for the Model 3.
Being a Model 3 reservation holder myself I of course hope that my predictions turn out to be wrong, but I am realistic enough to not set my hopes up too high.
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AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
Yes, but the Model 3 won't be the equivalent of 35K USD over here (~32K Euro), but rather start at about 20% above that, which again cuts out quite a lot of people. And remember that's for the naked base model that hardly anyone will buy anyway.
Now one could ask me "how do you know that Model 3 will start at about 40K Euro? Pricing hasn't even been announced yet." Sure it hasn't, but going by experience from Model S and X, it seems an extremely realistic bet.
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Yes, just like they did when the 2011 Volt won MT COTY in November 2010 even though it didn't reach the first retail customer until mid-December 2010 (just like the Bolt EV is likely to).
SabrToothSqrl
Active Member
Maybe waiting to see if the letter they're a party to will yield favorable results?
Automakers ask Trump not to make them produce electric cars in first lobbying effort since election
Please mommy! Don't make us make BEV. Please?! It's super hard, and we suck at it. We like dirt and grease and oil and pollution. It's fun!
*barf.
Add another award for the Bolt...Car & Driver put the Bolt on its 2017 10Best list.
It's funny to see people trash the Bolt and laud the Model 3, when no one outside of Tesla actually knows what the Model 3, if and when it is ever introduced, will be like, especially at the base price. Meanwhile, Chevy has put out a mass market EV that is getting rave reviews from every car media outlet that's had one to drive.
I already know that I won't be replacing my P85D with another Tesla, but at this point I'm going to seriously consider a Bolt when it comes time to replace my VW Rabbit (though in all likelihood, I am not going to continue with any BEV after the Tesla is gone).
It's funny to see people trash the Bolt and laud the Model 3, when no one outside of Tesla actually knows what the Model 3, if and when it is ever introduced, will be like, especially at the base price. Meanwhile, Chevy has put out a mass market EV that is getting rave reviews from every car media outlet that's had one to drive.
I already know that I won't be replacing my P85D with another Tesla, but at this point I'm going to seriously consider a Bolt when it comes time to replace my VW Rabbit (though in all likelihood, I am not going to continue with any BEV after the Tesla is gone).
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