GM's official 0-60 EV estimate for the new generation Volt is 8.4 seconds. GM's official preliminary estimate for 9-60 in the Bolt is "less than 7". That is at least a 20% improvement. The car magazines usually measure better numbers so I expect MotorTrend will probably say the Bolt goes 0-60 in under 6.5 seconds.
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Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)
- Thread starter FredTMC
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- bolt chevy Electric Vehicles review
Yes, the bolt was spec'd with utility in mind, but performance didn't require any thought, it was already there. They could've had access to all of it if they had made the bolt a RWD instead of FWD. I think selling a $37k crossover that was faster than a $25k VW GTI would be easier than trying to sell the same crossover as being more functional than a $15k Honda Fit.
I totally agree that GM will sell all of their initial run. I just see them succeeding in spite of themselves, not because their design was a home run.
GM was also hampered by building the Bolt on a modified GM Gamma platform:
GM Gamma platform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It hasn't been used much in the US, but it has been used for several cars overseas. Julian Cox has a lecture on how the Model 3 will collapse the traditional auto industry:
Charged EVs | How the Tesla Model 3 could trigger the collapse of the traditional auto industry
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/how...ld-trigger-the-collapse-of-the-auto-industry/
He talks about the Bolt and points out that the ICE car built on the same platform sells for around $18K and the Bolt costs $20K more. He doesn't think it's worth it.
He also talks about how the iCE makers need to produce crappy EVs nobody wants. They have the engineering expertise to build a truly compelling EV that is on par with Tesla, but if they did, they would trigger their own demise. Tesla is the only company in the car industry with a big enough battery supply to mass produce an EV. There simply are not enough Li-ion cells made in the world for anyone to produce more than about 50,000 decent range EVs a year. Even if one company sucked up all the world supply except Tesla's, they would struggle to be able to make as many cars as Tesla is planning to make. And nobody could suck up the supply, there are too many buyers from multiple industries.
If mainstream car makers made a compelling EV, it would be signalling to their own customer base that the era of ICEs was over and they would crash demand for their ICEs while being unable to fill the demand for EVs.
He predicts that what will happen when the word gets around about the Model 3 is that demand will exceed demand for some time and a lot of people who need a car will lease rather than buy while waiting to get a Model 3 (or Y). Then when those leases are up, the car dealers will be getting tons of lease returns they struggle to sell because everyone wants an EV. The prices for used ICEs will deflate and dealers will lose their shirts on used cars. As Tesla fill demand for EVs, sales and leases of new ICEs will slump even more and the ICE makers will be like Kodak when the world went digital sitting there with a whole lot of tech nobody wants.
Economically it's a very disruptive scenario. A bunch of major players in one of the world's largest industries will be gone, and the rest will be left much weaker than they are today. Governments will probably jump in to build gigafactories and the car companies will scramble to convert their existing fleet to EVs which will be marginal (ICE chassis with EV powertrains) and eventually they will redesign their cars, those that survive. Tesla might end up merging with one of the failing auto companies to keep it afloat and in the bargain gain manufacturing facilities on every continent which is what they wanted to do all along.
Making so-so EVs does give the company some experience with EVs that can be built on later. But mostly they are just trying to keep the ICE party going as long as possible while throwing a sop to the future tech.
I expect the Bolt to sell OK among people who are familiar with the Leaf, Volt, etc. and want something with longer range, but it will otherwise not be a hit.
GM Gamma platform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It hasn't been used much in the US, but it has been used for several cars overseas. Julian Cox has a lecture on how the Model 3 will collapse the traditional auto industry:
Charged EVs | How the Tesla Model 3 could trigger the collapse of the traditional auto industry
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/how...ld-trigger-the-collapse-of-the-auto-industry/
He talks about the Bolt and points out that the ICE car built on the same platform sells for around $18K and the Bolt costs $20K more. He doesn't think it's worth it.
He also talks about how the iCE makers need to produce crappy EVs nobody wants. They have the engineering expertise to build a truly compelling EV that is on par with Tesla, but if they did, they would trigger their own demise. Tesla is the only company in the car industry with a big enough battery supply to mass produce an EV. There simply are not enough Li-ion cells made in the world for anyone to produce more than about 50,000 decent range EVs a year. Even if one company sucked up all the world supply except Tesla's, they would struggle to be able to make as many cars as Tesla is planning to make. And nobody could suck up the supply, there are too many buyers from multiple industries.
If mainstream car makers made a compelling EV, it would be signalling to their own customer base that the era of ICEs was over and they would crash demand for their ICEs while being unable to fill the demand for EVs.
He predicts that what will happen when the word gets around about the Model 3 is that demand will exceed demand for some time and a lot of people who need a car will lease rather than buy while waiting to get a Model 3 (or Y). Then when those leases are up, the car dealers will be getting tons of lease returns they struggle to sell because everyone wants an EV. The prices for used ICEs will deflate and dealers will lose their shirts on used cars. As Tesla fill demand for EVs, sales and leases of new ICEs will slump even more and the ICE makers will be like Kodak when the world went digital sitting there with a whole lot of tech nobody wants.
Economically it's a very disruptive scenario. A bunch of major players in one of the world's largest industries will be gone, and the rest will be left much weaker than they are today. Governments will probably jump in to build gigafactories and the car companies will scramble to convert their existing fleet to EVs which will be marginal (ICE chassis with EV powertrains) and eventually they will redesign their cars, those that survive. Tesla might end up merging with one of the failing auto companies to keep it afloat and in the bargain gain manufacturing facilities on every continent which is what they wanted to do all along.
Making so-so EVs does give the company some experience with EVs that can be built on later. But mostly they are just trying to keep the ICE party going as long as possible while throwing a sop to the future tech.
I expect the Bolt to sell OK among people who are familiar with the Leaf, Volt, etc. and want something with longer range, but it will otherwise not be a hit.
True, but a RWD utility vehicle would have a difficult time selling in snow country. If you want to sell in the northern climates you make FWD or AWD.
There's also a marketing aspect - the average car buyer has been conditioned to believe "FWD good, RWD bad", hence all the hand-wringing over the RWD S's snow performance when the car was new.
It's especially amusing when you realize the main reason Detroit went FWD was for ease/lower cost of manufacturing. Better snow performance was a bonus, not the "driving" factor (sorry, bad pun).
okay, I get the marketing perspective. I don't think it was a good decision, but I get it.
Breezy
Member
Front wheel drive (or AWD) does appeal to average car buyers like me in northern climates, conditioned as we are.
"Sources? Sources? We don't need no stinkin' sources!" What is this, Wikipedia?!?
Seriously, though - no source beyond faded memories of 80's "Car and Driver" and "Road and Track", and I threw all those out back in college days.
Yes, better packaging results in smaller, lighter cars, better fuel economy, easier/faster/lower cost to assemble (drop the entire drivetrain in as a unit versus install the engine/tranny and rear diff separately, then connect driveshaft). Point is, everything I remember reading from the FWD transition in the early 80's said FWD was initially driven by manufacturing needs (lower cost, faster build time, meeting CAFE requirements), not as a selling feature per se. People didn't think FWD was "better" until Detroit spent lots of marketing dollars to convince us it was better (after which it did become a selling feature).
And not everyone is easy to convince. I still don't think FWD (no, I'm not talking abut the doors on the X!) is any better - especially since I live in a northern climate and do my share of winter/snow driving. Yes,I would love to get the "D" on my TM3, but if I have to let it go, I'm glad the single motor TM3 is an RWD car
eye.surgeon
Active Member
The genius of Tesla's supercharger effort is that it takes two cars with very similar capability, the Model 3 and the Bolt, and makes the Tesla much more useful. Without the supercharger network even very capable EVs like the upcoming crop of Porsche/Mercedes/Audi/BMW EVs will still be primarily city cars.
By the time all those cars appear, 3rd party chargers will be everywhere.
It's a chicken/egg problem right now, so the early adopters (Leaf/Bolt) will be relegated to daily commute vehicles or require destination chargers (vacation home) for longer trips . Once it's ridiculously obvious (to the reluctant folks) that this EVs "fad" seems to be catching on, then pay-for-use chargers will appear wherever they're needed or profitable.
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andrerodpt
Member
Well... that would be very bad for all of us.
We need more brands on board the EV boat. I dont want any of those brands to flunk their EV programs.
They don't want that either, especially the premium euro brands who are having their customers drawn away by Tesla. It is in their business interests to have a good, fast highway DC CCS charging infrastructure installed in the US as soon as possible.
Because of the relative mix and volume of cars, there is less internal business pressure (maybe even negative pressure near-term) on domestic makers like GM to build-out a DC charging network but their cars, like the Bolt, can piggyback on the Euro makers efforts.
andrerodpt
Member
True. But is just me that thinks that we should aim ASAP for some sort of high-speed charging standard? Why not other brands paying to use Tesla's type of connector/SC?
andrerodpt
Member
Its a first hand account written by a potential Bolt customer who replays second and third hand information from talking to dealer salescritters at one dealer so there are already several reasons to question the report's reliability.
Some parts of the article don't add up. For instance it talks about ordering in August and delivering cars in October but previous reports based on documents published by GM have indicated October as the start of production rather than as a delivery date. Realistically, there would normally be several weeks of post-production quality assurance on the first 100+ manufactured cars before they begin distributing them to dealers and thus customers. So, order in August, build in October/November and deliver in November/December would be a typical GM timeline based on GM's prior statements.
I'm skeptical of this story based on the information sourcing but we shall see.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The 911 is actually a poor example if you are going to use a counter-example. It is rear engine and the engine foot print is well above the wheel footprint and there is no room for a trunk (so it is basically the same limitations as the Bolt except flipped backwards). The eRuf shows how the layout is a poor fit for an EV design.
The closest ICE cars to an "EV mindset" are sandwich based designs like the Smart Fortwo. These you can put a floor battery and rear motor within the wheel footprint (allowing a trunk at the same time) with no modification to the chassis. However, that was not an accident. The Daimler sandwich design (since 1993) was conceived to support an EV version: "At the same time a further version was presented which featured a 40 kW/54 hp electric induction motor, whose battery gave a range of 150 kilometres in urban operation"
Redefining the compact car: Vision A 93 and ‘Studie A’ | marsMediaSite
Breezy
Member
The Bolt design uses space very efficiently. I'm not seeing the limitations.
I can understand why on this forum there would be a strong preference toward RWD vehicles with a frunk. I can see how that would be considered the correct way to design an EV.
However, I expect that going forward we will see all different configurations of EV, depending on the use case and the goals of the design.
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