Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)

[wycolo]

Sure the Volt had a tiny battery but it had to carry around an ICE plus transmission (dead weight which was rarely used). I'm a fan of having a ModelS for long trips and a tiny EV for zipping around locally. Would that a Twizzy could be legal here in the States!!
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[dhrivnak]

Let's leave the (self) applause for getting a long range BEV to those who had no other choice but to buy new, and those who will actually drive enough to overcome the higher pollution over an ICEV as it comes off the production line.
Driving a lot "for fun" or because "trains are smelly", self congratulations for driving a BEV really is telling more of one's ego than actual footprint. I'm here walking, cycling and taking trains all the time, breathing tire dust which increasingly is being caused by BEVs. I'll appreciate zero emissions from cars in urban conditions running on batteries (I am asthmatic) but to be frank, a Golf GTE does that for me also. And it only needs a tiny battery to do it. A first gen LEAF does it, Ioniq with a tiny mattery does it. Volt.
Now, the Bolt is no charging champion of course. With more and more new BEVs having proper charging speeds (the less than half battery size first gen Ioniq still keeps up with Bolt over 1000km), there is less and less need to "go big", pretty hard to defend such a purchase.

In an ICEV, the size of the tank doesn't matter much for the environment. It's all about mileage. With a BEV, a double sized battery (compared too 28kWh which seems to be very workable for actual owners who do also go beyond local errants) just adds one to three years before you even break even on your pollution compared to say a petrol Golf or Civic.
I bet VERY few BEV owners realize let alone acknowledge this.

I used to be such a fan of longer-is-better, but I recently had to accept the data, long range is a litteral waste that requires justification equally as much as a car on petrol when there are similar priced BEVs on sale. The decision to pay extra, lots extra, for the larger "tank" is a conscious one.
Rather than intentionally making cars seem cheaper by deducting average fuel cost from the shown price, Tesla might want to list environmental impact of their products and especially break-even mileage vs a sensible Polo 3-cylinder or Prius Prime.

It depends on one’s vehicle needs. We have a grandson 400 miles distant, aging parents 650 miles away and other family 400 miles in another direction. One cannot het there with a Bolt or LEAF. But you can with a Model 3. We used to use our Volt for such trips. But why burn the gas we we can now drive gas free?

 

[Cloxxki]

Sure the Volt had a tiny battery but it had to carry around an ICE plus transmission (dead weight which was rarely used). I'm a fan of having a ModelS for long trips and a tiny EV for zipping around locally. Would that a Twizzy could be legal here in the States!!
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I don't know what that ICE and tank in the Volt actually added. The gearbox may not have been such a big addition, it served a purpose for the EM as well as I seem to recall.
It's a range extender. Something to prevent a household to need another car or to rent a car every months or so to make a longer trip.
Very few people in the grand scheme of things exceed the Volt's range on a daily basis. If everyone who could get by with a Volt and have access to home or work charging overnight would have one, most smog would clear up instantly.
What's initial footprint on a Volt vs a long range Model 3 (before factoring in energy source), does anyone know?

 

[Cloxxki]

It depends on one’s vehicle needs. We have a grandson 400 miles distant, aging parents 650 miles away and other family 400 miles in another direction. One cannot het there with a Bolt or LEAF. But you can with a Model 3. We used to use our Volt for such trips. But why burn the gas we we can now drive gas free?

If you absolutely can't hop on a bus, train or ride share, in terms of per-trip emissions the Tesla is of course cleaner.
Adding a new Tesla every 3 years for instance is of course doing only Tesla favors, not the environment.
Also, you could commute the Volt and rent a Tesla for weekend trips.
A Tesla is an easy way but not by definition a great one for Mother Earth or Mankind.

I'm going to see my girlfriend shortly, she lives 35 miles away as the crow flies. I'm cycling to the (electric train) station and walking the last 2 kilometers unless it pours down (there is a great bus connection).

 

[dhrivnak]

If you absolutely can't hop on a bus, train or ride share, in terms of per-trip emissions the Tesla is of course cleaner.
Adding a new Tesla every 3 years for instance is of course doing only Tesla favors, not the environment.
Also, you could commute the Volt and rent a Tesla for weekend trips.
A Tesla is an easy way but not by definition a great one for Mother Earth or Mankind.

I'm going to see my girlfriend shortly, she lives 35 miles away as the crow flies. I'm cycling to the (electric train) station and walking the last 2 kilometers unless it pours down (there is a great bus connection).

While it may work in your part of the country there is no electric train and hardly any bus service in NE Tennessee. And I do not know of anyone who buys a new Tesla or for that matter a car every three years. My first Tesla has now passed 8 years in my garage.

 

[wycolo]

> I'm cycling to the (electric train) station [Cloxxki]

All diesel locomotives have electric motors but use ICE gensets to power them. Here in the States commuter trains can connect to the electric wires as they approach the city and turn off the ICE. Perhaps the Boston-DC run is all-electric by now??
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[Cloxxki]

Infrastructure is a lot about whom your (grand)parents voted for, plus culture of course.
Many would just take the car, though.

We need to look more into ride sharing. Blablacar suited me once going to Paris, once forced me into a costly train.

 

[jgs]

The last few pages can be summarized by "perfect is the enemy of good". Telling people they need to get rid of their cars or at most, drive a 3-cyl Polo, and they should really walk or cycle and take public transport for all their needs, is a great way to be straight-up ignored. Certainly in the United States (where, by the way, the Polo isn't even sold), but the evidence strongly indicates the same is true in the rest of the world, where people are buying more cars, not fewer, as they get richer.

So, carry on with your moral superiority and I'm genuinely glad it works for you, but I think the strategy of offering people an option that's incrementally better and not only doesn't require them to completely change every aspect of their life, but actually is more convenient, is more likely to succeed than yelling at them and telling them to wear hair shirts and subsist on soybeans. Iteration, not revolution.

(Some of those replying may want to note @Cloxxki's location. The sacrifices they are suggesting are quite a bit less onerous in the Netherlands because of the way the NL infrastructure is built. If @Cloxxki hasn't traveled much outside of Western Europe, they may not realize their privilege.)

Adding a new Tesla every 3 years for instance is of course doing only Tesla favors, not the environment.

To add: this analysis assumes that the old Tesla gets thrown away. That is of course almost never going to be true, it's going to be sold used, and will likely displace a sale of an ICE vehicle.

 

[wycolo]

Indeed, convenience has a way of becoming, over time, that which is necessary. But add fun to the equation and you have what Tesla has offered to the EV world almost single handedly. And why I imagine that Europe has Twizzy drivers just everywhere running amok.
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[RiverBrick]

Golf GTE does that for me also

Not available in Canada. In 2017, they said it would be here in 2019, but now they don't talk about it at all.

Doesn't the GTE need to run its ICE in order to have decent performance? I understand it can use only its electric drive-train over short distances, but I would think GTE/GTI owners are into performance and would frequently need the ICE.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Adding a new Tesla every 3 years for instance is of course doing only Tesla favors, not the environment.

You are implying that the old one is scrapped. Someone buying a new Tesla every 3 years is making a second hand one available for someone else, probably for a 50% discount, so irrelevant if they keep the car for 3 years and hand it to someone else, or keep it for 10 years.

Also, you could commute the Volt and rent a Tesla for weekend trips.

Assuming you can hire a Tesla nearby and that location is in the direction you would be travelling for weekend. That certainly isn't the case for me.

I'm going to see my girlfriend shortly, she lives 35 miles away as the crow flies. I'm cycling to the (electric train) station and walking the last 2 kilometers unless it pours down (there is a great bus connection).

Much of your country is flat, your roads are well laid out for cyclists, and your train infrastructure is very good. I admire your infrastructure. Trains were good in Japan, but it was hilly for bicycles, but of all the other places I have been to in the world nowhere had trains that were ubiquitous or with reliable timetables (and wide open countries like USA were not electrified). I would like that the UK did better on that score, but years of unions supporting each other "one-out all-out" mean that government got fed up with being held to ransom each "winter of discontent" and as a consequence there is no integrated transport policy here; hopefully that will change.

I am sure it would not be hard to find areas where I could criticise your government, or you as an individual, for not doing enough ...

 

[wdolson]

Despite all the jokes, the Bolt at current pricing and discounts is a helluva good deal for someone looking for a solidly built 200+ mile BEV with an established track record. Someone ditching a gas guzzler for a Bolt (or any EV for that matter) should be applauded. Reading some of the posts on here, it seems there are some that would be happier if someone bought a gas car than a Bolt, which is really puzzling.
My expectation is the 2020 Bolt gets quite a few upgrades.

Some of it might be a bit of Scheudenfreude at all the hype the Bolt got when it came out as the Tesla killer and now GM is having trouble moving even their small production run. It probably isn't justified.

Infrastructure is a lot about whom your (grand)parents voted for, plus culture of course.
Many would just take the car, though.

We need to look more into ride sharing. Blablacar suited me once going to Paris, once forced me into a costly train.

Infrastructure also is very dependent on population density. It's a waste of money to build high speed rail hooking up all the cities of Montana. The cost of yearly maintenance will be far more than what can be brought in by fares. For rail to run economically in a metro area, I think the number is about 200 people per square mile. Between metro areas is a different measure, but again you need enough people traveling between those cities to make it worthwhile. The entire Netherlands is 1100 people/sq mi. The only US state over 1000 is New Jersey (1218). My state is 107, but most of that is in the Seattle area.

I live on the edge of the Portland, OR metro area. Population density is so sparse out here that even bus service isn't economical.

There are many places in the US where life is miserable without a car and driving long distances is not that unusual. As soon as I post this I'm headed to the hardware store and a couple of other shops, it's 12 mi (19 Km) each way. I work from home so I don't put a lot of miles on my car, but when I do go out, it would often be doable in a newer Leaf, but not a shorter range electric. And longer trips at least once a month are not unusual.

Portland does have a good light rail system, but the nearest station is more than 20 miles away and riding a bike there would be quite a workout (several hills) and dangerous (you need to ride on the shoulder of a busy highway part of the way).

In places where electric trains are feasible, we should be building them and the US has fallen behind in urban rail. But that does not answer the problems of what to do with people who live in too sparsely populated areas to make rail and even bus service uneconomical.

 

[Saghost]

> I'm cycling to the (electric train) station [Cloxxki]

All diesel locomotives have electric motors but use ICE gensets to power them. Here in the States commuter trains can connect to the electric wires as they approach the city and turn off the ICE. Perhaps the Boston-DC run is all-electric by now??
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Boston to DC was electrified the better part of a century ago, mostly before diesel trains replaced steam. It's one of the few electric corridors in the U.S. to date.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I'm not convinced that large battery is "bad", although it certainly isn't "perfect".

I would prefer to see range extender. My 90kWH battery, of which I daily use 40kWH, could be 45kWH plus Range extender and the rest of my battery would be available for a second BEV ... which i think would be helpful in early stages of BEV to both spread the limited supply and also solve any range-anxiety of potential buyers.

But that brings the complexity, ICE mechanics, pollution, etc. of having both BEV and ICE, and it seems that Range Extender vehicles have been abused by people buying them for tax rebate reasons and then never actually plugging them in ... particularly (over here at least) for Company Cars where fuel is purchased by Company, so no incentive to use any cheaper source of fuel.

What's the life cycle of my battery? I've done 60,000 miles and lost about 6% of range, and I've had the biggest ("when new") hit, so less range-loss over the next 60,000 miles. I have no idea how long the car will realistically last and be drivable, but the battery has a life as Static Storage beyond that, and recycle beyond that.

Whilst it seems nuts to be carting 1 tonne of battery about, on journeys both short and long, that's the current technology state. Some electricity is Coal of course, but my home electricity is "green" and Superchargers are all Green (in UK at least). So all the electricity that I am wasting hauling that extra weight is as green as currently achievable (yeah, of course extra plant capacity needed to generate the extra that I need, and the cradle-to-grave of that generating plant has a CO2 foot print, but I'm comfortable with it)

More importantly, in this debate, I am driving the change. The solution I am using isn't perfect, but its mega-brilliant compared to my Gas Guzzling, Range Rover driving, mates. So the short term cost of the inefficiency, and increased CO2 even, is inconsequential compared to what the rest of Normal People are doing ... and in driving change that will more quickly create trickle-down for those people, and is also forcing the whole industry to have to abandon their old polluting solutions.

So maybe stop worrying about it and, instead, devote energy to more quickly shifting the rest of the masses to EV? I don't know what is best to achieve that? Take strangers for a test drive ... maybe? Most of my chums have had a ride already, some have even converted, a number have obtained small PHEV or similar as 2nd car ... "every little helps" ... and plenty are now looking forward to having a BEV, even if Tesla doesn;t float-their-boat. But last weekend I had the chance to take a "fresher" out; I pulled forward no more than 2 feet in a crowded car park and she said "It really is quiet isn't it" ... would have loved to be a fly on the wall in her car on her way home, to hear what she said to her (Range Rover driving ) husband

 

[Saghost]

I'm not convinced that large battery is "bad", although it certainly isn't "perfect".

I would prefer to see range extender. My 90kWH battery, of which I daily use 40kWH, could be 45kWH plus Range extender and the rest of my battery would be available for a second BEV ... which i think would be helpful in early stages of BEV to both spread the limited supply and also solve any range-anxiety of potential buyers.

But that brings the complexity, ICE mechanics, pollution, etc. of having both BEV and ICE, and it seems that Range Extender vehicles have been abused by people buying them for tax rebate reasons and then never actually plugging them in ... particularly (over here at least) for Company Cars where fuel is purchased by Company, so no incentive to use any cheaper source of fuel.

What's the life cycle of my battery? I've done 60,000 miles and lost about 6% of range, and I've had the biggest ("when new") hit, so less range-loss over the next 60,000 miles. I have no idea how long the car will realistically last and be drivable, but the battery has a life as Static Storage beyond that, and recycle beyond that.

Whilst it seems nuts to be carting 1 tonne of battery about, on journeys both short and long, that's the current technology state. Some electricity is Coal of course, but my home electricity is "green" and Superchargers are all Green (in UK at least). So all the electricity that I am wasting hauling that extra weight is as green as currently achievable (yeah, of course extra plant capacity needed to generate the extra that I need, and the cradle-to-grave of that generating plant has a CO2 foot print, but I'm comfortable with it)

More importantly, in this debate, I am driving the change. The solution I am using isn't perfect, but its mega-brilliant compared to my Gas Guzzling, Range Rover driving, mates. So the short term cost of the inefficiency, and increased CO2 even, is inconsequential compared to what the rest of Normal People are doing ... and in driving change that will more quickly create trickle-down for those people, and is also forcing the whole industry to have to abandon their old polluting solutions.

So maybe stop worrying about it and, instead, devote energy to more quickly shifting the rest of the masses to EV? I don't know what is best to achieve that? Take strangers for a test drive ... maybe? Most of my chums have had a ride already, some have even converted, a number have obtained small PHEV or similar as 2nd car ... "every little helps" ... and plenty are now looking forward to having a BEV, even if Tesla doesn;t float-their-boat. But last weekend I had the chance to take a "fresher" out; I pulled forward no more than 2 feet in a crowded car park and she said "It really is quiet isn't it" ... would have loved to be a fly on the wall in her car on her way home, to hear what she said to her (Range Rover driving ) husband

Microturbine. No fluids, no cat, no timing or maintenance, far less size/weight to cart around. The traditional turbine problems of poor throttle response and slow starting and horrible idle fuel consumption are irrelevant in the range extender role. Costs are an issue but should come down a lot with mass production. It'll be interesting to see what MiTRE ends up as.

 

[jgs]

I would prefer to see range extender. My 90kWH battery, of which I daily use 40kWH, could be 45kWH plus Range extender and the rest of my battery would be available for a second BEV ... which i think would be helpful in early stages of BEV to both spread the limited supply and also solve any range-anxiety of potential buyers.

But that brings the complexity, ICE mechanics, pollution, etc. of having both BEV and ICE

Right, exactly. Much is said about range anxiety (which, as I understand, is not a term that arose organically but which was ginned up and promoted for marketing purposes) but nobody ever talks about ICE anxiety, the anxiety caused by having to care for and maintain an ICE. Nor, for that matter, about ICE range anxiety, the anxiety caused by having your fuel indicator hovering just above empty but not having time to stop at the gas (or petrol) station and pushing it just a bit farther.

In any event, it's not like there's a complete lack of PHEVs for those who want that sort of thing. A much smaller number of no-compromise range-extended EVs or whatever we call them this week, especially with the departure of the Volt, but there are a few. If someone wants one, they can buy one, just not from Tesla. They've been pretty clear they aren't interested in that business, and for my part I have no interest in re-embracing ICE anxiety.

 

[tga]

Boston to DC was electrified the better part of a century ago, mostly before diesel trains replaced steam. It's one of the few electric corridors in the U.S. to date.

Actually, only New Haven to DC was electrified for a long time. I remember Amtrak having to change locomotives between diesel and electric when going through New Haven in the early 90's. They electrified the New Haven to Boston section in the late 90's, after my wife stopped taking it regularly.

 

[Saghost]

Actually, only New Haven to DC was electrified for a long time. I remember Amtrak having to change locomotives between diesel and electric when going through New Haven in the early 90's. They electrified the New Haven to Boston section in the late 90's, after my wife stopped taking it regularly.

So, only like twenty years ago?

(I know, the late 90s doesn't feel like twenty years ago to me, either.)

 

[tga]

So, only like twenty years ago?

(I know, the late 90s doesn't feel like twenty years ago to me, either.)

Ancient times, huh?

 

[Cloxxki]

It's easy if you have a good infrastructure where you live. It's also easy to just accept the local situation as reality.
2 generations before mine, someone did a great job building roads and railways. Actually, there used to be a tram down my street which has long been decommissioned and removed.
Perhaps rather than focusing only on which politician will shift a bit of cash to new BEV owners, you could also quiz them on what they're going to do for the (green) infrastructure. It's a huge part of citizen wellness. Is it a luxury I can just hop on a bike to get to the train station, across a city? Or should it be the world standard? With the worst infrastructure in the world, I'd be walking. A little better, and I'd be driving and paying for parking. Now, I am cycling.
If we want to be part of change, we need to be part of change. Beyond making a choice of which car to buy or where to live.
Hold your administration to a higher standard.
Many here are from the USA. Last time I checked, half the national budget is digitally printed and exported debt. All of this is effectively spent on "Defense". Perhaps a good bit could go towards better infra, especially downtown? Why should there be 4 lanes of yellow cabs? Isn't that outright 3rd world poverty by 2019's standards? One thing I'll say, it's effectively ride sharing thus better than ownership. Some of those riding the cabby network do so to save themselves the pain of a car.
I dated a lady, she'd take a taxi to work every day, local infra was very so-so and weather dreadful all winter. She'd worked out she'd save lots of money over ownership. And it worked amazingly well for her. For a day outside town she'd borrow from her folks.
My current GF rides her bike or takes the bus when it rains. In her childhood, 18 mile cycling days were the norm, not the exception. She feels it's OK for her to ave herself the agony. You'd not believe her age for her fitness and energy, largely thanks to that upbringing.
I suppose e-assist bikes are making that lifestyle doable for more and more people. You can take short cuts off-road to avoid traffic and just have fresher air. Hills or wind at no longer a real issue. Range on e-bikes is crazy good. Charging too easy.

The world needs a new personal transportation paradigm. And just going electric will not get A scores.