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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
Vince Cobelo
Member
It took a minute for me to figure out why the car was so funny looking.... This is what the Bolt reminds me of...
If they really hated Tesla, but were OK with BEVs, they would want to sell as many EVs as possible to put Tesla out of business. Most dealers hate EVs because they are a) an odd technology they don't understand, and b) dealers don't make much on maintenance. Dealers make most of their profit from the service centers. The more maintenance a car needs the better.
If you watch "Who Killed the Electric Car" dealers wouldn't push the EV1 when it had no competition.
As for the discussion about 2-5 minutes being true fast charging. Tesla exceeds all the ICE competition in most areas. The have more cargo space than comparable cars, they have better acceleration, higher efficiency, you can refuel it at home, the tech is beyond the competition in most areas too. As for charging on a road trip, Tesla has other pure EVs beaten hands down, but compared to ICE a negative is the time spent charging at superchargers.
I hear all the Tesla owners who make use of the downtime charging to do things that are good for their bodies on a long road trip, but there are the iron butt people who like to take marathon road trips. With an ICE, you can get 300-400 miles range in 5-10 minutes by putting liquid energy into the tank. Batteries take longer to charge, no matter how you slice it. I think the superchargers reduce that time to something tolerable and gives the body some downtime to stretch legs, get something to eat, find a restroom, or even take a short nap (for those who can power nap).
I don't have my Model S yet, but that was something initially in the "con" column for a Model S. We need to make a drive from our home just north of Portland, OR to Morgan Hill in California. With an ICE it's an 11-12 hour day (a little over 700 miles) and we arrive pretty fried. Having to supercharge instead of just filling up with gas will make the day longer, but I figure I can power nap when supercharging if I'm getting tired, and autopilot should help some with road fatigue in general.
In other words, I think I can make it work so I'm not terribly concerned. It may even turn out to be better in the end.
But as someone who has been educating himself on this since last summer, I was skeptical of the longer time to "refuel" on the road. It does take longer to charge an EV, that's just a fact that probably isn't going to go away any time soon. Probably not ever.
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stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I think it is more the training overhead and effort. Basically you have address a whole lot of new questions and you don't earn a higher commission for it. Just selling an ICE you are familiar with is a lot less effort. Also, most don't keep much inventory of such vehicles (they might have one for display purposes or to meet some kind of manufacturer minimum), while they have a whole bunch of ICE cars to move.
While your points are all valid, I think what people who haven't owned an EV yet don't feel are the advantages of an EV. Never having to go to the gas station, having the "tank" be full every morning, the quiet ride, and the very smooth ride. All those may not sound like much, but once you have them, and also notice that you really don't have that many occasions where you need to be able to cover 1000 miles in a day in as little time as possible, you realize that the EV advantages outweigh the advantages of an ICE. It's a bit like having children: When you don't have them, you think they're nice to a point, but they sure seem like a lot of work & expense. But once you have them, they inspire feelings you didn't know you had, and you discover the "problems" you forecast really don't matter. Having an EV, espeically a Tesla, is a bit like that.
I've been hanging out here for most of the last year and I have a pretty good imagination, but it took some education to see that the extra time it takes to refill an electric wasn't that big a downside. I'm pretty convinced now that the downsides are pretty minimal and Tesla has gone a long way towards countering what downsides there are, but I also remember the realization wasn't immediate.
Back in January when the Columbia Gorge winds were blowing hard and I had to refill my old ICE car at the gas station I remember standing there thinking, "I am really looking forward to doing this in my garage!"
The Bolt is the second best EV with 200 miles+ EPA range (first is Tesla). All of the other EVs in the market are extremely low in range, between 80 to 110 miles EPA. The Bolt will definitely help with the electric transportation movement despite shortfall of the Bolt's design. More charging infrastructure and better awareness of EV will come because of this. Bolt is also helping to lower battery cost (LG in Korea) and heat up the competition for other crappy manufacturers to make new/better EVs. All in all, great for the whole EV movement.
TaoJones
Beyond Driven
The South Korean General Motors product isn't knocking my socks off.
The e-Golf (popular in Europe) might present great competition but it is unclear as to when or even if that's the platform the Volkswagen Group will hitch its, um, wagen to in the larger battery EV niche.
How different the entire arena will look in 3-5 years.
The e-Golf (popular in Europe) might present great competition but it is unclear as to when or even if that's the platform the Volkswagen Group will hitch its, um, wagen to in the larger battery EV niche.
How different the entire arena will look in 3-5 years.
I think GM is only expecting to sell 30,000 Bolts per year. Tesla had 115,000 orders for the Model 3 in the first 24 hours.
Those who look at the Bolt are going to be disappointed it can't really be used for long road trips. 200 miles will help around town and short day trips but won't work for long trips in many parts of the country.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Yes, I'm slightly disappointed that the 3 won't be a sedan hatch like the S, but not enough to get the Bolt instead. I'm sure some others will though.
It might be a good time for Tesla to mention the Model Y in a blog, or Elon to tweet something about it...assuming that vehicle is still being planned.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
No, since that vehicle will likely not be available for years to come announcing it now would not take away any sales from the Bolt but might cause a few people to hold off on the 3. Bad idea.
Somebody mentioned that on another site. They said the Tesla will get him from LA to San Diego, and the Spark EV or Bolt will not, because Tesla has 3 Superchargers between LA and SD. Uh... There are about a dozen or more CCS DCFCs on the same drive.
I'm not sure how that applies to the rest of the world, but the idea that no DCFC exists except for Teslas is misleading.
That's great if you live on the west or east coast but try looking at the rest of the country. The only DCFC within hundreds of miles are in large urban areas and usually at Nissan dealerships. Most of those dealerships only have one or two chargers and many have been known to not allow non-Nissan charging.
The map below shows non-Supercharger DCFC. If you were to remove the Nissan chargers from the map, there's virtually no DCFC between California and the Mississippi river.
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Inaccurate comparison, of course, since the "3" supercharger locations have multiple chargers, and they are over twice as fast.
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