Engadget claims Bolt cheaper than Model 3

[Red Sage]

Actually, I'm surprised to see GM putting this much effort into electric vehicles. GM isn't going to take many chances - they'll wait and see if the market as a whole makes a switch to electrics before putting a whole lot more effort into it.

As for the number of Bolts they plan to make, I'd say they chose the correct number. Every other popular EV (Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Nissan Leaf, even Chevy Volt) has sold in very similar numbers. And they don't want to make too many, like they originally did with the Volt. I think they have a good, conservative plan.

Now, that's not what *we* want. We want a company to push the envelope, and usher in the era of electric cars. Luckily for us, we have Tesla, and they're going to do just that. GM has positioned themselves pretty well to be a "fast follower" once the market shifts towards EVs. I'm more worried about the fate of other manufacturers who aren't really doing anything with EVs.

I make a distinction between being 'surprisingly good', 'barely adequate', and 'truly great'. It disturbs me that I hold General Motors to a higher standard than their 'conservative' management. They seem inordinately cautious and positively fearful instead of entirely confident. The problem I see is that despite their position as a 'fast follower' with the BOLT, GM is marketing themselves as a 'faster leader'. That is simply not the case at all.

 

[KZKZ]

Would you pay $5000 for a much better looking car that can go cross country charging for free, I would.

Who said supercharging will be free?

 

[Red Sage]

Good point garsh. GM is not in the market to lose money but having said that I wish they were more serious about EV's.
If they really tried i'm sure they could come up with something like an EV GMC Acadia or similar. That would sell! But trip re-charges must be addressed

They will undoubtedly lobby that they are 'losing money' on every BOLT they sell, just as Fiat's management has claimed about the 500e. What they won't ever point out is how much money they'll save by providing the BOLT within CARB States. Because ZEV Credits earned will be applied against CAFE standards for their entire fleet, lowering their exposure to fines. Further, because of that improved CAFE status, they will be able to sell more of their gas guzzling SUVs and pickups while maintaining their position of ICE first. Which means that overall, they will MAKE more money due to higher profit margins elsewhere in their fleet.

 

[Jeff N]

True, but based on what I have read about the roll out so far, they are Partnering with ChargePoint (not bad). They have built some 24kW and 50kW units (meh). An average of 50 miles apart from each other. Someone was saying (somewhere I forget if it were here or another site) that they looked it up and few of the locations have a backup form of charging, or have limited number of stalls. Though if they are only 50 miles apart maybe you won't have as much charge anxiety. The biggest kick in the teeth as far as I am concerned is the building of any 24kW units, that isn't that much better than 80A AC charging (not that anyone other than Tesla supports high powered AC charging).

That project was the equivalent of going from nothing to something -- like a baby taking a nap vs crawling. I can't find a reference to how much money VW and BMW spent but it was clearly a drop in the ocean compared to the mandated VW future spending I was talking about.

 

[Jeff N]

Yes, but could you drive to the east coast or to Vancouver.

Okay, I just checked and I easily found CCS charging (50 kW, I think) from Portland, OR to Vancouver, BC. It's questionable if I could drive that route in a Spark EV but in a Bolt EV it would be easy. I think the longest gap between chargers might have been about 95 miles.

We previously discussed CCS between San Diego and Portland so the only real difficulty is finding a reasonable path across the country between the coasts. I'm fairly confident it could be done in a Bolt today but it would be tricky.

 

[bro1999]

The Bolt would be a good grocery getter....if it was cheaper. It would be good as your day to day car if you had an ICE or rented for longer trips. It's too close in price to the Three though. It's only advantage right now is that it would be available sooner and you could get the full tax credit.

That's at least a $7,500 advantage. More if the Bolt replaces a gasser.

 

[3Victoria]

I expect that less Bolts will get the tax credit than Model 3s. GM and Tesla are both approaching the 200,000 car limit, but Tesla's production rate will squeak in more cars before the wind down occurs. (Caveat: this assumes the credit is not extended.)

 

[Merrill]

Who said supercharging will be free?

See post #40

 

[garsh]

It disturbs me that I hold General Motors to a higher standard than their 'conservative' management. They seem inordinately cautious and positively fearful instead of entirely confident.

GM's business is making & selling cars. They have no reason or desire to try to change the market - they're very good at meeting the current market. There's nothing fearful in that. The problem is that *you* (and I, and most others here) want the market to change. If you want to understand them, you have to realize that difference.

The problem I see is that despite their position as a 'fast follower' with the BOLT, GM is marketing themselves as a 'faster leader'. That is simply not the case at all.

Well, marketing will spin things however they can to make *sugar* look like Shinola. They came out with a 200+ mile range EV for under $40k before anybody else. Kudos to them. I hope they can sell them all.

But I'm not giving up my Model 3 reservation to get one.

 

[Red Sage]

GM's business is making & selling cars. They have no reason or desire to try to change the market - they're very good at meeting the current market. There's nothing fearful in that. The problem is that *you* (and I, and most others here) want the market to change. If you want to understand them, you have to realize that difference.
Well, marketing will spin things however they can to make *sugar* look like Shinola. They came out with a 200+ mile range EV for under $40k before anybody else. Kudos to them. I hope they can sell them all.

But I'm not giving up my Model 3 reservation to get one.

I would not doubt they should be able to sell them all. My problem is that I expect they would prefer not to. Even when people were clamoring for more of the EV-1, GM stood by the corporate notion that 'no one' wanted them. The car represents less than a rounding error at 0.3% of their annual worldwide Production. CARB States award ZEV Credits simply for making the cars 'available'. They don't have to actually be purchased by anyone at all.

 

[BluestarE3]

Ah, they updated the story.

(Update: That is, before any tax credits are applied to the price of the Model 3, which, unless you're already on the preorder list, they might not.)

Their update addendum is just as disingenuous as the original. So those who are on the "preorder list" (whom they speculate will be eligible for the credit) are non-entities and somehow don't count as future Model 3 buyers? But future Bolt EV buyers, on the other hand, do count with no qualifying comment on their part? What they are implying is that if you are interested in the Model 3 and you reserve today, you may not be eligible because by the time your car is ready, all of Tesla's credits may be exhausted. What they are neglecting to say is that the first wave of people who are interested in the Model 3 have already placed their reservations since March 31 and are therefore on the "preorder list" that they concede are likely eligible for the credit. Since GM did not take early reservations for the Bolt EV, their first wave of customers won't be able to start ordering until later this year when the car finally hits the dealerships.

I can make my own phony argument by saying that since GM is limiting first year production of Bolt EVs to 30K vehicles, if you're not on the "first orders list" for the Bolt EV, by the time you get your car, you might not qualify for the credit because on-going sales of the Volt will have used up GM's credits by then.

 

[Red Sage]

Their update addendum is just as disingenuous as the original. So those who are on the "preorder list" (whom they speculate will be eligible for the credit) are non-entities and somehow don't count as future Model 3 buyers? But future Bolt EV buyers, on the other hand, do count with no qualifying comment on their part? What they are implying is that if you are interested in the Model 3 and you reserve today, you may not be eligible because by the time your car is ready, all of Tesla's credits may be exhausted. What they are neglecting to say is that the first wave of people who are interested in the Model 3 have already placed their reservations since March 31 and are therefore on the "preorder list" that they concede are likely eligible for the credit. Since GM did not take early reservations for the Bolt EV, their first wave of customers won't be able to start ordering until later this year when the car finally hits the dealerships.

I can make my own phony argument by saying that since GM is limiting first year production of Bolt EVs to 30K vehicles, if you're not on the "first orders list" for the Bolt EV, by the time you get your car, you might not qualify for the credit because on-going sales of the Volt will have used up GM's credits by then.

Correct. What matters is the total number of people who will be able to take full advantage of the Federal EV Tax benefit. Not the time frame during which the full benefit is available. Where potentially hundreds of thousands may do so during a six month period for Model ☰, not even 100,000 will do so over the course of three calendar years for the BOLT.

 

[techmaven]

Having just run the numbers with a few different scenarios, I think GM will likely cross the tax credit line within 1 or 2 quarters of Tesla.

Also, since it will be hard for GM to raise production of the Bolt to much more than 50,000 a year, it is very likely that about 3x the number of Model 3's have some sort of a tax credit versus the Bolt.

Here is one likely scenario:

Tesla sells 102,500 S+X+Roadster in the U.S. by the end of 2016.
Tesla then sell another 37,400 S+X in the U.S. in 2017.
Tesla sells 60,000 Model 3's in 2017. Any additional production goes overseas or to Canada.
Tesla crosses 200,000 on January 2, 2018.
Production at that point is 50,000 a quarter for the Model 3 alone, increasing to 125,000 per quarter in Q4, 2018 for a total production of 350,000 in 2018. 40% is in the U.S.

For Model 3 tax credits then, we're looking at:
Q3 + Q4, 2017: 60,000 (full tax credit)
Q1, 2018: 20,000 (full tax credit)
Q2, 2018: 30,000 (full tax credit)
Q3, 2018: 40,000 (50% tax credit)
Q4, 2018: 50,000 (50% tax credit)
Q1, 2019: 60,000 (25% tax credit)
Q2, 2019: 70,000 (25% tax credit)

So about 110,000 get the full tax credit, another 90,000 with 50% tax credit, and 130,000 with 25% tax credit, for a total of 330,000 with some federal tax credit.

Note that Musk had actually estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Model 3's in 2017. The above scenario assumes a much smaller reality.

Let's look at the GM scenario. GM has about 120,000 tax credits used at the end of 2016, extrapolating the final 4 months as the same as the first 8 months. Assume very generous delivery numbers for the Bolt, and whatever few they ship in 2016 is counted in 2017.

2017: 30,000 Bolts, total of 175,000 tax credits used in by end of 2017 (40,000 Bolts made, 10k overseas)
Q1, 2018: 10,000 Bolts and let's make the assumption then that GM doesn't cross the 200,000 line until Q2
We're also linear on the Bolt because GM has the production capacity to build into inventory. Also assume that GM ups the production of the Bolt to 50,000 a year, with 40,000 for the U.S.
Q2, 2018: 10,000 Bolts (full tax credit)
Q3, 2018: 10,000 Bolts (full tax credit)
Q4, 2018: 10,000 Bolts (50% tax credit)
Q1, 2019: 12,000 Bolts (50% tax credit)
Q2, 2019: 12,000 Bolts (25% tax credit)
Q3, 2019: 12,000 Bolts (25% tax credit)

So on the Bolt side, we're looking at 60,000 with the full tax credit, another 22,000 with 50%, and another 24,000 with 25% for a total of 106,000 Bolts getting some tax credit. Getting additional battery cell production online for 2019 production right now is very, very tight. LG Chem doesn't have the capacity for much more Bolt production than this for 2017 through 2019. This scenario also assumes that the demand for the Bolt is robust and GM is supply limited by the battery cell production the entire time.

If Tesla's predictions on Model 3 production are on target, then the number of tax credits for the Model 3 is substantially higher, but the phase out would happen one quarter earlier or Tesla would ship more overseas. With the above scenario, basically everyone in line right now gets a tax credit of some sort. Those joining today likely get 50%, but possibly soon it will drop to 25%.

In any case, it is likely that GM and Ford will see that the tax credit program will need to be overhauled. GM doesn't want other automakers like FCA to have an advantage.

 

[Red Sage]

It occurred to me earlier today that the BOLT would make an awesome rental car on Oahu for a long week's stay, two weekends with five days in between.

 

[roblab]

Yes, but could you drive to the east coast or to Vancouver.

Why do people think you have to have CCS to go to Vancouver? Before superchargers, four years ago, one month after getting our Signature Model S, we drove from Napa to Canada using motel and RV park 14-50s. It was a great trip and not hard at all.

 

[Jeff N]

Why do people think you have to have CCS to go to Vancouver? Before superchargers, four years ago, one month after getting our Signature Model S, we drove from Napa to Canada using motel and RV park 14-50s. It was a great trip and not hard at all.

Right. It is, however, a bit less convenient and can result in a slower per-day pace.

If you are on a vacation roadtrip it can be a fun adventure that forces you to stop and explore places you would normally tend to drive past.

 

[roblab]

Right. It is, however, a bit less convenient and can result in a slower per-day pace.

If you are on a vacation roadtrip it can be a fun adventure that forces you to stop and explore places you would normally tend to drive past.

And you think CCS is going to be fast? It, too, will be in places one would normally drive past. I was driving 500 miles a day. That's a pretty good pace for no superchargers. A long late breakfast stop, and a long late lunch stop.

True, I was in no hurry, but I would venture to guess that you'd better not be in a hurry in any EV. The faster you go, the shorter the range, the more stops.

 

[erthquake]

It occurred to me earlier today that the BOLT would make an awesome rental car on Oahu for a long week's stay, two weekends with five days in between.

Only if it takes a roof rack and a couple of surf boards

 

[Red Sage]

Only if it takes a roof rack and a couple of surf boards

SeaSucker to the rescue...

Board & Kayak Racks | SeaSucker

 

[Mark C]

That's great! The Model X actually starts at $74k though, for a 60D before any incentives, and that still includes a pretty impressive list of features. I guess even owners get it wrong.

I just looked on the Tesla site and it gives $95,500 as the base price on a Model X P90D. Sorry I was vague by only saying it was a "90" when I could have been more specific if I'd said P90D.