Really? Is no one talking about the Chevy Bolt?

[scoobybri]

It took me about 10;weeks from the time I requested a buyback until I had a check in hand.

The whole problem with the Bolt fires are that they are so rare and yet completely devastating when they do occur. Those who know the real level of risk know that Bolts are less likely to burn that ICE cars but when you see the pics of a garage burned to a crisp or a slagged Bolt with 4 other cars around it destroyed, I can understand why some businesses don't want them in their parking lots. But then again, they have as much chance of a Bolt burning on their lot as having some random person throwing a molatov cocktail at their building. It's both uninformed and understandable. The problem comes when batteries start being replaced en mass and there is no way to know which Bolts are safe and which ones are not. Owners will have to have some version of "vaccination card" proving that their Bolt doesn't have the battery"virus."

 

[scoobybri]

If it weren't for the battery problems, I wouldn't be driving an M3LR with a MYLR on they way. Terribly inconvenient but moved me in a completely different direction, EV wise.

 

[cwerdna]

GM slashes prices of Chevy Bolt electric vehicles despite rising commodity costs

GM cut the price of the Bolt EV by $5,900 compared with the 2022 model year, with a starting price of $26,595.

www.cnbc.com

The Detroit automaker cut the cost of the Bolt EV to a starting price of $26,595, down $5,900 from the 2022 model year. GM also reduced the price of its larger Bolt EUV by $6,300 to start at $28,195. All pricing includes a mandatory $995 destination charge.

 

[RobDickinson]

GM sells 26 EV's in a quarter

Cuts prices due to demand

Refuses to elaborate

 

[cwerdna]

Production resumed in April 2022. GM has been advertising Bolt all over the place here in California.

 

[threeputts]

GM sells 26 EV's in a quarter

Cuts prices due to demand

Refuses to elaborate

rotfl BUT - a new EV for $27K? It's not a bad car.

 

[scubastevo80]

GM sells 26 EV's in a quarter

Cuts prices due to demand

Refuses to elaborate

That was Q4 2021. They sold a whopping 358 Bolts and 457 total EVs in Q1. 457 / 26 is like 17x growth QoQ. With the reduced prices, expect that 4x or more the rest of this year...

Oops, did I forget to mention the Q4 numbers were down 95% YoY?

 

[RobDickinson]

They sold a whopping 358 Bolts and 457 total EVs in Q1.

A 1700% increase, you can see why you would opt to stimulate more sales there

 

[Electroman]

Tesla Killlaahh

 

[cwerdna]

That was Q4 2021. They sold a whopping 358 Bolts and 457 total EVs in Q1. 457 / 26 is like 17x growth QoQ. With the reduced prices, expect that 4x or more the rest of this year...

Oops, did I forget to mention the Q4 numbers were down 95% YoY?

There were more US deliveries (see https://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/chevrolet/bolt-ev/chevrolet-bolt-ev-sales-numbers/) until General Motors to Recall Additional Bolt EVs came in Aug 2021. GM couldn't sell vehicles w/open recalls and since production was halted at Orion until April 2022 in favor of fixing customer cars, it's not like GM dealers had a lot to sell as they can't legally sell them either.

It's possible those "358" + the earlier puny numbers were due to GM to restart limited Bolt production to make loaner cars for owners with recalls. Eventually, many Bolt folks who were in the middle of buyback were offered some of those Nov 2021 builds as a swap. Not clear if those counted as "sales".

Exactly. In my email, I pointed them to numerous examples of non-EVs being recalled for fires while turned off (e.g. at Bolt Parking Only) and whether we've banned all of those?

And, I pointed them to page 3 of https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/...nd-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf which means about 500 highway vehicle fires occurred each day in 2018.

I did mention to them I began the buyback process about a month ago but I have no guarantee they won't deny me nor do I know for sure what they'll offer me, if anything. And, I don't have any ETA. It's not like GM wants to make the process fast or friction free. Having it be slow == stemming the rate of bleeding.

But there's also the prob of getting a replacement non-Bolt EV that isn't overpriced (new or used) in short order due to the crazy new and used car supply situation. I prefer to stick w/BEVs.

On this note, I was offered a very nice buyback offer on 1/7/22. I accepted a few days later. I returned my car in exchange for a nice check at end of Jan 2022.

I'm now leasing a '22 Niro EV and oddly, I ran into rhuber (CCS Adapter for North America) while I was charging as part of my ~450 mile drive home. Auto broker I worked with only could get good pricing at So Cal dealers and he doesn't ship. He pulled out an unofficial CCS adapter (IIRC, he said it was from Ukraine) and succeeded in charging his Model S on a ABB (IIRC) Electrify America CCS charger. I saw it in action.

 

[OrthoSurg]

Waiting for my Uber ride

Paid a surcharge for Uber green

A Volt is coming to pick me up.

I hoped for a Bolt at least, not a discontinued car.

 

[Electroman]

You were looking for a discounted car. Instead you got a discontinued car.

 

[OrthoSurg]

You were looking for a discounted car. Instead you got a discontinued car.

Lol

I brought my Model Y for suspension repair today. They had no car left. Instead I got $130 daily Uber vouchers. Tonight I had to go pick up birthday gifts for the kids. $55 Uber ride on the way in with Rav4hybrid and $52 on the way back with Chevy Bolt. I already miss my Model Y. At least I was able to work for 1 hour and a half on my laptop smelling gaz.

 

[alexgr]

Tesla Killlaah

OMG! Should I cancel my Model Y reservation now with EDD next week? I will go see that wonderful Bolt on our local Chevy dealership this Saturday instead.

 

[AndrewZ]

People in here predominately have their Tesla fan and particularly shareholder hats on, for obvious reasons considering the venue, but this is nothing but great for consumers in the real world. Seems a bit strange to be slamming any EVs considering the real goal here is supposed to be weaning us off fossil fuels, unless the intent is taking them to task and hold accountable for not already producing huge numbers of EVs.

I'd certainly frigging hope a Model Y is vaaaaaastly better considering the over 2x price premium compared to these things, that is a massive cost chasm

 

[scubastevo80]

People in here predominately have their Tesla fan and particularly shareholder hats on, for obvious reasons considering the venue, but this is nothing but great for consumers in the real world. Seems a bit strange to be slamming any EVs considering the real goal here is supposed to be weaning us off fossil fuels, unless the intent is taking them to task and hold accountable for not already producing huge numbers of EVs.

I'd certainly frigging hope a Model Y is vaaaaaastly better considering the over 2x price premium compared to these things, that is a massive pricing chasm

I'm looking at it from all angles - what are we getting as a consumer (are the battery fire risks gone, what does battery degredation look like, does service exist when needed) and what about the sale for the bottom line of GM. More importantly, what are we missing? Everyone is raising prices and arguably EVs have more pricing power in the face of high gas prices, and here's GM taking a haircut. Either no one is buying these things, or they've leapfrogged TSLA in terms of cost of production/efficiency. For people who simply want a gas alternative to a Chevy Spark or Ford Focus, for example, they may be extremely happy with this car at its new price point.

 

[AndrewZ]

I'm looking at it from all angles - what are we getting as a consumer (are the battery fire risks gone, what does battery degredation look like, does service exist when needed) and what about the sale for the bottom line of GM. More importantly, what are we missing? Everyone is raising prices and arguably EVs have more pricing power in the face of high gas prices, and here's GM taking a haircut. Either no one is buying these things, or they've leapfrogged TSLA in terms of cost of production/efficiency. For people who simply want a gas alternative to a Chevy Spark or Ford Focus, for example, they may be extremely happy with this car at its new price point.

Maybe LG is taking part of the financial hit, as it was their batteries that were the issue in Bolt models and not anything specific to GM. Perhaps they’re eating a loss to save face with consumers and with GM.

Maybe for a company like GM, pumping out EVs at a loss makes more sense because they’re funding the EV program with their combustion side and also are considering regulatory credits offset in their calculations.

Maybe their goal is to make Tesla look particularly greedy raising prices and bringing in huge profits while they massively chop prices.


I seriously doubt there is a demand issue here relative to output considering gas prices incentivizing EVs and considering supply constraints.

Look at the Ford F-150 Lightning Pro as well. $50k for an EV truck with those numbers? No way are they generating profit on each vehicle sold, but there are other implications that could be changing the picture. Regulatory credit sales might be a big part of that, these companies have been paying tons of money to Tesla for a long time to offset their ICE sales numbers and it probably makes sense to eat a loss on the sale of an EV when you factor in the regulatory credits offset, they might still be coming out ahead.

 

[threeputts]

More importantly, what are we missing?

I think the biggest downsides in comparison is the Bolt max DC charge rate is still 55Kw, no OTA updates, less extensive level 3 charging network (although that gap is narrowing). Slower than even the least expensive Tesla, and subjectively not as nice looking.

Is all that worth a minimum 20K dicount? For many it will be, assuming GM can build enough to prevent the stealerships from marking them up.

 

[AndrewZ]

I think the biggest downsides in comparison is the Bolt max DC charge rate is still 55Kw, no OTA updates, less extensive level 3 charging network (although that gap is narrowing). Slower than even the least expensive Tesla, and subjectively not as nice looking.

Is all that worth a minimum 20K dicount? For many it will be, assuming GM can build enough to prevent the stealerships from marking them up.

You could buy two top trim Bolts for the price of one Model Y LR right now and forget battery swapping, just swap out the entire vehicle when one is dead. And it would still cost less than one Model Y.

But I doubt many would be cross-shopping these, people shopping for Bolts are likely those who simply can’t afford $50-60k+ for one vehicle. And there’s nothing wrong with that, feels like lording over them with an expensive Model Y is in slightly bad taste.

 

[threeputts]

You could buy two top trim Bolts for the price of one Model Y LR right now and forget battery swapping, just swap out the entire vehicle when one is dead. And it would still cost less than one Model Y.
But I doubt many would be cross-shopping these, people shopping for Bolts are likely those who simply can’t afford $50-60k+ for one vehicle. And there’s nothing wrong with that, feels like lording over them with an expensive Model Y is in slightly bad taste.

It will be interesting to see what the RWD standard range MY will sell for when/if Tesla ever makes it available because that would be the closest comparison to a FWD Bolt EUV. My guess is it would be about $20K-$22K more.