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Chevrolet Unveils 200-Mile Bolt EV At Detroit Auto Show
MikeChino writes Tesla, take cover – General Motors is taking aim at the affordable electric vehicle market with the brand new Chevy Bolt, which was just unveiled at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. The all-electric vehicle is able to travel 200 miles on a single charge, and it will cost about $30,000 – which puts it squarely in the ring with the Tesla Model 3. According to the article, "Chevrolet is planning to launch the Bolt EV in 2017, and inside sources say that it will be available in all 50 states."
According to the article, "Chevrolet is planning to launch the Bolt EV in 2017, and inside sources say that it will be available in all 50 states."
Yea, they get to sell in all 50 states, but not Tesla. Competition my ass.
Just for reference, $30k is the average price of a new car in the US, and considering that it's using technology that's ahead of the curve I don't think that's terrible. This isn't to say that I'd rush out to buy one though.
I wonder how Star (Yamaha) motorcycles, maker of the Star Bolt, feel about this.
http://www.starmotorcycles.com...
Here in Colorado diesel is still at 3/ gal. Normally, it is around 4. With electricity at .05/kwh for nighttime charging. As such, your TDI is great deal more expensive to run than an electric car. And that does not include the fact that your maintenance is outrageous compared to electric.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Tesla would seemingly need the battery cost reductions from their "GigaFactory" to get the cost of their 200-mile electric car down to $35,000, and Chevy is going to sell a 200-mile EV for $30,000 without those cost reductions?
Something's gotta give to pull that off.
Just for reference, $30k is the average price of a new car in the US, and considering that it's using technology that's ahead of the curve I don't think that's terrible. This isn't to say that I'd rush out to buy one though.
I rather use the mean, not the average. I'd guess the high end prices skew the average.
Has anyone looked at the pictures?
The one key thing I think Tesla has right, is that the Tesla S looks like a Nice Car. Its styling is very classy and sharp, does not look out of place next to a BMW 7 series or Mercedes. This Bolt looks like a Spark or an economy hatchback, very 'edgy' but clearly it's a 'look at me' car.
Even the Volt did better in that regard, the Volt looks close to a Cobalt in appearance, so that you don't have to wonder why someone would want to be seen in it.
Seems the automakers are focusing on gaudy instead of cool.
Take another re-read (and a chill pill, while you're at it). I never said it was a pure EV -- I said it operates as one when in charge deplete mode. While the systems are different than what we've been using with automatic and manual transmission gasoline cars for years, they are actually not that complex. Three clutches that only mate when speed-matched (which means low-wear, so they should last the life of the vehicle) and a fixed planetary gear set. Much simpler than an automatic transmission.
What does a Tesla have, that *ALL* other electrics don't? Style. The Tesla cars look great, like cars you WANT to drive. The others - Chevy, Ford, Nissan, all scream "Hey I'm a cheap piece of shit with an electric motor!" The other electric manufacturers are all sitting around the boardroom table, scratching their heads in befuddlement as to why their sales numbers aren't through the roof. They are fighting Tesla's direct sales model tooth and nail, all the while people are jumping through hoops to get their butts in the seat of a Model S. Seems they should stop trying to race each other to the bottom, and start by designing a car people might actually want, rather than the car that's cheap to build but looks like ... this.
I hope that this effort of GM's succeeds at least well enough for them to continue R&D into EV's, but there are 2 significant problems I see that they'll need to overcome:
First, they'll need a high-speed charging network that will allow for long-distance road trips. Public charging infrastructure is too slow to realistically allow for a trip that is further than what one can do on a single charge. Granted, with 200 miles instead of 40, this is significantly better than what's out there now, it's still not good enough for someone that wants to occasionally take their car on a multi-state road trip. Tesla's supercharger network gives them a competitive advantage, and GM will need something similar. Tesla has said that they are willing to share access, but it has to be on their terms. If GM is willing to buy in on that, we might see a Bolt capable of using Tesla superchargers - this would solve this issue for GM.
Second, the established dealer network has no interest in selling EV's. Most of their profits come from after-market service, and EV's have (theoretically) significantly less service needs. To this end, the dealers are motivated to push traditional ICE's over EV's in virtually every case. This is the major reason why Tesla does not use the traditional dealership sales model. No car salesman will direct you to a Bolt - you'll only get one if you come in specifically wanting one and push past their sales tactics to get you into something else. Buyers of the Nissan Leaf have reported resistance to and sometimes outright hostility from dealerships over wanting to purchase an EV. Unless GM is somehow able to break the dealership cartel and begin direct sales themselves, this issue won't be overcome anytime soon.
Another thought: at $30,000, I strongly suspect it is priced as a loss-leader, meaning it is being sold under cost. Tesla needs the economies of scale of their massive battery factory they call their "gigafactory" now under construction in Nevada in order to achieve a $35,000 price point for the Model 3. It seems unlikely to me that GM has managed to bring the cost down so much without a gigafactory of their own. It seems likely to me that the Model 3, at $5000 more expensive, will be superior to the Bolt in virtually every respect (Tesla has repeatedly said that their 200 mile range will be a real-world figure, while the Bolt's 200 mile range will probably be an ideal figure in perfect conditions, though I'd love to be proven wrong about the Bolt).
All this assumes that GM actually delivers as promised, which is far from guaranteed.
That said, more competition in the EV space is a good thing, so I hope the Bolt does at least well enough for GM to continue research in the area.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
Tesla got the highest score ever at Consumer Reports. It is a better car the a Porsche Pan Am in every respect. The bitter irony is that GM designed a Tesla like skateboard platform with modular bodies that they shelved because the are run my MBAs trying to squeeze profits by bullshit instead of design.
-F34nor
Dismissing it "just a hybrid" is no more accurate than calling it an electric car. It's runs as an electric car until the all-electric range is exhausted -- about thirty miles -- and then runs like a hybrid. Parallel mode may kick in to drive the wheels if the battery is exhausted and it needs the extra push. Since the average driver drives twenty-nine miles a day (some more, some less, YMMV) it means that most days many (maybe most) people wouldn't need to use gas at all. The 2016 Volt gets fifty miles all-electric range on a charge, so the number of people this would cover goes up. I drive a 2012 Volt and I need to make a long drive (about 200 miles) once a week, so most electric cars would not do it for me, but the Volt makes the drive by switching to gas and runs most of the rest of the week off the battery. As far as dependability goes, J.D> Power gives them top marks. I can tell when my Volt goes into parallel mode and it rarely happens, so the "complex" system you're concerned about does not receive a lot of wear and tear.
I suppose that it could be argued that plug-in hybrids like the Volt are just a stop-gap measure until we have charging stations available and fast-charging batteries to shorten the time a recharge takes, but I rather like how my "stop-gap" is working out.
Agreed. I would have a Model S if I could afford it. The Volt is a really good compromise though -- most of the time I get by on pure-electric, and it is so smooth and so quiet that I am never going back to a plain ICE car.
A purpose-built, fossil-fuel powered, generation plant which is roughly twice as efficient as the ICE in a car. (And that's *before* considering mechanical losses and measuring power at the road.)
Or, maybe a hydro-electric plant. Or wind. Or solar. Or nuclear. There is literally *no* industrial source of electricity which is so dirty or inefficient as to make an ICE powered car cleaner or more efficient than an all-electric vehicle. (Even accounting for transmission and charging losses.)
While that makes sense, the claim of the article is that car prices are rising relative to household income -- in other words, it implies that the average new car used to be affordable, that it now is no longer so, and that it's continuing to become increasingly unaffordable.
Actually, car prices have been increasing at a MUCH lower rate than inflation or other costs due to automation of factories, better designs, electronics prices dropping, etc.
For example:
In 1996 I bought a NEW Honda Accord for $22,500
In 2015 you can buy a much better equipped Honda Accord for around $25,000
That's a 10% increase over 19 yrs! It's actually a decrease in price if you consider what you're getting for the cost (i.e. much more HP, MPG, safety, etc)
For reference...in that same time period, movie ticket prices have doubled, gas prices have tripled, housing prices have doubled.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.