Slashdot Mirror
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."
Is this to presume that they'll discontinue the Volt? The names are so similar I could see confusion here...
I was totally interested until I saw the color they used for their demo. Eww!
On a positive note, I suppose gaudy orange could be considered an anti-theft feature.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
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.
Oddly, the volt is a gas car in that it is a parallel hybrid. The bolt is a true electric car.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So will you need a special washer to clean it?
Just for reference, $30k is the average price of a new car in the US, and considering that it's using technology that's ahead of the curve I don't think that's terrible. This isn't to say that I'd rush out to buy one though.
I wonder how Star (Yamaha) motorcycles, maker of the Star Bolt, feel about this.
http://www.starmotorcycles.com...
Just for reference, the average-priced car is unaffordable by the average-income household.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Here in Colorado diesel is still at 3/ gal. Normally, it is around 4. With electricity at .05/kwh for nighttime charging. As such, your TDI is great deal more expensive to run than an electric car. And that does not include the fact that your maintenance is outrageous compared to electric.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So they're gonna search dict/words for ^.olt$, done and done? That won't get confusing.
Seriously, bolt and volt are going to be pronounced the same by huge numbers of people. Chevy is pretty much champion of not thinking things through?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
...Molt?
Thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your servers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
They will sue, it is Disney.
What's next, suing over the DVD release of Back to the Future because of the lightning "BOLT" harvested for its 1.21 GW of raw chronomeddling power? Even Disney realizes that some lawsuits can be dispensed with in motions for summary judgment. Disney has no more of a case about this than it would have about "FROZEN" yogurt unless it depicts Elsa on the packaging or otherwise implies endorsement. Lawyers would advise Disney to just "LET IT GO".
which seems poised to place this vehicle in front of more potential customers than the Tesla.
Meh. Tesla sells every single car it makes and has a waitlist backlog months (or years for the M/X) long. That is with NO advertising. Whoopdy do, more eyes.
Additionally, Tesla has the (current) checkmate of the supercharger network. I know that likely won't be free to the M/3, but I assure you it does a great job of squelching range anxiety... something the other guys remain hobbled by.
And for the commuters... I welcome *ANY* (safe) electrical vehicle at any price range. We will fix the coal/gas power plants later, and it will be transparent. Lets get these ICE cars out of here. WAAAY too much energy lost in the ICE reaction. Especially for city driving, regenerative braking is a lifesaver... think of not only individual vehicles, but city busses... large vehicles ideally suited for high torque electrical motors, where regenerative braking can recover a lot of that.
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
The drop in oil prices will be temporary at best.
While I enjoy filling up the tank and spending ~$20 atm, I know this is a very short term thing.
No one will admit to it, ( and of course I have no proof of it, so is pure speculation on my part ) but either OPEC is trying to destroy the US Shale-Oil business by pushing the price of oil through the floor, or they are working with the US to punish certain OTHER ( *cough* Russia *cough* ) countries who rely heavily on oil exports to fund their economy.
As soon as the whole Ukraine thing calms down, expect oil to make the jump back to the ~$80 / barrel range shortly thereafter.
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.
The Chevy "Oy-GeValt"...
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all day.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Given the original Chevy Volt concept looked like this and the production looked like this. I fully expect the Bolt to go from this to this.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
In america, we call "petrol" and "diesel" gas.
No, no we don't. We call gasoline ("petrol" is itself meaningless slang, since it is short for petroleum) by the name "gas" and we call diesel fuel "diesel".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
The batteries in the Prius last typically longer than 10 years. Im not aware of *any* electric or hybrid vehicle that requires a battery replacement "every few years" Did you bother to do any research or did you just make that up?
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.
This, I can agree with. There's no legitimate reason why cheap, lightweight cars like the Honda CRX (better fuel economy than a modern Prius... in 1988!) are effectively no longer allowed to be made. (And before somebody tries to use something like an Elio as a counterexample... it's not. It's a damn motorcycle.)
That's a strawman argument: the average household can indeed afford a $200 per month car payment, but that $200 per month is only enough to get you a cheap, lower-than-average car! The article never made any claim that the average household couldn't afford a car at all; only that it couldn't afford an average one.
It's also a strawman for a different reason: the minimum wage is not $1980 per month! First of all, $1980 / 160 hours (full time for a month) = $12.375 per hour, which is simply wrong. Federal minimum wage is actually $7.25 per hour, which would add up to $1160 per month. Second, federal minimum wage is per hour, not per month, and most minimum-wage workers aren't allowed by their employers to work a full 160 hours per month even if they want to, so the minimum "monthly" wage is even less than that.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
Diesels are extremely cheap to maintain and last an extremely long time. Getting 200-300k miles on a diesel engine with no maintenance is common
You're 25 years out of date (i.e. we're not talking about your great uncle's ultra-reliable W123 anymore). There's every likelihood that one of these new German diesels (with their myriad failure-prone sensors and crappy wiring harnesses) will have you constantly headed back to the dealership for repairs, at least until the factory warranty runs out.
Even if the answer is a giant coal power plant, that coal power plant is much more thermally efficient than your Golf TDi. The cold TDi's engine is around 34% efficient (and that's ignoring the fact that a petrol car has a much more significant gear box and transmission than an electric, and hence loses more there, it's likely to only about 15% efficient at the wheels). Meanwhile thermal efficiency for power plants is around 60% and electric cars have thermal efficiencies around 80%, so in total about 48% thermally efficient at the wheels. That is, for the same power, an electric car will burn 3 times less fossil fuels, even if you assume that it is 100% powered by fossil fuel power plants.
"Mean" is the same as "average" . People who think otherwise have learned just enough math to be dangerous but not enough to do anything useful.
Possibly you wish to invoke the "median."
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
No one will admit to it,... but either OPEC is trying to destroy the US Shale-Oil business by pushing the price of oil through the floor.
It's really weird that you feel like no one will admit to it, and that it's speculation "on your part". This is widely known. It is not a secret. It is a workable and working strategy. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is reality. I've seen probably a dozen articles on it, and it's the topic of discussion on both NPR and conservative talk radio. Rest assured, the price will rise again.
The saudi's paid some very smart investment analysts to determine the burn down rate of new wells, pipelines and capacity in north america, and compare that to global markets. Their reserve value will outlast the shale oil investment costs, you can be sure. They also decided to punish the other OPEC states for previous non-cooperation in price fixing at the same time, and this will cause those competitors to deplete reserves faster too. It's a triple win for them. Win/win/win.
I'm a pretty big fan of TDI myself (go tdiclub!), but reality can be harsh. I purchased a 2000 beetle three years ago, at 220,000 miles. The first owner probably didn't like it, sold it after two years, with at least ten shop visits. I forget the exact mileage and cost, but not all of it was covered by warranties. The second owner had it for the intervening years and maybe 200,000 miles. She took it the dealership when necessary, I think the repair bills over the first 12 years totalled $16,000.
I finally broke down and paid to have work done last week. I wont count the brakes since that isn't TDI related, but the thermostat was $250. (heat wave! now I'm not freezing in Michigan's zero degree weather. Since VW doesn't install a temp gauge, it took me two years to realize this was a problem.) I could still use new injectors. Maybe the intake manifold could be cleaned. DIY oil changes cost twice as much as my older gas vehicles. There are several parts on the engine that might fail, and cost $1000 to $2000 to fix (turbo, intercooler). I'm burning a quart of oil every six weeks.
My Bug has the ALH engine, which I love for being able to use B100 and maybe other alternatives. The newer engines are more complex. The recent kicker has been been gas dropping to $1.90/gal, while diesel is generally $3.40 here. I used to buy diesel at similar prices, or at most 20 cents more. Maybe TDI makes more sense for people that put on crazy miles (25,000 per year?) but I wouldn't really recommend it to a normal, non-enthusiast american.
My Beetle is probably averaging 10 cents per mile for fuel (over the 40,000 miles I've driven). That was about the same as my wife's Aveo, until the gas price drop. Now she is probably paying 6 cents per mile fuel.
(PS - I had four new cars with gas engines, I sold them at 170k, 220k, 190k, 230k, all without any major engine issues)
Exactly right, but your sensible viewpoint doesn't belong anywhere on a blog site, apparently. No, you can't completely describe the Volt as a plug-in hybrid, EV, series or parallel hybrid, or whatever--it's a Volt and there's nothing else exactly like it.
I read this forum having come from other EV forums where readers are complaining endlessly that the Volt isn't a true EV, that it has far too limited range, that it was designed as a parallel hybrid and should've been a series hybrid, etc. Folks. This is all new stuff. If you want to change the world, stop posting drivel that drives away readership.
And BTW I'm sure GM would've loved to have released an EV in 2010 with 200+ mile range, one hour charge times, and a sub-$25k price. The reality is that it wasn't practical in 2010, and may be only barely practical today given the economics involved and the state of the technology.
The Volt is a great stop-gap. It gave us something to buy these past four years while we wait for more advanced EV's to become feasible and hit the market. The drivetrain is complex, but apparently has a very low failure rate. The ICE will run frequently or continuously in extreme conditions, but most drivers can expect lifetime averages well over 100 MPG driving in real-world conditions. Why can nobody simply call this what it is: A technical coup for GM.
I drive a Volt. You've probably seen the back side of it if you drive around San Diego. Yep, it's very zippy in the 0 to 50 mph range. It is pretty rare that the engine drives the wheels. I have had it for 2 1/2 years and have 50k miles on it. The finish, interior and performance are the same as the day I bought it. GM did an outstanding job on this vehicle. The maintenance costs are extremely low. I've changed the oil twice and not because the car was telling me to. I just got uncomfortable not changing the oil. The brake pads are at 99%. They rarely get used. After driving around, you can touch the brake pads and they will still be cold. The engine in the Volt is really more like a generator. Nothing too complicated about that. The only problem this car has is the ignorant who put forth a worthless opinion that others then parrot as fact. I'd buy another Volt in a heart beat. Oh wait, I did, for my wife. It drives as well as mine does.
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.