Photo: Chevrolet
The Chevrolet Bolt has a lot of things going for it - in fact, there are only two aspects that cast a shadow of doubt over its success: its 50 kW charging limitation (meaning it won't be able to charge anywhere near as fast as a Tesla, which has a cap at more than double that) and its future main competitor, the Tesla Model 3.
Other than that, the Chevrolet Bolt comes in a nice enough package with a design that's not too bold, but not that boring either, and dynamic performances that are way above the what its looks might suggest. The most important part, however, is that 238-mile maximum range obtained from a 60 kWh battery pack.
GM was reluctant to tell how many Bolts it plans to build over the course of next year, but the American company's main partner in the Bolt project, the Koreans at LG, were a lot more loose-lipped. Electrek found out that the Vice President of LG Chem, the LG subsidiary that specializes in building battery cells, revealed during a conference call that his company is expected to deliver over 30,000 battery packs in 2017.
Since GM isn't working with other battery suppliers, that means the first full year of production will see Chevrolet build somewhere around 30,000 Bolts. That's a far cry from Tesla's planned output for the Model 3 as the Palo Alto company hopes to satisfy its 400,000 early registrations by mid-2018, with production scheduled to start no sooner than one year earlier.
This goes to show that even though GM went through the trouble of putting together a more than decent EV, it's still not ready to make a mass-market product out of it. Or, more likely, it believes the public isn't ready to embrace it as such, and therefore will maintain a low production volume, at least for now.
If everything goes to plan with the Model 3, we will find ourselves in a bit of an awkward situation where GM becomes the niche manufacturer, and Tesla is the mass-market one. But only as far as EVs go, of course.
GM was reluctant to tell how many Bolts it plans to build over the course of next year, but the American company's main partner in the Bolt project, the Koreans at LG, were a lot more loose-lipped. Electrek found out that the Vice President of LG Chem, the LG subsidiary that specializes in building battery cells, revealed during a conference call that his company is expected to deliver over 30,000 battery packs in 2017.
Since GM isn't working with other battery suppliers, that means the first full year of production will see Chevrolet build somewhere around 30,000 Bolts. That's a far cry from Tesla's planned output for the Model 3 as the Palo Alto company hopes to satisfy its 400,000 early registrations by mid-2018, with production scheduled to start no sooner than one year earlier.
This goes to show that even though GM went through the trouble of putting together a more than decent EV, it's still not ready to make a mass-market product out of it. Or, more likely, it believes the public isn't ready to embrace it as such, and therefore will maintain a low production volume, at least for now.
If everything goes to plan with the Model 3, we will find ourselves in a bit of an awkward situation where GM becomes the niche manufacturer, and Tesla is the mass-market one. But only as far as EVs go, of course.
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