It turns out that people do, in fact, want to buy cars that are cheaper and maybe even smaller than the hulking trucks and SUVs we must now finance over a quarter of our overall lifetimes. That, or people just know a good deal when they see one. Maybe both.
Either way, new electric vehicle registration data (sexy, I know!) is here for the first quarter of 2023, and it’s incredibly revealing about what the tax credits did to the overall market, competition for Tesla, and the soon-to-be-discontinued Chevrolet Bolt. On the eve of its death, the Bolt is seeing more sales wins than ever before. Maybe General Motors should make more small, affordable cars? Ah, never mind. That’s crazy talk.
I welcome you back to The Autopian’s morning news roundup with this story, plus some tough talk from Ford CEO Jim Farley about China; potentially concerning airbag recall news; and the latest with Tesla Model Y sales after all those price changes.
The Tesla Model Y Price Cuts Worked
First, as we talk about EV sales in Q1, let’s set the table and start with Tesla.
I’ve said for a while now that while Tesla is more stable, dominant and profitable than ever, one of its biggest problems is its aging lineup. Spec-wise, Teslas are still among the very best EVs on the road—if not the best—but car buyers like shiny new things and the competition’s getting better and better.
But Tesla still has the edge in scale and the ability to slash prices to gin up demand. It’s working, reports Automotive News, particularly with the Model Y crossover.
Tesla doesn’t break out “deliveries” by model or region, but analysts can figure out the trends by looking at vehicle registrations:
Tesla Inc.’s price cuts in the first quarter led to significant volume gains, according to U.S. new-vehicle registration data from Experian. But the benefits came mostly from the relatively fresh Model Y crossover and not the older Model 3 sedan, Model X crossover or Model S hatchback.
Analysts are closely watching Tesla’s numbers after CEO Elon Musk said last month he was willing to sacrifice profits to maintain a global growth target of 50 percent a year for the foreseeable future. Tesla is targeting between 1.8 million and 2 million vehicles in total global production this year.
[…] In the first quarter, Tesla’s U.S. registrations rose 37 percent compared with the same period last year to 155,360 vehicles, Experian data shows. Registrations for the Model Y soared by 79 percent to 93,294 vehicles, representing more than one-third of all EV sales in those three months.
[…] Tesla’s flagship vehicles, the Model S and Model X, posted mixed first-quarter numbers. Registrations for the Model S fell 71 percent to 2,636 vehicles, while the Model X rose 34 percent to 6,545 vehicles compared with a year earlier.
Experian says Tesla sales made up 60% of the EV market in Q1. But that’s down from 72% in 2022. EV registrations that quarter rose to 7% of America’s overall car sales, up from 4.6% a year earlier.
The EV Tax Incentives Worked, Too, But Not Enough To Save The Bolt
I think the uptick in EV adoption is exciting to see. So besides Tesla, what brands did well in Q1?
Really, it’s the ones that still qualified for the ever-changing EV tax credits, which at this point are cars that were made in North America and ideally have their batteries made here too. That’s reflected in the sales data, also via Automotive News:
Brands gaining EV market share include Chevrolet, Ford, Volkswagen, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Experian numbers show. Those losing ground compared with the first quarter of last year include Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, Audi, Nissan and Polestar.
Tesla gets the full tax credits, in many cases, but it lost ground due to increased competition. Those other brands listed generally didn’t qualify for tax breaks at all.
Hilariously, the Bolt and Bolt EUV made up 7.7% of EV registrations in Q1, up from—and wait for it, this is great—0.3% a year prior. Basically, once everyone realized what an insane, screaming deal a heavily discounted Bolt was, they ran every red light to their local Chevy dealers.
And then GM announced it’d be killed off in hopes you’ll buy a bigger, more expensive crossover EV instead. Another win for GM’s illustrious track record with EVs.
Also, while GM eagerly points customers to “its full lineup of EVs,” the only ones really on sale yet are the Bolt twins; the Cadillac Lyriq is perpetually MIA (only 945 were registered in Q1) and the rest are coming at the end of 2023 or next year and beyond.
So how about the rest? Ford came in third place with EV registrations — up a whole 82% year-over-year increase, although Mustang Mach-E sales were down due to supply issues but the F-150 Lightning made up that lost ground. The now U.S.-built Volkswagen ID.4 went up 244%, so it’s finally doing what VW wanted it to do, and Hyundai’s registrations were up 16% even as it lost overall market share.
Some nice news: Rivian had 7,134 registrations for the first quarter, way up from 704 last year. Good for Rivian’a it could use some wins lately.
Nearly at the bottom of that list are Toyota and Lexus. Total registrations of the bZ4x and RZ crossovers were at 1,708, below even Lucid. The world’s biggest automaker clearly has some catching up to do here.
Ford Actually Dials Back China Spending As Competition Heats Up
April’s Auto Shanghai show, the first major in-public Chinese auto show since the COVID-19 outbreak, seems to be a kind of terrifying wake-up call to the rest of the auto industry. They know well that they’re losing sales ground rapidly to homegrown brands, but after seeing all those cars in person—especially the EVs—the Western and other Asian brands are realizing that China may not be some magical golden goose forever.
That’s scary for automakers because China has become vital to their bottom lines. (In Q4 2022, for example, Chinese sales and joint ventures represented about a quarter of GM’s global revenue.) Some automakers are responding by upping their game in China, declaring it’s “comeback time” with bigger investments and more competitive products.
Farley at Ford is taking a different approach by cutting back investments there and offering some real talk, according to the Financial Times:
Ford plans to scale back future investments in China, as the US carmaker’s chief executive warned there was “no guarantee” Western carmakers could win against local electric-vehicle rivals.
The company will “put less capital at risk” by focusing on commercial vehicles such as delivery vans, and will instead use the market as a “listening post” to help it better understand battery technology, Jim Farley told the Financial Times.
“If you just reinvest in a new cycle of EVs in China, there is no guarantee, or no data, that would suggest the western companies win,” Farley said.
“The winners in China [in EVs] turn out not to be the [traditional carmakers],” he said. “It’s actually all the EV brands like BYD and Tesla, Great Wall, SAIC, and Changan, who are winning.”
He mentions Tesla there, but even that company has had its ups and downs in China lately and customers haven’t always responded well to those rapid-fire price cuts. But Ford’s doing significantly worse; it’s seen its Chinese market share get cut in half since 2016.
Now, Farley says Ford doesn’t want to leave China. But Ford instead will pivot to a “much lower investment, more focused investment” in things like commercial vehicles and vans over the next few years. Ford has also been cutting back on the models it offers in Europe.
What does it all mean for you, the car buyer and enthusiast who presumably doesn’t live in China? Just that the rise of that country’s auto industry—both on the home front and its increasing sales success in Europe—is one of the biggest stories in business right now and something that has the potential to upend the car market as a whole in the coming years. If the Western and Asian brands can’t win in China, they had better figure out what a very healthy Plan B looks like instead.
Airbag Manufacturer To NHTSA: Nope
What do you do if you’re a manufacturer of airbag inflators, and the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tells you you should probably issue a recall of millions of your products because they could produce a shrapnel-like effect when they go off?
Apparently, when you’re Tennessee-based supplier ARC Automotive, you say no thanks.
That’s the situation facing the owners of some 67 million cars that may have faulty, dangerous airbag inflators, according to the Washington Post. NHTSA has identified at least seven cases between 2009 and 2023 where an ARC-supplied airbag inflator ruptured and a driver or passenger suffered injuries as a result; at least one was fatal. From that story:
NHTSA called for a recall after an eight-year investigation that included extensive product testing. The inquiry was upgraded after the July 2016 death of one driver, who had been hit in the neck by shrapnel.
ARC Automotive is a niche manufacturer of air-bag inflaters, small metal devices that send compressed gas into an air bag, activating it in the event of a crash.
During the manufacturing process, one part of the inflater is welded onto two pressure vessels. But sometimes excess metal called “weld slag” can be pushed outward along with any other debris, according to an April 27 letter signed by Stephen Ridella, director of the office of defects investigation at NHTSA. He wrote that the inflater is put together in such a way that debris of sufficient size can block the opening that shoots gas into the air bag, causing pressure to build up.
“Over pressurization of the inflater has the potential to cause it to rupture resulting in metal fragments being forcefully propelled into the passenger compartment,” Ridella wrote.
But ARC responded by saying NHTSA’s is “too broad” and technically unsound, calling these isolated incidents rather than a systemic problem. That story notes that ARC probably wants the scope of the recall to be narrowed because one of this size—and ARC is much, much smaller than Takata was—would be disastrous.
Several automakers with ARC inflators have carried out their own recalls over the years, however:
But NHTSA says potentially 67 million more airbag systems could still be affected; at least 12 automakers have used these inflators. The ball is now in NHTSA’s court and hearings could result.
It’s hard to know what to tell you to do here, except keep an eye on this issue. We certainly will. GM is already doing another recall of about a million crossovers over ARC inflators, so you may get a notice in the mail if you’re impacted. If ARC doesn’t handle this, the automakers hopefully will.
Your Turn
I wonder how many of those Bolts Bolt EUVs are people’s primary vehicles, vs. secondary or tertiary runabouts where the appeal is just commuting without gasoline. Probably a mix of both.
Either way, what do these trends tell you about America’s EV market? My take is that if the goal was to encourage automakers to build EVs locally, the tax breaks seem to be working, but they’re so limited right now that these market gains could lose steam until more manufacturing ramps up.
Yikes. Poor weld inspection along with a welding process that starting going off and it wasn’t caught in time to prevent bad things to happen. What other quality controls weren’t caught?
I’ve owned four GMs (fool me once…doh), and my Bolt is by far the best non-Vette vehicle GM has ever made. Heck, it’s *too good* to be a GM. It’s almost as good as my old i3 (RIP).
They had to kill it above and beyond the Ultium reasons. They had to kill it because it was practical and intelligently designed. They had to kill it because it gave their engineers hope, and GM knows that it’s engineers can’t have that. They had to kill it because it was basically an ugly Kia.
Bolt, you were too good for GM.
The Bolt is being axed because the platform development started back in 2012 when they wrongly created a FWD architecture thinking that’s where the EV market would be headed.
They guessed wrong as the EV market moved to AWD, which could not easily be accommodated with the Bolt’s BEV2 platform.
Ultium has the configuration flexibility that BEV2 doesn’t have. No mystery or conspiracy at all.
Bolt offers phenomenal value at the price point. Hopefully GM can accomplish the same with Ultium.
Hopefully…but we know they won’t.
I do not think the lower end of the market really cares that much whether EVs are FWD or AWD. Recent Bolt sales indicate that people are interested in a well-priced car. The move to AWD is manufacturer driven, not needs driven.
Right. People say they “would like” AWD, but if it is cheap enough they won’t care. Maybe you lose a few sales in the northeast where someone demands it, but they probably aren’t buying a small sedan anyway or they aren’t straying from the string of Subarus they’ve owned no matter what GM has on the lot.
“ Maybe General Motors should make more small, affordable cars?”
They will be. The EV Equinox will effectively be replacing the Bolt, but based on a platform where GM can actually make money.
The Bolt EUV starts at $27.8K and the Bolt at $26.5K. They’ve said the Equinox starting price will be “around $30K”, which sounds a lot like “low 30’s” to me.
My Bolt EUV is not just my primary car, but it is also my wife’s. Whichever one of us has more driving to do on any given day takes the Bolt. Her perfectly capable 2014 Toyota Corolla barely sees any use. Yearly, we probably put about 13k miles on the Bolt and 3-4k miles on the Corolla.
I have a similar arrangement with my wife and our Model 3. Her Grand Cherokee can go 4-5 weeks between gas stops. The day she put ~130 miles on the Tesla, we spent as much in electricity to charge it as I spent on gas to drive 15 miles in the Jeep.
After Sniffy Joe re-upped the tax credit for what a month or so, the bolt was just in a really good spot the price after taxes was under 20k for a brand new EV. I suspect they were purchased as second cars to get a feel for living with an EV and now that enough of the neighborhoods have a few to talk about, some are coming around tot he idea of a sub 30k daily that gets above 200 miles to a charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpJH1Te0Mg8
And you completely missed the point. Cheeto man is creepy in his own way, but Creepy Joe is sniffing kids and girls. There is a difference. https://youtu.be/BMsi1GGjy1Q
I mean, Trump appears to have significant and close connections to Epstein and Maxwell – personally, I’d rather a sniffer than someone who hires sex-trafficked girls.
Though I know that it has nothing to do with the end-of-life sales jump for the Bolt EV/EUV, I’ve personally found them more appealing since GM added a few interesting colors beyond the rather generic metallic blue and red that accompany the obligatory white/black/silver.
In ’17-18, there was a color called “Orange Burst Metallic” (pretty much what you’d expect) and in ’19, there was a one-year-only color called “Shock” which was a (probably metallic) bright yellow-green. AFAICR, I’ve never seen any orange or green ones in person, despite seeing several Bolts anytime I leave the house.
2020 saw the single, interesting color changed to a delightful non-metallic teal called “Oasis Blue” which was available for two years, after which it was replaced by a very light metallic silver blue called “Ice Blue Metallic.”
The only other color of interest is a light, non-metallic grey that I’ve been seeing on the last couple years’ worth of Bolts. Despite being a bit of a cliché by now, that light grey looks pretty good on the Bolt, and downright nice on the Bolt EUV (which looks a bit more like a ‘regular’ small crossover vs. the somewhat wonky-looking Bolt). Oddly, I see no mention of this light grey on the Carsdirect pages for the Bolt, unless it’s the ‘Summit White” on their list (which looks a lot whiter than the grey Bolts I’ve seen in person).
SO: a couple years of metallic orange, a single year for a neon yellow-green, and towards the end, a great teal, a light silver-blue metallic, and a very smart looking non-metallic light grey. Any/all of these look (to me) much more interesting than the usual blue, red, and black/white/silver.
I’m not about to contend that if GM had seen fit to offer these and other, interesting colors earlier in the Bolt’s career it might have boosted sales soon/enough to keep the Bolt/EUV going for a few more years. However, the supposed $30K Equinox EV surely won’t be available at anything close to MSRP for a while (I’d be surprised if that happens by 2025 at the earliest).
That’s going to leave a gaping hole in GM’s lineup when the Bolts are eulogized later this year, right at the entry-level part of the market. Bolts weren’t perfect, but they do seem to be good enough for what they cost, here towards their end. Outside of the US there are a number of interesting, smaller, somewhat affordable EVs to choose from, but here and now, it’s about to be just the Leaf. 🙁
Yay glad someone mentioned the cool colors 😀
Yay color! With the lone exception of the free VW, like, a fun color is a non-negotiable for me on a car.
I like the Bolt, but I’ve only heard terrible things about the seat comfort. I don’t think I was waiting for a Cadillac version, but that and GM’s otherwise shitty reputation for quality and labor rights kept me out of one.
That said, the bZ4x should have been a home run for Toyota, but I’m wondering how much the hard-to-adjust steering column is having an impact. I’m very tall and already know I cannot fit my legs in the bZ4x/Soltera or the new Prius
It’s been a while since I’ve driven a Bolt (which I need to fix) but I did hate the seats when it debuted a few years ago. One of my only major gripes with that car.
The seats were refreshed.
I have a 2nd gen Bolt. Seats were upgraded and are comfortable.
I have a first gen with the terrible seats. Buy some custom seat covers and throw a sheet of half inch upholstery foam on the backrest and they’re as good as any other seat
Had our Bolt EV just over 4 months. Sneaking up on 5k miles on it. It’s been great for running around town and for going to kids soccer games about 100 miles away on weekends. Compared to the gas guzzler I would be driving minus the cost of charging at home and it’s saved me over 1k already and probably over 3k by end of year. I’m am extreme example as my previous daily was a 13mpg(on a good day) pig. I love the Bolt. Quick and zippy. Fun to drive. Some better tires on it after the factory ones wear out and it’ll really be fun.
I got a bolt over 5 years ago as a commuter, and during covid the wife liked driving it more than her X1 and sold the BMW, so it’s now our primary car (we also live almost 2 hours/90 miles from the nearest town over 10000 people or any car dealership, where many people claim EVs don’t work, our average lows in mid winter are -20C as well). My dad bought one last year, as a primary vehicle. A coworker’s mom also recently bought one as a primary vehicle. There is certainly a learning curve to driving longer distances, and the charging infrastructure is still marginal and even getting worse in some ways as some chargers break, but I’m guessing a lot of other people use the bolt as a primary vehicle. Since selling the BMW almost 2 years ago, we have had one trip where we rented a car for part of the trip, since Wyoming is basically impassable to non Tesla EVs. The wife did a last minute 500 mile day trip last weekend, and charged twice- once while at costco, so no time lost, and then a 30 minute session on the way home, so even at the frustratingly slow DCFC speeds, it’s really not the end of the world, and 200-400 mile days aren’t bad.
The bolt is the last remnants of the Volt, especially when it comes to charging hardware and infrastructure from GM’s side. While a perfectly adequate car, it was a stopgap until Ultium came around. The batteries are an older design, there’s no super fast DC charging capability, and the recalls did no favors to the car either.
The EUV was supposed to be launched in 2019, from what I’ve read over at the forums, but we all know what happened there. So they got the last of the stock out the door so they could ramp up new production instead.
So it’s easy to say “Well GM made a bad choice” but it doesn’t make sense to sell 2 different architectures of the same powertrain style just to save face with low cost EV sales. If anything, you grow Ultium sales and come back to the Bolt. Imagine a smaller, hatchback style vehicle with fast charging under 15 minutes and over 400 miles of range. Best of both worlds for sure.
I leased a Volt and thought it was brilliant, and when the Gen2 model came out I test drove one and didn’t fit… Unfortunately, the Bolt was only a follow on to the Volt in product line, not technology. The really fun bits are completely engineered by LG — it’s pretty much an LG car. This worked out somewhat well, but the complexity of this means it costs GM more money to make a Bolt than they make on it. The current fire-sale pricing is to clear out the stock of bits. It would have been nice if they could have driven down cost.
GM did not make a bad choice killing the Bolt. Moving potential Bolt buyers to the EV Equinox is the smart play.
WTF is a “Ford Sedan”? I think you made that up.
I think the goal of the cheap EV was to get people interested. I suspect the Bolt was always just supposed to convince people to buy a GM EV, and it had to go away to avoid undercutting the Ultium stuff. We’ll see if it works out for them. The Equinox might be just cheap enough to make it work, though. If they do hit the 30k range for it, it’s going to be a pretty attractive EV for the price, I think. Larger than the Bolt, faster charging, longer range, and whatever other upgrades/updates…Chevy may find people are willing to spend a little more for all that, especially when they can’t go to the cheaper Bolt.
I’m one of the new Bolt EUV owners. Our R53 Mini died and the Aptera I have been waiting for since 2020 still isn’t ready so we picked up a Bolt. Bang for the buck, and for my use case, the Bolt was impossible to beat. The threat of leaving the $7500 tax rebate on the table didn’t hurt.
It’s a basic car, but for a first EV I can really see it’s appeal. It’s just a car that runs on batteries. It’s not a spaceship. It’s not a tech marvel. It is just a car.
Congrats on your Bolt EUV f86sabre (love your handle btw).
“It’s a basic car, but for a first EV I can really see it’s appeal. It’s just a car that runs on batteries. It’s not a spaceship. It’s not a tech marvel. It is just a car.”
IMO, that’s high praise. Especially for a $30ishK car. 🙂
I am more of a sedan person than CUV and the Ford Mondeo looks pretty good. My next car will be a hybrid at the least and preferably a PHEV. I also want something that quells the road noise. My 2017 Mazda 6 has excessive road noise. My research prior to purchase seem to indicate the OEM Dunlop tires were responsible. I replaced those at 50k miles a few months ago with some not cheap Continentals, but it didn’t really help.
I think my ideal vehicle would be a Ford Maverick with the Toyota Prime PHEV system, and Lexus levels of fit and finish. In reality it would likely be unobtanium like the current hybrid Maverick and suffer a recall for engine fires or combustible battery connections. You know, typical Ford SOP for the past decade +.
Was everyone as up in arms about the announcement of the Nissan Leaf being discontinued in the near future with no immediate replacement? That’s also close in price to the Bolt, and the only other EV in Nissan’s lineup is far more expensive than the EV Equinox is supposed to be. Even if the Equinox EV winds up say, 20% higher to start than they estimated when they unveiled it, it’s still cheaper than the Ariya currently.
The idea that the EV should be something like a compact second car for a family is not really where the market is at the moment. I agree it shouldn’t be an either/or situation, but Tesla has normalized the idea that an EV can be your one and only car and now other automakers are following suit, and we’re seeing electrified vehicles in the segments that people do pay big money for. And frankly I don’t think GM thinks people are magically going to switch to the Equinox because they can’t get a Bolt. But when the best-selling car in the U.S. is the RAV4 which starts at $30k, an electric vehicle that’s comparable in size and price is going to resonate with a heck of a lot of people too.
I’d be curious about the retail vs. fleet registrations for the Bolt too. There are some state government buildings near me that have always had a couple newer Bolts parked at the EV chargers, and I noticed over the weekend 4-5 parked outside of it. A cheap EV has to be an easy win for a fleet buy, but it’s not going to do a lot for consumer adoption.
The Bolt >> The Leaf
Not really the question. Regardless of which one is better, both are cheap, affordable EVs on the market now – but not for long.
yes it is. It’s an answer to your first question. Was everyone up in arms over the Leaf being canceled? No, because it was a bad vehicle with poor battery health
Whether or not it’s a better option isn’t really the point – they are both affordable EV options. Until what, less than a year ago, the Leaf was the cheaper option, “you get what you pay for” basically.
I’m no GM fan and they certainly have their share of pricey EVs coming, but the Equinox EV is at least projected to be far below the current new vehicle average transaction price*, even if it’s not the type of vehicle form factor most of us here would prefer.
*again, I have my doubts on hitting that $30k number now but we’ll see.
If they sell a pre-tax-credit Equinox for less than $30k I’ll eat my socks.
Yeah they’ve literally never said the words “under $30K”. They said “around $30K” which to me sounds synonymous with $32K.
Will the Equinox EV resonate with a lot of people? Of course. It could even nab some Bolt customers who got pregnant and need to push into a bigger class. But the Bolt is clearly resonating with a lot of people too, since sales are growing. And, honestly, even if not every consumer wants one, enough want one, and nice cars for single people who don’t want to go outside their needs are thin on the ground.
I think that’s what bothers me about the “well just get an Equinox EV” argument. I mean, I’m sure it’s fine. But it is, without question, a car I do not want. Lots of people love their mid-size CUVs, good for them, but pushing EVERYONE in that direction is going to make a lot of people very unhappy. I’d consider buying a Bolt, I would never even look at an Equinox EV.
I think the “well they’re forcing you to just get an Equinox EV” is the internet commentariat saying it, not GM. GM is retooling the plant to make EV trucks but it also doesn’t mean they’re never ever going to introduce something in the entry-level space. Like I said, it shouldn’t be either/or on an affordable EV and larger more expensive EVs, but small EVs like the Bolt have had a 10+ year run to make an impact in the market. Meanwhile – and not a Tesla fan here – Tesla made much more of an impact in mainstream EV adoption – the Model 3 and Y are estimated to both be top 10 sellers in the US so far this year.
Sure Tesla also had price cuts (and it practically varies day to day what they cost), but sales were already strong, whereas the Bolt only really jumped after its price cuts relatively recently. That just says there’s room for a cheap car, not really a ringing endorsement for people shopping the Bolt as a vehicle. You said the Bolt is one you would consider, but would you have considered it at the same price point as other compact carlike EVs like the Kona or Niro? Even the Kona is closest in price at 6-7k more expensive. Heck, you can hardly find a conventional gas-electric hybrid version of an existing car at the Bolt’s pricepoint – Corolla Hybrid is the only one I can think of.
Even in this thread people are saying they got a Bolt and saved $ on their daily driving duties over whatever thirstier main car they have – so people with more means for a multi-car household. A great stepping stone into EV ownership and overall adoption for sure, but not necessarily the best option for people shopping in that price point because that’s what they can afford, when there’s also infrastructure, charging, etc. to consider to make it a more seamless transition.
Absolutely. Me too.
Our Chevy Bolt was a commute vehicle, so cheap to run! But then the battery recall hit, and the limited range plus no battery replacement available, I was able to get MSRP back even if I paid way under sticker. Its the perfect second car for a lot of people
1g Honda Insight. Perfect commuter/2nd car, and has a 5spd manual. Basically an aluminum CRX.
I have one too lol IMA battery replaced last year
The 1st gen Insight is among the best candidates you can find for an EV conversion. I wish it were even more slippery than it was, less tall, and rear drive.
What makes GM bean counters extra special is that they perpetually assume that someone will just buy another GM car instead of the competition when GM goes ahead and kills a model that is garnering good will.
Is the Bolt outdated? Yes. Is it on a platform that GM is not moving forward with? Yes. Is it less profitable than a larger crossover? Also yes. But do the people buying the Bolt want it, like it, and become fans of it? Absolutely.
I would have become a first time new GM buyer by the end of this year, but now, I’m not because these things already have enough tacked on the hood. I’m not buying the Equinox EV, because it’s an entirely different friggin vehicle
Also: Honda Fit.
The insinuation that the Bolt was canceled because of some conspiracy hatched in a smoke-filled room is getting tiresome. GM decided they wanted to stop selling $10 bills for less than $10 when they have a new platform coming out. The fact is no one seems to be able to make profitable EVs for the US market in the 20-30k price range.
Nissan makes a small profit on all levels of the Leaf. So technically you can build a profitable EV that sells for under $30k in the US (the short-range base model starts at $28k). Unfortunately, it kind of sucks.
The Emo guy Chad doesn’t help.
I never said it was some conspiracy. More a missed opportunity to capitalize on something that’s clearly a sales success, especially since nothing is in the pipeline at GM with the Bolt’s size or price tag.
I don’t see how this is a missed opportunity. It doesn’t appear a nice EV can be profitable in this price range. GM screwed up by underpricing the Bolt. Now they have to cancel it and get a ton of bad press.
Perhaps conspiracy was a bit strong, but this is the sentiment I’m referring to:
It was indeed a “sales success”, but high sales on a product that loses money isn’t really good business unless it’s having some other effect (i.e. a loss leader)
I see it as a missed opportunity to keep a vehicle in that size but on the Ultium platform. I understand killing the Bolt name, it is heavily tarnished (or rather scorched with fire). But they could have brought back the Spark or Sonic name as an EV to replace the Bolt. GM risks losing an entire segment to the rumored Tesla Model 2.
The Bolt name isn’t tarnished. It’s sales numbers keep getting better
Wasn’t the Bolt’s outdated charging hardware a major issue? I vaguely recall seeing stories saying that.
It was a major issue for people who cared about having the fastest charging.
There are plenty of people who mostly use it as a commuter and charge at home don’t care and some percentage of consumers who don’t mind longer charging on trips. Not to mention the people who don’t understand the charging architecture and just see the low price.
When I considered buying on last year, I knew it wasn’t road trip capable because of the slow DC charging. Hopefully most of the current buyers are aware of the limitations and plan on using the Bolt as an in-town only car only.
Everything on Bolt was old tech. It was an evolution of the Spark EV testbed.
GM was correct to cease the Bolt & move on to newer technology.
Or they could just update the Bolt instead of shoving another CUV down our collective throats.
I live in Socal and EVs are everywhere, even Rivians and Lucids (very) occasionally. I’ve yet to see the EV Hummer.
Same. Saw one Hummer in the wild and another at a Cars and Coffee, but that’s it. I’m in Irvine, which I think is (perhaps even literally) Rivian ground zero. I’ve seen more Lucids in the last week than ever. This week I’ve also seen the new Hyundai EV (the curvy one whose name escapes me) out and about this week for the first time as well.
I was in Detroit for work last week, and damn, I love how different the carscape is there. Mach-Es, Lightnings, PHEV Grand Cherokees, and EV Hummers everywhere.
…and – you apparently didn’t get shot.
I’m not sure the Hummer will ever be a big seller. I think it’s purpose was to show off.
There was nothing that was ever going to save the Bolt. It was a dead man walking from the moment GM decided to move ahead with the Ultium platform.
They finally started marketing it in print/TV/web in the end, coincidence?? I guess we’ll never know.
GM lost $9000 per Bolt in 2016-17 when the car cost $36K ($45K in 2023 dollars).
https://www.inverse.com/article/32239-why-gm-loses-money-chevy-bolt
Now it costs $26K in 2023 dollars and people are confused why it’s being canceled???!!!
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/29/why-gm-is-killing-the-chevy-bolt-ev-amid-record-sales.html
You’ve got to spend money to make money.
That’s precisely what they are doing, by investing in a new modern platform rather than an 8 year old one.
I’m not sure why this is such a hard concept. If GM is losing money on every Bolt sold, record sales are not a good thing.
I am amazed they are losing $9k per car, though. I assumed they were not profitable, but based on that figure, they probably would have to charge at least $50,000 to make money. No one is going to want to spend $50,000 on a basic compact car.
Yeah, I’m sure commodity price fluctuations and battery recalls and amortization of fixed costs complicate the exact loss number, but I’d be surprised if a single Bolt has ever been sold at a profit.
I wonder if GM screwed up by selling the Bolt so cheap. I know it was a loss leader intended to generate interest in future EVs, but now consumers think a good EV can and should sell for less than $30,000. Costs will come down, but a profitable sub $30k EV that has mass appeal is a long way off.
On the contrary, a sub $30k EV that has mass appeal was doable 25 years ago. You don’t need a massive battery to get 200+ miles highway range.
A properly streamlined car that cuts drag in half versus current offerings will use roughly half as much energy per mile at highway speeds. This is how the 1998 Solectria Sunrise got a 200 mile real-world range on only 26 kWh with 70 mph driving(broke a world record, getting 373 miles being hypermiled in a Tour De Sol). It would have been a $20,000 car in mass production according to the designer, James Worden. The same design principles that applied to this car can be applied to a modern car. It has a drag coefficient of only 0.17. That is an achievable figure for a subcompact as well as a full size sedan. Note the GM Precept(0.16), GAC Eno 146(0.146), and Ford Probe V(0.137).
There is a cost to the manufacturer: ending planned obsolescence in vehicle styling. You’d be using that same body for the next 30+ years, because it would be difficult to improve upon with the next body style, and it would cost a bit more to develop.
So much wrong in your post…
Electra only had a ~200 mile range at 60mph, half of the car’s weight was battery, and it used NiMH chemistry…
Accurate Wikipedia info:
“Stanford R. Ovshinsky invented and patented a popular improvement of the NiMH battery and founded Ovonic Battery Company in 1982. General Motors purchased Ovonics’ patent in 1994. By the late 1990s, NiMH batteries were being used successfully in many fully electric vehicles, such as the General Motors EV1 and Dodge Caravan EPIC minivan.
This generation of electric cars, although successful, was abruptly pulled off the market.
In October 2000, the patent was sold to Texaco, and a week later Texaco was acquired by Chevron. Chevron’s Cobasys subsidiary provides these batteries only to large OEM orders. General Motors shut down production of the EV1, citing lack of battery availability as a chief obstacle. Cobasys control of NiMH batteries created a patent encumbrance for large automotive NiMH batteries” – and insuring that NiMH battery chemistry doesn’t get used in vehicles.
The Solectria Sunrise had a curb weight without batteries of 1433 lbs. The 26 kWh pack of NiMH batteries in the car was somewhere around 850 lbs, not even close to half its weight(The Ovonic NiMH were 70 Wh/kg).
The $20,000 figure for mass production was quoted from a book “Charging Ahead” by Joe Sherman. I read that a 217 mile range was achieved on the highway with speeds up to 65 mph, so extrapolated the 200 miles range at 70 mph from there.
Its Tour De Sol range record of 373 miles per charge can also read about it here:
http://www.evdl.org/pages/sunrise_tds.html
None of the info you provided from wikipedia contradicted anything I said.
With today’s technology, building a sub $20k mass produced EV should be a lot easier than it would have been back then. No one with the means wanted to mass produce Worden’s design, and it languished. The fact that an oil company got ahold of the NiMH patent and sat on it does not destroy the viability of the cars that relied upon it, at least from a technical or a financial standpoint. The tech was certainly “good enough” back then, and could have been affordable in volume production.
…kinda like Ford mis-pricing the Lightning?
I thank the main issue is there is no replacement at a similar price point. The fact that GM was loosing money in the car explains the decision, but does not address that there is some market in this space that is not being addressed.
The broader issue is that I don’t think it’s possible to profitably sell a US market-certified EV with decent range for under $30K.
Legacy automakers have been willing to sell EVs at a loss for a while to gain experience and because money was cheap. That didn’t make the situation sustainable, and as Stig’s Cousin pointed out above, if consumers and autowriters expected a string of cheap EVs to continue forever, I believe they were wrong.
People look at EVs like tech, where computers, TVs, phones etc get both cheaper and better over time, but I don’t think we can assume that will be the case for cars.
I’m guessing part of it also had to do with zero emissions mandates and overall fleet fuel economy numbers. I mean, back in the day FCA sold the Fiat 500e and lost money on each and every one. Guess what? They don’t sell it anymore.
Now that GM has higher-margin products in the pipeline that will actually make money for GM rather than just be there partly for compliance purposes, GM has no desire to lose money on every Bolt it sells.
And yeah, electric cars are completely different from computers and other tech. My laptop cost $1500 new and I just bought a new battery for it recently after 3 years, costing me $150. So the battery (an OEM part, not some knock-off) is only 10% of the price of the laptop. Most of the cost goes into the CPU and other chips inside. The computer chip industry is constantly iterating every year or two, shrinking the node that processes are built on which consistently brings performance down to lower price points. EV batteries make up what, 30-40% of the cost of an EV? That’s huge. The problem is that there isn’t an easy way to drive down the cost of EV batteries year over year like you can with computer chips or TV screens.
Apples and oranges and all that…
Maybe that’s an idea for ChangLi / “uncle” Jason to explore.
That inverse article cites a Bloomberg article that is, essentially, “someone told us”. They go on to to use $227/kWh to estimate the cost of the battery. It was widely reported (but obviously not researched) that GM paid LG $145/kWh, an $8500 difference, and that was in 2016!
They may lose money on the car (probably) but the $9000 number is just made up.
A server rack sized 5KW LPF battery is about $1400 retail. That is $350/kWh, not even NMC. So I don’t think $227/kWh is that far off, assuming 2x markup.
Most people bitching about the end of the Bolt never owned one, but they’ll still bitch.
Look at all the potential early EV adopters GM alienated by eliminating the Bolt from their lineup. Not everyone can afford to buy one of the heavily optioned, full-luxe EVs on offer today.