Chevrolet Announces New Chevy Bolt EV to Challenge Tesla’s Model S
The Tesla Model S may finally have a real challenger in the form of the Chevrolet Bolt, the new electric vehicle which can run for over 200 miles on a single charge. With a release date set for 2016, Chevy has confirmed not only the Bolt’s incredible power, but its competitive price point: $30,000 – less than half the starting price of the Tesla Model S and here at Apple Chevrolet, your Tinley Park Chevy dealer, we are on board with this EV. With current Teslas getting between 208 and 270 miles on a single charge, the Bolt is shaping up to be a formidable competitor.
The two factors that have held most customers back from purchasing electric cars are, of course, the steep price and the range that they can reach on a single charge. There’s even a name for this: range anxiety, the fear that one’s car will run out of power before reaching its destination. The Bolt addresses both of these concerns with its low starting price and Chevy’s introduction of supercharger stations which would get the car’s battery up to 80 percent in less than 45 minutes. That’s still longer than it takes to fill up at the gas station, but it’s reasonable enough to convince a much broader range of consumers to give the electric car a chance.
Though Tesla has done a great job of selling the Model 3 to the public, volume production is more than two years away and the starting price is out of the reach of many consumers. During an event this month in Detroit (introducing the 2016 Chevy Cruze) GM CEO Mary Barra said that the company’s Volt and all-electric Bolt models are “for everyone, not just the elite” – an obvious dig at Tesla, whose cheapest available 200-mile range car (the Model S 70D) costs $75,000. Plus, GM has the production and manufacturing capabilities to succeed with a mass-market all-electric car whereas Tesla still doesn’t. Let’s not forget that GM already produces a mass-market all-electric car: the Spark EV (though it only has an 80-mile range). The Spark may not be sold in all 50 states, but the Bolt will be.
To prove their point, GM is already testing 55 Bolt prototypes. Greg Migliore from Autoblog wrote after one of the testers was spotted “in the wild”: “The prototype…is heavily camouflaged, but the crossover/hatchback styling cues are still evident. The car also has a tall greenhouse, slight creases in the sides, and a sloping roofline in the back. There’s a rapidly rising body line that makes for less glass for rear passengers, but that’s probably part of the camo.” For now, that’s all we know about the Bolt’s appearance.
The Bolt isn’t scheduled to start production until 2017. While you wait, stop by Apple Chevrolet for a test drive of the Chevy Volt to see if electric is right for you.
