History seems to keep repeating itself and for some reason General Motors is its own worst enemy.
The pioneering EV1 died. The Chevrolet Volt died. And then the Chevrolet Bolt died. But now, amazingly, the Chevrolet Bolt has returned, for possibly a limited time, and it took a real effort for General Motors to bring the budget electric car back to the market.
From moving the assembly line, which apparently is hard to do and doesn’t include just a bunch of U-Haul trucks and wrenches, to swapping electric motors, redesigning some subframes, giving the car a new battery pack, upgrading the charging hardware and swapping in a Tesla-style NACS charge port, and if you look closely, redoing some design bits including the lighting elements and the dashboard, GM did it. Of course, General Motors’ fantastic Level 2 hands-free driver-assist system dubbed Super Cruise is still available.
Costing less than $30,000 and with a range of over 250 miles per charge, the Chevrolet Bolt isn’t just the cheapest electric car in America. It’s a straight value regardless of powertrain with an insanely low cost of ownership, high-end tech, and delivering on the real promise of affordable EVs. It’s a standout.
But the entire saga is insane. The fact that GM killed this beloved car, then people were angry enough that the company did an about face and brought the car back, but said in the same breath it would die again after 18 months is a bewildering story.
Editor-in-Chief Kyle Cheromcha spent a day with the new Bolt, the engineering and executive team that brought it back from the dead, and we go inside the story on how this (cheap) icon was brought back to life, what it means, and what the future holds for the nameplate.
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