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Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

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Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#61

Post by maxsilver »

brightball wrote: post #38

I still don't understand why anyone would buy a Bolt (or a Tesla) over a Volt. Since I heard about the Volt initially back in 2006, it was the most logical and practical approach to powering a vehicle that I'd ever heard. Eliminate gas usage on 95% of your driving, but have gas available for long range and fast refueling against the entire infrastructure of the US. Pure EV's are nothing more than "around town" cars i…

> I still don't understand why anyone would buy a Bolt (or a Tesla) over a Volt.

It's a great second car. For families, you buy one PHEV (like your Volt) to handle commutes or road trips, and one Pure EV second car that only gets used for commutes and such. Pure EV's also have significantly lower maintenance.

> Pure EV's are nothing more than "around town" cars in a lot of the country,

This isn't like a LEAF with low 80ish mile limits. At 220+ miles, this new Bolt could drive from Chicago to Milwaukee and back without ever stopping to charge -- quite a bit further than just "around town".

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#62

Post by ethbro »

basch wrote: post #52
Klathmon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, Tesla feels like a "marketing" company. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Yes, their battery tech is improving, and they make pretty damn good cars, but most of all Tesla is getting people excited for electric cars. Before they came around, electric cars were shitty ecoboxes that were worse in just about every way to an ICE car. They were ugly, had no range, were missing features, expensive, slow charging, e…

it's also a quality assurance company, similar to apple. "we put these different parts together, and guarantee they function the way we say they do." similar to intel and microsoft making first party hardware, their core becomes more valuable when oems get better.

> similar to intel and microsoft making first party hardware, their core becomes more valuable when oems get better

So, you mean the opposite of Android?

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#63

Post by pmarreck »

mikkael wrote: post #33

Surely a nice car. But I wonder where all this electrical power for all those electrical cars in the future will come from? Probably from nuclear power plants with their still unresolved nuclear waste problematics - not even speaking about nuclear accidents. From this point of view I have some doubts that mass adoption of affordable electrical cars will be beneficial for the environment...

1) You're not up-to-date on recent nuclear power safety data.

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/nuclear-power-safe-save-world-...

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-...

2) Wind and solar could accomplish a lot. It already does in Germany, at least.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#64

Post by ethbro »

coredog64 wrote: post #43
Klathmon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, Tesla feels like a "marketing" company. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Yes, their battery tech is improving, and they make pretty damn good cars, but most of all Tesla is getting people excited for electric cars. Before they came around, electric cars were shitty ecoboxes that were worse in just about every way to an ICE car. They were ugly, had no range, were missing features, expensive, slow charging, e…

Off the top of my head, the pre-Tesla EVs I remember are the GM Impact, an electric RAV4, and an electric S-10/Ranger (the latter primarily sold to corporate fleets). The EV1 spawned a movie, with most owners very interested in buying. If you think a RAV4 is a shitty ecobox, well, I'm not sure how I can help.

I owned an ICE Rav4. I would absolutely characterize it as a shitty ecobox version of an SUV.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#65

Post by w0utert »

ohstopitu wrote: post #57

This is a pet peeve of mine, but I don't get why cars need to change design (subjective: and make them ulgy) just because they are EVs? Tesla showed the world that a car could look like a "car" and still be electric. I'm all for innovations in design, but weird/ugly designs are also a reason that stops people from buying electric cars.

To me, the Bolt looks just like all the other (non-EV) small/medium-sized hatchbacks, I'd say it's one of the things it has going for it compared to other small EV's.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#66

Post by metamet »

pmarreck wrote: post #55
archildress wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point. Tesla is, to me, fundamentally a battery company.

Tesla will inevitably be a battery company because battery energy density, charge time and cost are the #1 things holding back electric vehicles from prime-time, and because of the huge investment into Gigafactory. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla ends up licensing their battery tech and that supercharging becomes a standard.

Isn't the the whole purpose behind https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you ?

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#67

Post by astalwick »

gregwtmtno wrote: post #51
astalwick wrote: post #42

This is a big deal. Car of the year, when you're talking about normal internal combustion cars, doesn't really matter that much. When you start talking about new (and, for $30000, scary) tech like electrics and hybrids 10-12 years ago, it makes a big impact on purchasing decisions. I bought my 2005 Prius largely based on the car of the year recommendation on the 2004 Prius (among other research, sure). That recommend…

I don't think it's such a big deal. The Volt won in 2011, and that car didn't change the automotive world substantially.

You may be right.

However, the Volt is basically just a hybrid with a bigger battery. By 2011, hybrids were pretty common, so being nervous about the tech wasn't as much of an issue. That's the point I'm trying to make: for most people, $30k is a pretty big investment. New tech is a risk, and awards like COTY go a long way to overcoming consumer resistance to that risk.

It's possible, though, that Tesla has done enough to prove out electric cars. Tesla won COTY as well.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#68

Post by cx1000 »

ohstopitu wrote: post #57

This is a pet peeve of mine, but I don't get why cars need to change design (subjective: and make them ulgy) just because they are EVs? Tesla showed the world that a car could look like a "car" and still be electric. I'm all for innovations in design, but weird/ugly designs are also a reason that stops people from buying electric cars.

It's weird how obvious this is to consumers but how it's been lost on car manufacturers for so long. Literally everyone I know says the same thing about how ugly they are. Maybe now Tesla is helping them finally get it.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#69

Post by ams6110 »

Vik1ng wrote: post #60
brightball wrote: post #38

I still don't understand why anyone would buy a Bolt (or a Tesla) over a Volt. Since I heard about the Volt initially back in 2006, it was the most logical and practical approach to powering a vehicle that I'd ever heard. Eliminate gas usage on 95% of your driving, but have gas available for long range and fast refueling against the entire infrastructure of the US. Pure EV's are nothing more than "around town" cars i…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lOV6PdVQbk Consumer Reports touches a bit on that. One advantage is for example that you don't have to worry about the maintenance and reliability of the combustion engine.

FTA: The battery is expected to last the life of the Bolt EV, and it’s covered by an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty.

100,000 miles is not remarkable for cars made in the last decade at least. Most will go 100,000 miles easily with only routine fluid changes. Granted that may be more than what an EV needs but it's not something most people really "worry" about.

None of my current cars are less than 10 years old and none have less than 100,000 miles; my main family car for long trips is a Honda minivan w/210,000 on the clock and it runs like new and is very reliable. And I only paid 8,000 for it when I bought it with 80,000 miles.

Re: Chevrolet Bolt EV Is the 2017 Motor Trend Car of the Year

#70

Post by camiller »

awjr wrote: post #26
ferongr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most electric cars lack a variable-ratio transmission. At some point and you only have the final drive to reduce the speed of the electric motor. The final drive has to strike a balance between torque for negotiating inclines and top speed, as the electric motor cannot rev to infinity, neither can the power systems handle infinite power though them. An electric car with a two-ratio gearbox would be ideal for both tak…

One of the concerns I have is that many of the EVs that are being released are not capable of towing significantly. I own a horse and we need something that can tow a braked 3.5T trailer. This market in the EU is primarily serviced by diesel 4x4s. I can see a future where the diesel engine is banned and only at that point will something fall out of the woodwork to cope with that towing capacity.

I think that there will always be some internal combustion driven vehicles for tasks such as these.
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