The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

Post by wmf » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 12:21 AM UTC

rl3 wrote: post #18

FussyZeus wrote: post #8

Tesla proved that eco-minded cars didn't need to be ugly, yet ALL other manufacturers continue to produce only ugly cars (they don't get points for bootstrapping hybrid models of existing cars). I am amazed none of the other purveyors of electric cars have managed to figure this out. Even the BMW offering ranks high on the "God what the hell" scale in terms of its design. The Prius started this stupid trend of cars f…

I sometimes wonder what the industrial designers on these things are smoking. Are they really that bad, or does someone above their pay grade just have no taste at all?

Post by mynameisvlad » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 12:23 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #87

_ea1k wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumption is actually incorrect. Data: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_li... Table 2 shows the lifespan of a typical Lithium Ion battery based upon various discharge depths. 100% discharge rates degrade to less than 70% of original capacity after only 300-500 cycles. 25% discharges hit the same value after 2,000-2,500 cycles. That level of discharge is fairly common with cars like the…

>25% discharges hit the same value after 2,000-2,500 This is exactly the point (and easy to miss) The degredation per energy used is about the same. 1 cycle of 100% = 4 cycles of 25% So the 300-500 cycle loss is equivalent to 500-625 when you divide the number of recharge cycles by 4. You _must_ do this for an apt comparison because what you should be interested in is how your capacity deacys with usage. Artificially…

Post by vmarsy » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 12:24 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #54

> The Bolt’s gear-selector comes from Buick. Why does an electric car have a gear selector?

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 12:27 AM UTC

jaimex2 wrote: post #102

threeseed wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla also has the worst interior of any premium car company. It has the unique combination of feeling cheap: unappealing leather, plastic finishes as well as tacky: the giant computer screen. It's all fine if Tesla is competing with Mazda but they aren't. And frankly they need to do much better in the future to go against the likes of Mercedes, BMW, Range Rover etc.

First I've heard of them having bad interiors.

Post by mark-r » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 12:28 AM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #88

marcell wrote: post #70

Reading between the lines, I think this car is a trick and not meant to sell at all. They get fleet wide mileage credits by producing it, and they are losing money on each car. Electric cars are easy to make, especially if you don't put much effort into it (example: regenerative brake paddle is separate from normal brake paddle). Dealers don't make as much from servicing electric cars. I suspect the fact that it's ug…

>I suspect the fact that it's ugly is a feature: it will hamper sales a bit and reduce the chance that they'll need to produce lots of this car. I doubt that. I'm sure GM would be perfectly happy selling millions of these things if consumers were willing to buy. They're in the business of selling cars, after all. But I also doubt they'll put much effort into it.