Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 224 posts

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#201

Post by bjarneh »

_nedR wrote: post #197
bjarneh wrote: post #192

The Bolt is not Ugly; it's not as good looking as a Model S, but it looks very good for a car in it's class

I like it!

Same here, much better looking than any of the other EV's in it's class/price range. It's also more powerful and has much better range; what's not to love about that car?

It seem that the Model S has become the yardstick for any new EV coming out now; but that extremely unfair, we don't compare other cars coming out to super cars to justify calling them slow and bad looking..

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#202

Post by Spooky23 »

Neliquat wrote: post #187
Spooky23 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the outer provinces (New York), whose franchise laws are incompatible with Teslas business model. I also don't feel like driving 150 miles to buy a car from a company that basically doesn't allow 3rd party service. A friend had one that had problems. Getting it towed to Jersey a few times was not fun. When he got into a fender bender, getting it towed to a certified body shop on Long Island was extra not fu…

So you want to subsidize the anti competitive lobbying that made it so bad? Your attitude is the problem here.

Where's the dearth of competition?

I live in a small city. There's probably 25 different auto makes sold by at least a dozen different dealership groups in my area.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#203

Post by WorldMaker »

Neliquat wrote: post #188
notatoad wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a bad thing? Afaik, the CAFE standards are applied over the total cars sold, not just having the car in your lineup - GM can sell lots of big Silverados if they sell lots of Bolts, but they can't just make a little electric car to make the regulators happy and not care if they sell any of them, because they'll get no benefit out of it.

That leads to selling a crap e-car at a loss to push your profitable lines. A race to the lowest common denominator is not what we need.

Isn't that exactly what we need? Electric cars are selling just fine in the somewhat luxury new car space, but the majority of people that I know only ever buy used cars or lease very modest sedans. To get electric cars in the hands of those drivers, electric cars need to be cheap and "lowest common denominator" and there needs to be a flood of them sold new or leased new to enter the secondary markets effectively.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#204

Post by mywittyname »

RKoutnik wrote: post #19

This article (like many) misses why people buy Teslas. Teslas are amazing cars that just happen to be electric - not the other way around. The large car companies think that "electric" is enough to sell a car, whereas Tesla knows they need luxury options, autopilot & the supercharger network. I've got a Model 3 reservation myself and wouldn't even think of switching to the Bolt. I want a nice car, not just an electri…

> I've got a Model 3 reservation myself and wouldn't even think of switching to the Bolt. I want a nice car,

What makes the Model 3 "nice" in a way that the Bolt isn't?

The Model 3 is just cashing in on the fact that it's cool to drive a Telsa. If the same exact car came from Toyota, then the response would be exactly as it is for the Bolt: "eh, it's not a Telsa." And probably mention of how awful the interior looks.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#205

Post by mywittyname »

twblalock wrote: post #89
codeulike wrote: post #13

I think it looks fine. You Americans have a weird dislike of hatchbacks. To European eyes, it just looks very normal. Good luck to GM but I suspect their dealerships won't bother trying to sell many of these.

Americans love hatchbacks when they are called crossovers, SUVs, or minivans. They just don't like the small ones.

They like the small ones too, the "compact CUV" is one of the fastest growing auto segments in the USA. Think, Honda HR-V, Toyota CH-R, Jeep Renegade, Chevy Trax, and Nissan Juke; the market is expanding soon to include entries from Mazda and Ford.

Americans love the high seating position. I imagine Europeans would too, if they had the option to buy one.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#206

Post by namlem »

mywittyname wrote: post #204
RKoutnik wrote: post #19

This article (like many) misses why people buy Teslas. Teslas are amazing cars that just happen to be electric - not the other way around. The large car companies think that "electric" is enough to sell a car, whereas Tesla knows they need luxury options, autopilot & the supercharger network. I've got a Model 3 reservation myself and wouldn't even think of switching to the Bolt. I want a nice car, not just an electri…

> I've got a Model 3 reservation myself and wouldn't even think of switching to the Bolt. I want a nice car, What makes the Model 3 "nice" in a way that the Bolt isn't? The Model 3 is just cashing in on the fact that it's cool to drive a Telsa. If the same exact car came from Toyota, then the response would be exactly as it is for the Bolt: "eh, it's not a Telsa." And probably mention of how awful the interior looks.

Toyota doesn't have a supercharger network or autopilot. The Model 3 is a pretty nice looking car, at least on the exterior. The interior leaves some things to be desired, but the extra features offered by Tesla seal the deal. The one thing that bothers me about Tesla is how much control they have over your car that you bought.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#207

Post by mywittyname »

dirkg wrote: post #38

Why are diesel cars hated in the US? You can get a range of diesel car sin Europe which give you 50-60mpg, have all kinds of comforts and can be cheap, without the trickery of tax credits.

Diesels are way more expensive to product than petrol engines. Europeans don't notice as much due to the heavy taxes placed on their vehicles. But taxes on cars are much less (and are not tied to CO2 emissions), so the costs of diesel variants are difficult to mask.

Bob Lutz, a former GM CEO, said once that a compact diesel would need to sticker for $5k more than a comparable petrol engine to be as profitable. A TDI Jetta starts at $24k in the US while a base Jetta is under $18k; and a base Chevy Cruze is $17k while a diesel version is almost $26k. So his statement appears to be accurate. (Yes, there are package differences, but those are largely needed to justify the costs differences).

Of course, not even European taxes can put diesel engines at price parity with petrols. Super-cheap cars like the Renault Twingo aren't even available with diesel engines in the UK.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#208

Post by WorldMaker »

twblalock wrote: post #97
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More info: https://electrek.co/2016/09/06/gm-bolt-ev-one-pedal-driving-... tl;dr - no, the paddle is for an additional regen braking mode that regen brakes harder than letting off the gas without using the physical brakes.

It's similar to the "B" position on a Prius shifter, as far as I can tell.

Or "L" on a Volt/Bolt/Cadillac ELR shifter. Named "L" after "low gear" on most (semi-)automatic transmissions, but really just a different software curve applied to where in the throttle/brakes the regen occurs (ie, top of the accelerator pedal versus top of the brake pedal) and how strongly the regen applies (coast-favoring versus slow-down-favoring).

Adding a paddle "shifter" on the steering wheel to "drop to the low gear" is something borrowed from manual and semi-automatic sports cars, but an interesting new use here for signalling to the car to heavier regen break.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#209

Post by mikestew »

RKoutnik wrote: post #50
untog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt you're correct in summarising why many current Tesla owners buy Tesla cars. But if they want to be hugely, mass market successful they need to expand their client base beyond customers who "need" luxury options in a car. It's Tesla that would need to match GM's market proposition, not vice versa. > I want a nice car, not just an electric one, and Tesla's got that in spades. And I suspect many Bolt owner…

> And I suspect many Bolt owners want an economical car, not a luxury one, and the Bolt's got that in spades. See my other reply in this subthread - Bolt/Model 3 will be equivalent in terms of price, so I don't see how the Bolt is more "economical".

Bolt/Model 3 will be equivalent in terms of price

It's an old, yellowed page out of the Microsoft book: "what we have in the pipeline is better than what you can buy today!"

We know nothing of the as-yet-unshipped Model 3. Let's hold off on those side-by-side comparisons. Because if you want to compare, we should weight the "can buy today" column quite heavily.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#210

Post by mikestew »

rangibaby wrote: post #161
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is that they're buying a Prius with marketing?

and sex! The Prius' problem has always been that it looks like the healthy low-fat gluten-free quinoa kale almond milk salad of cars. The best word I can come up with describe Toyota's car designs is "inoffensive". They aren't necessarily bad, and they are easy to drive and comfortable to ride in, but they are mainly generic and forgettable. Being mass market cars like they are I guess that is kind of the point.

The best word I can come up with describe Toyota's car designs is "inoffensive".

You apparently have not seen the latest incarnation. Move over, Pontiac Aztek.

Post reply on HN