Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

I love the idea of Electric cars and even own Tesla stock, but I think they're still a ways off from me seriously considering buying one.

Why? I drive a large Hybrid sedan. I get a bit above 600 miles on a tank of gas without thinking about it. That's a trip from NYC to Toronto with about 100 miles of driving around range left before having to think about finding a gas station...or for our European friends, Paris to Munich with 160 km to spend looking for parking. If I try for range I can easily add another 50-75 miles to that just by being mindful of my driving.

My previous car got 300-350 miles to a tank and during a normal commuting period I had to fill it up every couple of weeks. I now go a month or so between fill ups. I've gotten so used to this kind of range that I often forget to even check how much fuel I have left since I only ever have to fill it up 12-15 times a year. My "low fuel" light comes on when I have 75 miles of range left.

During city driving, the gas engine is usually off and I spend lots of time driving around on pure electric (the drive-train favors the electric motor when possible and has no gearing transmission at all).

Total fill-up time, The vehicle cost me $27k loaded (plus interest blah blah) out the door, I paid cash.

TCO over 5 years for this vehicle is expected to run somewhere between $33-$35k and that includes regular maintenance, tires, oil changes (but minus insurance and taxes) or somewhere in the neighborhood of $.75/mile. I'll probably keep the car longer than that so the cost/mile gets better. The newer model of my car estimates out to around 700-750 miles per tank, so TCO figures should be adjusted accordingly.

The cost to charge a Bolt depends on local electrical rates, but the average cost in the U.S. is $.12/kWh. The cost to charge a Bolt for a year with my profile turns out to be $400-500/yr or about $2500 over 5 years.

The Bolt is a smaller car, 0-60 is similar, takes 9 hours to charge off a wall socket every 238 miles (which will be realistically less) or if I have thousands of dollars in fast charge infrastructure in place about 30 minutes to get 200 miles.

I know several electric car owners who got Leafs on the cheap, and those are pretty appealing to be honest, and they use them as commuter cars. Range isn't a problem for them typically because they just charge every night, I'm sure the same is true for Bolt owners (and Tesla owners). But I'm lazy, and probably would forget to charge it half the time, and right now I'm going 4-5 weeks between "charges" (fill-ups). In a pinch, I have no place to charge my car at work at all, or most of the other places I currently frequent. The nearest fast charger to me is a 20 minute drive, one way without traffic. If I had a Tesla, the nearest Super Charger is 30 minutes away without traffic.

So when I think about "going electric", I have to compare things and on most metrics, I have a better car than the Bolt, and on many metrics I care about a better car than a Tesla Model 3.

You don't even have to wait in line or pre-order to get my car. Just go to a local dealer and drive off the lot with one.

We're not there yet. Closer, but still maybe 7-10 years out. Modern Hybrids are the state of the art at the moment and mass consumers won't be interested in regressing.

Leaf is very short range isn’t it?

> At $35k+ with 240 miles of range, it's starting to get close but realistically not quite there yet for "mass market" adoption.

Really? Why is that? For me and I’m sure tons of other people 250 miles is more than enough. I think it’s extremely rare I’d go 100+ in a day.

If this was from Honda or Toyota I’d probably jump at it if I needed a new car.

I’ve never had any experience with GM, and their reputation isn’t exactly stellar.

It's a credit yes, but it's not a refundable credit. Which means you need to owe at least that amount of tax. So for 2016 that means a single person has to earn at least $46,900 to get the full benefit (assuming no other non-refundable credits). The median US personal income for 2016 was about $31,100, so I think it's fair to say the majority of Americans can not take full advantage, although I agree with your last statement.

Case in point. I thought I read bolts (volts?) sometimes put themselves into reverse and accelerate while off+charging. I wanted to paste a link, but found this article instead. It looks like this safety issue is by design. (Also, CR says the handling is “choppy” on uneven pavement, which matches my old lemon):

http://www.chevybolt.org/forum/#/topics/7778?page=1

“On this rainy morning while turning to park in a stall and so I take my food off the accelerator and expected the heavy regenerative braking. Instead it accelerated in to the stall and so I had to brake heavily and it still didn't seem to take hold. Luckily the cement parking block stopped the car albeit I still went over it.”

Response from other owner:

“Very possible for Regen to deactivate in slippery conditions. Hitting a large bump may also disengage Regen, which will feel like the car is actually speeding up (since you are expecting it to decelerate).”