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

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

#121

Post by hwillis »

ukulele wrote: post #3

At $35k+ with 240 miles of range, it's starting to get close but realistically not quite there yet for "mass market" adoption. I hope I'm wrong but this will likely be a minor seller. Also re: the $7500 federal tax rebate, most people can't take full advantage because they don't owe that much and it doesn't carry over past the first year. Still a good program but not a magic wand solution.

The average person doesn't buy new cars. The average new car is $33,500[1], so the bolt is right there at the average price. I guess the question is how well it holds its utility as the price drops.

[1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car...

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

#122

Post by forapurpose »

hedora wrote: post #20

We just managed to sell another flagship GM vehicle, and the software was so bad, it was nearly a deal-breaker. (Most years of this model had software bugs that were so bad, they could literally kill you — for example, the exhaust system could overheat, and burn the car down). Also, basic electro-mechanical things, like seat belts and the FM radio started to die after 3-4 years. This is with light use in CA. Even whe…

That's a terrible experience, but there is no way that is common or the story and lawsuits would be everywhere.

> (Most years of this model had software bugs that were so bad, they could literally kill you — for example, the exhaust system could overheat, and burn the car down)

Has anyone died?

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

#123

Post by conical »

chairmanwow wrote: post #111

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Brendan Eich's Brave browser is working on solving this.

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

#124

Post by twblalock »

taneq wrote: post #38
brightball wrote: post #12

You can get a 1 year old Volt for about 15-17k. Best deal out there IMO.

That's a pretty big drop, any idea why it goes down so much?

GM resale value is terrible across the board, except for Corvettes.

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

#125

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dayaz36 wrote: post #107

If you don't have a network of fast superchargers, then your EV is automatically useless for road trips. Tesla is the only company that has built out this network. No other EV should be taken seriously unless they've built out theirs.

But I want another solely for driving around town. The city I live in is barely 15 kilometres (about 10 miles) across. Any of the currently available EVs would suit my needs.

If I want to go out of town I'll take my turbo diesel camper.

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

#126

Post by kbenson »

Aloha wrote: post #109
mach5 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to say i don't use the brakes is a little bit of a misnomer, as i use them at stoplights in order to activate the rear brake lights for other drivers. two more bits of trivia: the brake lights activate during regen for more than .2g of deceleration, and the brake rotor metal is formulated not to rust.

It's made of metal, its going to corrode in some way - I don't think stainless steel has the properties you'd want in a brake rotor, either.

Well, it could be ceramic, which is what some competition cars use, and that wouldn't rust. But I doubt it.

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

#127

Post by 762236 »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #42

The question I have to ask: Has anyone here gotten an EV and successfully gotten a charger setup going in an apartment garage? For where I live, I'd say we have 100-150 parking spaces, all underground. There are two spaces that have chargers, which are first-come-first-served, I don't count them. So, the idea would be to get my own charger. I already have a safe place to put it: There is a wide-but-not-deep storage u…

Apartments are tough problems to solve. Their electrical service doesn't supply enough electricity to handle the number of chargers that are going to be desired. So they have to consider something like ChargePoint, which will intelligently manage the load, but then ChargePoint asks each resident something like $50/month just to have an account (their website says "You pay a low monthly service fee plus the cost of electricity.", but the service fee I saw quoted was ~$50/month).

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

#128

Post by pretendscholar »

dayaz36 wrote: post #107

If you don't have a network of fast superchargers, then your EV is automatically useless for road trips. Tesla is the only company that has built out this network. No other EV should be taken seriously unless they've built out theirs.

I'm sure they will accept your money all the same.

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

#129

Post by hedora »

forapurpose wrote: post #122
hedora wrote: post #20

We just managed to sell another flagship GM vehicle, and the software was so bad, it was nearly a deal-breaker. (Most years of this model had software bugs that were so bad, they could literally kill you — for example, the exhaust system could overheat, and burn the car down). Also, basic electro-mechanical things, like seat belts and the FM radio started to die after 3-4 years. This is with light use in CA. Even whe…

That's a terrible experience, but there is no way that is common or the story and lawsuits would be everywhere. > (Most years of this model had software bugs that were so bad, they could literally kill you — for example, the exhaust system could overheat, and burn the car down) Has anyone died?

I had to sign a binding arbitration agreement to purchase it.

The most egregious bug caused seatbelts to fail to deploy, so I assume there were at least injuries.

I just checked, and I don’t think the exhaust fires injured anyone (it happened 8 times before the recall, and at that point there were zero injuries).

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