Last quarter, the Chevrolet Bolt was America’s third-best-selling electric vehicle (EV). But General Motors announced last year that the model won’t make it to 2024.
Unsurprisingly, it won’t be gone from the market for long. During the company’s quarterly earnings call this week, GM CEO Mary Barra told reporters Chevy is working on another generation of its most successful EV to date.
“Our customers love today’s Bolt. It has been delivering record sales and some of the highest customer satisfaction and loyalty scores in the industry,” said Barra. “It’s also an important source of conquest sales for the company and for Chevrolet.”
“Conquests are customers going directly from a competing brand, whether they trade in, sell an older vehicle, or keep it,” according to Sam Abuelsamid of Guidehouse Insights.
Today’s Bolt(s)
Today’s Chevy Bolt on dealership lots is a subcompact hatchback offered in two sizes. The Bolt EV starts at $26,500. The somewhat larger Bolt EUV – essentially a stretched Bolt with much of the added space given to rear passengers – starts at $27,800.
Both qualify for a $7,500 federal EV tax rebate in 2023. That makes them the least expensive way to go electric at the moment.
So why would GM end the third-best-selling and least expensive EV? Because the Bolt brothers use battery technology found on no other current GM EV. The company is retiring the technology.
Likely To Share Parts With Other GM EVs
Barra had almost no details to offer on the next Bolt.
She could only say that GM will “execute it more quickly compared to an all-new program” and will use “Ultium and Ultifi technologies.”
But those details tell us much of what to expect.
Today’s EVs are built on skateboard platforms – nearly-flat combinations of batteries, electric motors, steering, and suspension components that can be scaled up or down to make vehicles for different needs. GM calls its skateboard Ultium.
Ultium underlies most current and planned GM EVs, from the roughly-$30,000 Equinox EV to the $300,000-plus Cadillac Celestiq ultra-luxury car.
Chevrolet will, we assume, scale the platform down to subcompact size for the next Bolt.
Ultifi is a software platform that controls GM cars’ user interfaces, entertainment, and information technologies. GM controversially announced plans to phase out the popular Apple CarPlay and Android Auto phone projection systems in future software versions.
