I drove the Chevy Bolt, GM’s electrical car for everyone
So, here’s a crazy thing: this time last year, no one even knew that GM was working on an affordable, high-range electrical car.
In automotive terms, going from concept to production to test drives in twelve months’ time is an exceptionally taut schedule. There are regulatory hurdles and crash testing. There’s the fact that engineering a good, roadworthy vehicle is fundamentally difficult and expensive. In reality, of course, development on the Bolt commenced long before the introduction of the concept car at NAIAS in Detroit last year, and it shows. I think this car might be ready for the real world.
But let’s back up for a 2nd and talk numbers. GM isn’t going into any fresh details here, but the Bolt is expected to supply “200-plus” mile range for a net price of around $30,000 after tax violates. (That can be misleading if your income is too low to take advantage of the total tax credit, but the car will be well under $40,000 regardless.) The company tells me that 0-60 time will fall under seven seconds, which should match or best vehicles of similar size and form like Ford’s C-Max.
My test drive of the Bolt ahead of its introduction today took place on a closed, walled-off course just a few hundred feet from the stage where GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra will unveil it. The course wasn’t almost as big as I would’ve liked — I need to spread the Bolt’s gams before I issue a fleshed-out opinion on it — but I had enough laps to get the sense that this is a very unremarkable car on the road. And I mean that in the best possible way: GM is attempting to make a car that real people want to buy. This isn’t a salon trick, it’s not for speed perverts, it’s not for tech nerds (well, maybe it is — more on that in a bit). The Bolt just needs to feel like a good, usable, everyday car that happens to be fully electrified. Unlike a $100,000 Tesla Model S, “unremarkable” is high praise for a car in this category.
“You’ll hear me say it’s for anybody who wants to save time, money, and the environment,” Barra told me in a conversation before she took the stage today. “We dreamed it to be a good car, and to truly separate it . I think it’s going to have broad appeal.”
What exactly do I mean by “unremarkable”? Decent, usable acceleration (which, in typical EV style, is eerily slick in the Bolt); treating that prioritizes convenience over spectacle; and, for the youthful families that could become a core target demo for cars like this, space. Space! I actually commented to the GM staff on palm that the Bolt has an optical illusory flair to it, because it’s got a freakish amount of rear passenger legroom considering the compact dimensions. As near as I can tell, some of that legroom comes from skinny front seats; they seemed convenient enough to me, tho’ you never know until you’ve road-tripped in them.
Weirdly, the most interesting thing about the Bolt might not be the drivetrain but the infotainment system, an LG-sourced unit that is unique to this car and is crazy good. (To be fair, when I say “crazy good,” I mean by car standards — infrequently are factory infotainment systems much more than maddening garbage fires that make your seemingly trivial task of switching the radio station a chore.) The Bolt’s system is anchored by a Ten.2-inch touch display that might be the most responsive I’ve ever used in a car — there were no appreciable delays inbetween taps and responses, which was a baseline expectation for phones and tablets years ago that hasn’t indeed taken hold in the auto industry yet.
“Unremarkable” is not an insult with this car
All of this is most likely thanks to LG having a intense mitt in the Bolt’s development. I think I even see some LG influence in the UI, which is plane, two-dimensional, and modern-looking — there’s no skeuomorphism, no drop shadows or reflections that look like they were pulled from a five-year-old smartphone. The home screen is comprised of customizable widgets for different functions — music, battery status, and clock, for example — that can be rearranged to the driver’s content, and any widget can be made full-screen by tapping an icon in the corner. CarPlay and Android Auto are both supported. It’s worlds better than the infotainment system on the first-generation Volt, and it’s even substantially better than Chevy’s relatively fresh system that’s used across the portfolio. If GM is brainy, it’ll adopt the Bolt’s hardware in more vehicles.
And there’s one more tech trick in the interior: the rear-view mirror is substituted with an LCD display linked to a wide-angle camera behind the car. The value, or so the story goes, is that this kind of setup eliminates obstructions like poles and rear passengers so you get a better view of what’s going on. Shockingly, it’s good. I thought I’d hate it, but I instantaneously adapted to it and treated it like I would a standard mirror. (And if you don’t like it, you can spin a lever underneath the display and it magically turns into a regular mirror.)
None of this matters if GM can’t make the Bolt in volume, customers can’t be bothered to look at it in a world of cheap gasoline, or the upcoming Tesla Model three is a lot better. Any of those scripts is possible. But regardless, I can’t help feel like the company has just made history: it has produced a practical EV — without the traditional EV downsides — that many, many people can afford. And while I can’t yet announce that it’s fine, I’m convenient telling that it’s not bad.
Of course, the Bolt is the very first of its kind, but it certainly won’t be the last. The auto industry is switching at an unprecedented tempo right now, and if CES has trained me anything over the years, it’s that the first-mover advantage doesn’t mean much. GM is going to have to haul caboose just to keep up — but so will everyone else. For owners, car-sharers, and riders alike, that’s pretty awesome news.