Chevrolet Bolt Family. Part 2.
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Chevrolet is apparently coming up with more than just one new Bolt EV later this year. The illustrations above show what a compact EV Bolt Pickup and a more off-road-oriented Bolt could look like.
When asked about the next-generation Bolt a while ago, Mark Reuss mentioned it would be ” just one member of a family of Bolts. Including an even lower cost option”.
Quite a vague statement that could mean a number of things. He also mentioned the next Chevrolet Bolt might not be as cheap as the previous one which started at under $29,000. This is fine since it will no doubt charge much faster and could even have a longer range thanks to the Ultium platform.
The big change for GM will be making a profit from the next Bolt. Since they have just announced they are now making money from their current EVs. Something Ford has yet to achieve. That’s probably why they are even mentioning a “cheaper “lower-cost option”.
Since the regular Bolt is already a smaller hatchback, there is only one body style that could fit the “lower cost option”. And that would be a pickup. A small pickup with Chevrolet Bolt design cues. Ford’s cheapest model these days is the Maverick pickup. GM could do the same with a cheaper Bolt pickup. A small pickup based on the Ultium platform would probably be a bit cheaper to produce than the regular 4-door Bolt. A small affordable EV pickup would also create a brand-new segment in the industry and would position GM ahead of everyone else.
Another possibility would be a more off-road model that would compete against existing cars like the Subaru Crosstrek. That wouldn’t really be a “first” since Volvo is coming out very soon with a cross-country version of their new EX30 EV. Still, an off-road AWD Bolt would be quite a bit cheaper.
No matter what, it’s great to see that GM understands what they have with the Bolt brand. And new models will be pretty exciting to see.
Why electric, WHY, WHY?
Why not a hybrid model or even regular efficient turbo 3 Cylinder engine?
Electric vehicles are not selling outside Cali, a fact.
Just built a nice looking vehicle, specially a small pickup truck. NOT everyone likes the huge one. I’m not the only one that would drive a small pickup truck like the Maverick. Trucks got too big, even the Tacoma is way to big for people like me. The worse thing is the price. Toyota lots are packed with Tacomas and Tundras, not selling.
GM didn’t say their EVs are profitable. What they said was that very soon they believe the cost of materials and production for their EVs would reach parity with the sales price. That’s not really profitable as they are leaving out cost of development, a pro-rata share of GM’s overall business cost to include staffing, marketing, product support, etc. Given the tremendous cost GM has sunk into development of Ultium and building battery plants and many other costs, their EVs may not generate any true return-on-investment for many years. Right now it seems they are using somewhat fuzzy math to make a misleading claim. To be sure, they are upfront that it is material and production costs will equal the vehicle sales price but what people actually hear from that statement is “EVs + profitable”