Chevy Bolt EV Still Going Strong, Despite Rumors of Its Demise

Not too long ago, we were treated with bitter news for EV enthusiasts, as it was announced that GM would cease making the cheapest EV in the United States , the Chevrolet Bolt. We have slightly more positive news this time, though. The Chevy Bolt isn’t dying after all, as GM is realizing its mistake and announcing it will produce a new one in the future.

The Chevy Bolt has long been an option for those looking for a cheap, compact EV that gets the work done. The car had a starting price of $24,000, making it the cheapest electric vehicle in the United States. It had a problem, though — instead of using GM’s newest battery technology, Ultium, it was using the company’s older BEV2 platform. And while it could’ve perfectly released a next-gen Bolt with Ultium, GM used it as an excuse and said it also wanted to reshift its EV focus into electric trucks and SUVs such as the Blazer EV, the Silverado EV, and the Equinox EV.

GM, realizing how popular the Bolt was, has now backtracked, saying that eventually, a next-gen Bolt EV will grace the market. In a call with analysts, GM CEO Mary Barra said that “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.”

Barra went on to add that “it’s also an important source of conquest sales for the company and for Chevrolet,” and that “we will keep the momentum going by delivering a new Bolt…and we will execute it more quickly compared to an all-new program with significantly lower engineering expense and capital investment by updating the vehicle with Ultium and Ultifi technologies and by applying our ‘winning with simplicity’ discipline.”

No one knows for sure when the next-gen Bolt will show up on the market, or how it’ll look like, but what we do know is that it will at least come with GM’s new Ultium battery tech as the bare minimum. It’s the backbone of the newer Chevy EV trucks, so it shouldn’t be any different here.

Source: Chevrolet

Via: TechCrunch

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