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from the can-you-plug-me-in,-i'm-a-little-low dept.
Shad Balch, Manager of New Product and Public Policy Communications at GM, has told the nice folks at Autoblog that:
"It's very safe to assume that this car is going to be here sooner rather than later," Balch said. "We've also committed that it's going to be a 50-state vehicle at launch. That's to show our commitment to the technology. Our hope is that it becomes a high-volume-selling car, and that it's not just for the coasts, it's not just for a certain income level, but it is a long-range EV that anybody can get themselves into. ... [This is] a good alternative to the luxury long-range EVs that are available now. It's something that people can see themselves actually affording to get into. That's the message from this car."
If true, this is great. The Bolt is predicted to have about 200 miles of driving range and cost about $30,000 after incentives (so probably around $37,500 if we only take into account the federal tax credit, but maybe more if they're including some amount for the most common state incentives).
The Bolt is set to be released in 2017, but the article does not address how Chevy will get around the bottleneck in battery production other EV makers are facing.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday November 09 2015, @07:15PM
Aren’t the lower-end Teslas approaching this price after incentives anyway? I'd wager there's a pretty large difference in reliability, performance, comfort, and just about everything else as well. Perhaps I'm underestimating the price of the Teslas, or over-estimating the incentives.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SanityCheck on Monday November 09 2015, @07:35PM
Well the price-point Tesla is aiming at will be base model. And their add-ons are notoriously pricey. You could get Model 3, and add onto it all the features and come up with something 2 times as expensive. So time will tell. At least Tesla is leading the market by the balls. GM knows they are behind the times, and if they fuck this up the company will die this decade. Especially wil the likes of Google, Apple, and who knows what else getting into the biz.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday November 09 2015, @08:02PM
> if they fuck this up the company will die this decade.
Being over-dramatic just a bit?
Considering the mix of cars and trucks, longevity of cars, incremental cost and infrastructure issues of EVs, not even counting lobbying, GM will survive at least another 15 years even if they don't produce any single EV after tomorrow.
If they had less baggage, you could say they'd get bought by one of the tech giants, but the car tech is available with less liability elsewhere. Worst-case, GM goes bankrupt in a decade or two, and has to abandon vanilla cars to focus where EVs are still going to be handicapped.
But that's likely not going to happen if they have half of a management brain left somewhere in the building.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 09 2015, @09:05PM
Worst-case, GM goes bankrupt in a decade or two
Too much campaign donations from mgmt and the unions. It isn't happening. Taxpayers will have to bail them out over and over.
A lot of people don't get that without socialist centrally controlled economy, GM was already dead during the last recession. GM is only still in business today because the USA is basically "commie, but without all the good parts".
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 09 2015, @09:19PM
> ... and has to abandon vanilla cars ...
They did get bankrupt, which is how they ran away from some of their structural issues.
They'd probably have to go bankrupt again to "safely" ditch their assets related to small car manufacturing.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday November 09 2015, @11:00PM
I admit I might be over dramatic. What I meant is that they will not be relevant to the (passenger) car market. They might do OK in the pickup market for a while, same for Trucks. Of course it takes a while for a dinosaur to implode, and the writing will be on the wall.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @08:10PM
Well the price-point Tesla is aiming at will be base model. And their add-ons are notoriously pricey. You could get Model 3, and add onto it all the features and come up with something 2 times as expensive. So time will tell. At least Tesla is leading the market by the balls. GM knows they are behind the times, and if they fuck this up the company will die this decade. Especially wil the likes of Google, Apple, and who knows what else getting into the biz.
For something like a Model S nobody is getting one for under $100k. It's a niche brand and a luxury brand, both are notorious for nickle-and-diming their customers. I'm reminded of years back when I was building a Mini Cooper S online, by the time you get all the nice accessories you're easily looking at over $30k for that little car.
One of the things that Tesla really did right though was making it a status symbol from the start, Tesla makes the only electric that most people would want to be seen driving around in. The Leaf on the other hand is utterly unremarkable looking and others like the BMW i3 are almost as fugly as a Nissan Juke.