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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @07:09PM
Marketing has made a huge blunder with this car.
They really, really, really need to come up with a new name.
The "Volt" is their sort-of-hybrid and the "Bolt" is the all electric. They could not have picked two names more easy to confuse in meaning, speech and writing - not only do B and V sound almost the same they are right next to each other on the keyboard. I doubt anyone is going to accidentally buy the wrong car, but what will happen is that the confusion will add friction to the sales process - people asking for info on one car and getting info on the wrong car, possibly even test driving the wrong car, etc.
The very least they could do is add three letters and call it the "voltage."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @07:13PM
The very least they could do is add three letters and call it the "voltage."
Wouldn't that be "boltage?"
Looks like you proved your point about how easy it is to mix them up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @07:21PM
There are the:
Volt
Bolt
Which of these do you think is the electric one?
If you said 'Bolt'*, you'd be right!
*no one is going to say that
(Score: 3, Funny) by snick on Monday November 09 2015, @07:34PM
... I'm thinking that the Bolt somehow runs on cloth?
(Score: 3, Funny) by quacking duck on Tuesday November 10 2015, @04:42AM
And then they add an "Usain Mode"...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @06:58AM
Lol.
Yet another example of nominative determinism [wikipedia.org] in the wild.
LIke Anthony Weiner and Diana Nyad.
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Monday November 09 2015, @08:44PM
Kodak did the same dumbass thing years ago. They developed a camera that you could load without fiddling with the film itself, just a drop-in cartridge, and named it Instamatic. Later on, they decided to make an instant-developing camera competing with Polaroid, and that name would have been perfect for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @07:54PM
Not to mention that in Japanese there is no distinction between the B and V sounds, so they'll both become "Boruto" :)
Probably something similar will happen with Chinese and maybe a few other Asian languages.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday November 09 2015, @10:29PM
Not to mention that "bolt" is the more mechanical term (and it makes me think of Frankenstein's monster), while "volt" is the more electrical.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @10:46PM
lightning bolt
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday November 10 2015, @04:00AM
lightning bolt
sleep
death [youtube.com]