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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, @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.