A lot of the news this week from the automotive world centered around self-driving cars. Primarily Uber’s self-driving Ford Fusions that hit the roads in Pittsburg on Thursday. But that’s not all that is happening in the industry right now. General Motors is still working on their affordable electric vehicle, the Chevrolet Bolt. Which the company is hoping to sell for under $30,000. This week, a number of journalists got a chance to drive the vehicle, and GM also announced that its range is about 238 miles. That’s further than the Tesla Model 3, and it’ll be a fraction of the price of other cars with that range.
Ideally, the Chevy Bolt would make a great self-driving car. Since it is electric, they won’t need to worry about filling it up with more gas. Which is why many companies working on self-driving cars are going with electric cars. And with that range, it could do a whole lot of picking up and dropping off of passengers before needing to go get a charge itself. But before we get that far, because self-driving cars that pick you up like Uber or Lyft are still a ways down the road.
The 2017 Chevy Bolt is due to go on sale later this year, and it’s going to be a great seller for General Motors. The Bolt doesn’t feel like an electric car, it actually handles like a regular car that would be running off of unleaded gasoline. Which will make buyers feel at home. The 60kWh battery that the Bolt is running off of is built by LG. You may remember that LG and General Motors announced a partnership rather recently to use LG’s batteries in their cars, like the Chevy Bolt. Unfortunately, the Chevy Bolt doesn’t go too fast, it’s not the Tesla P100D, but it will go plenty fast on the freeways around the world. Its top speed is about 92 mph. The Chevy Bolt does come with a slew of connectivity as well. It includes Android Auto as well as Apple CarPlay. This shouldn’t be a surprise given the fact that Chevrolet has committed to putting both options in all of their future models. Which would include the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt.
General Motors will be building the Chevy Bolt here in the US. In fact, it’ll be assembled at their Lake Orion, Michigan plant. The vehicle should be available this fall. Chevrolet hasn’t given any specific numbers just yet on pricing, but have said that it’ll be under $30,000 after a federal tax credit (this is due to it being an electric vehicle).
