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Comment by NickM | Hacker News Reader

And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for <$30k total upfront price out the door, which is where they need to be for mass adoption.

“A decade more” seems way too pessimistic given current EV prices and battery capacities. The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.

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>The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.

That's still a totally different class of car buyers. A "starting price" of $32k means no one is walking out the door with one under $40k total upfront cost. When I can walk into a dealership and finance something like that at $25k total loan amount, that changes everything.

When I leased my 2020 Bolt, I could have walked out the door with it on a 24K loan instead. Given that GM chose to stick with the same basic drivetrain on the latest update, I don't expect that to change for the next few years. Excepting the current weird car market that has been momentarily turned upside down by the pandemic-related supply problems.

Even back in 2019, without federal incentives, people were walking out the door with new Bolts under $30k (including tax and registration). It’s more than possible - it’s already happened. The problem is that most Americans buying new vehicles don’t want an EV hatchback - they want either a Tesla or a non-EV SUV.

I literally bought a new Chevy Bolt in April for $22k total ($20k financed).

Is this including some kind of tax credit or subsidy or did you actually manage to get them to come down like $8k below MSRP??

It was a 2020 model, but it was all discounts by GM. The 2020s(and 2021s) had a higher MSRP, so it was actually closer to only 50% of MSRP that I paid. The extra $2k I didn't finance was tax, reg, etc.

>Is this including some kind of tax credit or subsidy or did you actually manage to get them to come down like $8k below MSRP??

Chevy is doing an $8k consumer cash program right now to clear the lots because they literally cannot sell the things >$30k.

Damn if I’d known about that I would have bought one instead of getting a Camry last month

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