GM killing off Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV by end of 2023 | Hacker News Reader

GM killing off Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV by end of 2023

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29 pointsbookofjoe44 comments

Raised on subcompact Toyotas, this was the only EV that looked like something I wanted. It was also an opportunity to confidently buy a "domestic" car, as an American since my Toyota/Honda superiority complex was all about the engine, not the body. cameron_b's comment about swap kits[0] makes me miss something I didn't even know was going to exist and now won't.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35705208

Yeah, the Bolt was the closest "domestic" vehicle to what I wanted (yesterday-ish), but I smartly figured to hold out as I thought the writing was on the wall as the last "Voltec" platform car (all of GM's newer EVs are "Ultium" platform) in GM's stable. (Ford has no plans for a car and Teslas all look like Oldsmobiles in a over-sized "land yacht" way to me, even the Model 3.)

I got excited and added myself to the Aptera waiting list to at least hope for an underdog in the US to mix things up. But family keep wondering if I should get something more practical like an imported Polestar 2 or Hyundai Ioniq 6.

Yeesh, I was just trying to get availability information about the 2023 Bolt EV a few weeks ago and was told no dice for at least a year. Presumably now that means never.

The article says the sales "lagged behind" the tesla model 3, but the two weren't in remotely the same price bracket, and as far as I know every bolt EUV produced was sold immediately if not in advance. There must be some important motivating information missing from the article. They had a slam dunk vehicle that was possibly best in class that people actually lined up to buy, and the piece makes it sound like there are no comparable replacements planned.

They weren't turning a profit on the individual cars, which cost them a ton of money, and now they are trying to make higher margin SUVs and Trucks. They wouldn't have sold any if they had to sell for a profit. Tesla would have destroyed them.

They could have probably reduced the costs with higher volumes and bumped up their margins but they would have been fighting an uphill battle. Especially since their competitor is a massively capitalized and quickly maturing Model 3. Not to mention the freaking dealerships sucking the life out of their customers. I'm pretty sure the recalls didn't help either.

Ford has already done the same with all their passenger cars and is making a lot of money as a result. It's a shame because it's costing on the externalities like pedestrian deaths and road wear.

So basically GM is done, because talk to anyone in the Midwest and they’re not going to buy an EV Truck.

The F-150 Lightning is already quietly getting close to the fastest selling EV in the country. Indications remain that the biggest thing stopping it from topping the list is still silicon/supply chain shortages Ford should have fixed years back.

There's a lot of "rolling coal" sorts, sure, in places like the Midwest, but even many of them come away from test drives of EV trucks impressed. EV trucks nearly market themselves because torque is always the main problem/focus/interest of anyone that uses a truck as a truck (for hauling), and diesels can't beat electric in practice on torque.

Cultural issues aside, electric trucks have poor towing range, cost more and are inconvenient and slow to charge assuming you can even find a charger in rural areas. All this gets worse in cold weather which the Midwest has a lot of in winter.

I'm seeing a ton lately down here in the south. As soon as someone rides in one they just get a big grin on their face. It's something new and exciting. I would never buy one because they make no sense financially or practically. But, if you are into pavement queens, which a heckuva lot of people are, then it's a deal.

Plus GM's screwball decision to kill Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support in a moment where software feature competition is more intense than ever. I don't understand what GM leadership is thinking.

GM's top brass has always been and always will be complete imbeciles.

I couldn't find a EUV within 10 hours of where I live, so I had to buy EV from a dealer 4 hours away. At 80% charge it has ~235 miles range, we charge it once a week and serves very well for what we need it for. However, tried to trade it in for a Tesla this month, but the trade-in value was way too low.

So frustrating that Europe and Asia are getting all the nice compact EVs; once again Americans get stuck with the giant monstrosities.

There are quite a few EV sedans and small hatchbacks available. Hyundai Kona is an affordable, small hatchback.

Kona and even the Ioniq5/EV6/G60 are probably closer to being hatchbacks than SUVs.

But purists will still chide you that they are SUVs (or specifically, CUVs, which they still consider evil).

In Europe the Kona is being marketed as a SUV, and as someone who semi-regularly drives a rental one I have to agree. It is definitely not something I would describe as "small".

Is a Camry large, then?

Kona dimensions: 166″ L x 71″ W x 61-62″ H

Camry dimensions: 192-193″ L x 72″ W x 56-57″ H

The Kona is much shorter, a tiny bit narrower, and only 5" taller.

Almost no one outside of NYC and Boston want such a small car. Small cars aren’t even really a safe option given how big the other cars are.

Almost noone wants small cars in Europe either. People want cheap cars not small.

Everyone living in cities does want one.

Larger cars rarely provide a significant tangible benefit, and in return you'll constantly have trouble trying to fit it into spaces designed for far smaller cars. American pickup trucks simply do not exist in Europe for a reason.

No, people don't want tiny cars like Bolt and don't want American pickups too. I don't know a single person who wants a small car.

People in cities need a small car, which is different than wanting a small car. I definitely had a small car in NYC out of necessity, but still wished I could bring my daughter's crib to my parents' place on the weekend (obviously impossible in a small car while bringing the family along).

Plenty of people in Europe want a smaller car, as it's easier to drive and park.

This is especially the case if their household also has a larger car.

("Which car are we going in, dad?" "The black one, I don't want to drive the blue one round town." = my childhood.)

I drive regularly from Milwaukee to Kenosha county and I have a Mini Cooper. I love it. It's not super comfortable for passengers and it's hard to do long road trips due to lack of storage space, but whenever we need more space we take my SO's 2 door Civic. I know many, many people who have multiple vehicles and they could absolutely get away with half of their vehicles being on the smaller side.

I love my small sports hatch. My old WRX wagon was even better and served a starting family of 4 just fine. People definitely want such small cars.

Larger cars are more likely to get into a car accident in the first place [1]. While a smaller car may be less safe in the event of an accident [2], they may not necessarily be less safe overall.

[1]: https://www.insurancehotline.com/resources/are-small-cars-mo...

[2]: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/larger-vehicles-smaller-cars-sa...

I don't understand the data in the first link. What is "Percentage of Accidents for Small Vehicles" and "Percentage of Accidents for Large Vehicles"? They didn't define how they compute this.

I feel your pain, however, it's probably driven mostly by demand, and that demand just isn't high enough when you have limited resources for production.

I interpret it as Americans just have awful taste in cars.

I drive a Prius C. I adore it, see them everywhere and of course it was canceled. I live in Wisconsin and so see so many full sized trucks that have never touched a dirt road or been to a Home Depot. If everybody got 50mpg in a little economy car we wouldn't even need EVs.

I sold my Prius C last year and it was the biggest mistake. The goal was to get a slightly larger hatchback like the Kia Niro, but now I want the newer body style Niro but cant stomach buying a new car at a dealer. I'm stuck at the moment waiting for all these repos to come through so I can get something cheap for cash.

Exactly. More than 2/3 of cars in the US are SUVs/trucks nowadays. To me, this means we aren't allowed to complain about gas prices. Most people are willingly buying a brand new car that gets like the same MPG as my beat up old Ford Crown Vic.

It's also an annoying race to the top because SUVs block visibility and pose a threat to your car during an accident, unless of course you buy your own SUV (the Vic is also ok).

The best way to support it is to buy one... Unfortunately the same thing happened to the Volt, which was an engineering masterpiece.

Tangent, but there is a running joke amongst sports car enthusiast circles.

A: "Woe is me! They discontinued <insert sports car here> in favor of more SUVs!" B: "Because no one bought <insert sports car here>!" A: "But I would have! In five years, used!"

For now, I think those that want an EV, are in fact, buying (or leasing) them new though.

Relatedly, there is interesting indirect evidence that the US market is dominated by "Spiders Georg" ("SUVs Georg") outliers that should not be counted. The SUVs Georg buy/lease new SUVs, crash them in 1-5 years, then buy/lease new SUVs. The used market sees a strange fraction of SUV sales and interest in SUV ownership compared to the new market, but the car companies don't sell to the used markets they like the high profit margins of the SUVs Georg.

I don't think you even have to analyze that deep.

"Mainstream buyers", who in this day and age, mean CUV buyers - will go to a dealership and lease a new CUV every 3 years. As you said, these are the ones that make money for the manufacturers.

Not the enthusiast who waits 5 years to buy his dream sports car used.

Why are so many people lamenting the loss of a small EV rather than the loss of a cheap one?

Maybe because some people like driving smaller cars, EV or not, regardless of price? Each year there are fewer and fewer options for small vehicles in the U.S. Putting other arguments aside (like small cars being better for the environment, and are less likely to hurt pedestrians in a crash), I hate driving large vehicles due to their sheer size, the lack of visibility of things right next to me, and handling.

Because many of us need to parallel park.

Because they are going extinct in America. Small cars are no longer being sold by American companies. The Bolt and the Spark were that last ones on the Chevy lineup. The Dodge Challenger is the smallest Dodge car. The Chevy Malibu is the smallest Chevy and it's the last car they are selling so it's probably on the chopping block.

Because the cheaper is coming (or, expected to come), but smaller is largely being pushed by the wayside. Both Ford and GM have discontinued Sedans in the US and their hatchbacks seem to be on borrowed time. Just not even an option; at best, you can get a 'smaller' crossover. It pushes those that actually want sedans or smaller hatchbacks into an increasingly smaller portion of the market, which is in general bad for consumers. More competition is good.

Because the US EV market is broken compared to the rest of the world and is missing a lot of models that Europe and Asia are seeing right now?

This helps to explain why their "EV engine swap kits" [0] haven't really shown up. They were said to be largely the EV guts of the Bolt with some adaptation hardware on top. This is a really big setback for the EV-curious aftermarket, hotrod, and resto-mod communities that currently have Tesla[1] and some bespoke builds[2].

It isn't stealing anyone's thunder to say that the Medium Duty market for EV is hot and still ripe for disruption. Think School busses and in-town flat-bed deliveries. The market is large and valuable because of the Commercial upside[3] but the Light duty ( Pickup, looking at you (Ford, Chevy, Dodge) ^[1-3]50 ) truck market is the Goose that is laying Golden Eggs currently whether in clout or in actual margins. That same market would have an enormous impact on emissions, gross fuel consumption if electrified, but there's big hesitation. It feels like the big dogs are singing the swan song of their big gas engines until they're forced by legislation into actually selling different equipment.

[0] https://www.reliable-chevrolet.com/blog/2022/may/7/chevy-to-... [1] https://revoltsystems.com/ [2] https://www.evwest.com/catalog/vehicles.php [3] https://www.google.com/search?&q=medium+duty+electric

I'm not sure this is a surprise given the switch from Bolt's older "Voltec" engine/platform to GM's "Ultium" platform. Hopefully GM will find a way to build such kits from Ultium instead.

I wonder if this will lead to GM going with Tesla's strategy of focusing more on expensive EVs (Cadillac and Hummer) and then follow with less expensive EVs at a larger scale.

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