Hacker News Reader

Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

The Chevy Bolt isn't dead. They're just taking a pause while they redesign it for the Ultium battery architecture. In the meantime, the Orion Assembly plant lines where the bolt was built are being used for electric light trucks.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44639082/chevrolet-bolt-e...

View on HN

There's something missing from this narrative that GM is not disclosing. It's very rare for a manufacturer to pause sales of a product that works well, is well received and in demand. GM has hyped their EV strategy and the Bolt is the one thing that's real and good.

Automakers redesign cars all the time without pausing sales. Automakers work on the new design in parallel, then switch over and call it a new model year.

Maybe a supplier raised prices and GM's gross margin tanked, or maybe they were always losing money on every car made and they need to stop the bleeding.

The story I heard is that they needed to retool an existing factory for new ultium vehicles, and they were prioritizing production of more profitable vehicles (which I guess they consider the Cadillac Lyriq, Blazer, and Hummer to be). Supposedly they will be producing Bolts before the end of 2024. So a gap of about one year, with a much better specced platform... If only they can get the reliability of the platform right. Chevy insists these issues aren't ultium related, but I have doubts.

Reliability problems are mostly related to wiring and systems integration. Going to be hard to fix problems too expensive to fix actually

Isn’t it well known they had major issues with the battery design and 2 or 3 recalls related to it. If i remember correctly one of them include a warning not to park inside due to the risk of a fire.

Yes, and allegedly the issue was root caused and fixed. The cost to investigate and recall has been sunk.

And the root cause was LG, not GM.

You're right: the current incarnation is dead and at least right now basing it on Ultium seems like a regression. Perhaps they'll work out all the issues in the Ultium Blazer? Even so, there's a reason general consensus is to never buy the first model year of a new oe revised car.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com