[elihu]

> GM is investing in what sells today. Tesla is investing in what might sell in a decade or two.

It seems to me that the Bolt and Model 3 should be pretty similar in terms of cost, range, and price. The main difference is the Tesla brand / visual design and probably more self-driving tech in the Model 3. Am I missing something?

[vvanders]

Superchargers.

I regularly make a ~300mi roundtrip with our Tesla, I wouldn't own one today if that wasn't possible.

[edit]

Before anyone brings up ChaDeMo(I have the adapter), SAE combo neither are nearly as fast(120kW) in real-world use and have nearly as much market penetration.

The super-charger network is also something that's planned and built-out with the intention of being to make the major arterials rather than having a patchwork of various companies providing chargers.

[mikeash]

Non-Tesla fast charging stations also tend to be broken a lot, and are installed in small numbers, often single units. It's tough to plan a trip where you need a charge at a particular location when you could be screwed if a single spot is occupied or out of order. Most Tesla locations are 6 spots or more, and they're much better about fixing them when they break.

[vvanders]

Yup, and the just added real-time status on the nav map so you can see how many slots are available and re-route if needed.

[mikeash]

Have you made use of that feature yet? I've poked at it on the nav system, but haven't had to use any Superchargers since it came out.

[mikeash]

The Bolt can't really make road trips because the fast charging network it can use is pretty bad. (That's in the US. Supposedly Europe is a lot better in this respect.) Even where the facilities exist, the Bolt's charging rate is about half of what Tesla can do.

The self-driving/driver-assistance tech gulf is pretty big. The Bolt is fairly basic, while the Model 3 will have at least Tesla's Autopilot 2 hardware, which they say will be sufficient for full self-driving once the software is done. Even if that doesn't work out, it'll have excellent traffic-aware cruise control and lane keeping at the least.

I'd say the brand is also fairly important. Not (just) because Tesla is "cool," but because Tesla is committed. Supposedly GM is planning for something like 50,000 Bolts per year, so it seems like yet another car where dealers will try to steer you to a nice pickup truck or something instead, and finding someone willing to service it could be tough.

Putting it all together, and it seems like GM is putting their toe in the water, while Tesla is balls-to-the-wall (forgive the mixed metaphor).

[anchpop]

> probably more self-driving tech

I probably shouldn't be sharing this but I know someone who is working on the Bolt and he told me they've been having a lot of trouble integrating self-driving tech that's close to Tesla's