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by MobileVet 1392 days ago
I have been waffling over the purchase of an EV for the better part of 2 years. Despite being cheap AF, the cost of ownership isn’t really at the top of my list of concerns. Mostly that is because the cars I like are far more expensive up front and make the math rough.

That said, if you live in the US, the Chevy Bolt actually makes the math pretty fantastic. If they don’t raise the price at the end of the year, it will be an incredible value. Right now, at 29k or 32k, the math including gas and maintenance turns positive very quickly.
1 comments
remir 1391 days ago
The Bolt is indeed a good deal. Only negative (IMO) is the charging speed compared to other new EVs.
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WorldMaker 1391 days ago
The other negative is that the Bolt's battery tech is now a generation (or at least a half-generation depending on how you figure dividing lines) behind compared to GM's massive investment into the multi-vehicle "Ultium" platform. That may matter for the expected service life of the Bolt (compare to GM's recent cut of service on the Spark EV, a half-generation of battery tech just prior to the Bolt; though to be fair there were a lot fewer Spark EVs on the road compared to Bolts).

I'm still confused why the recent model changes to the Bolt didn't include an "Ultium upgrade" other than to keep costs down and not associate the Bolt with the R&D depreciation of Ultium just yet. But given GM's larger commitment to the Ultium platform and number of vehicle models they are now building on it, that's one of my remaining pieces of hesitancy against current models of the Bolt and its already "legacy" platform. (Though the other big hesitancy was the "recent" recall and how that made Bolts impossible to find in dealerships for just long enough that it passed my "impulse buy" window the past couple of years.)

I hope GM realigns the Bolt to the present platform and/or starts adding smaller vehicles to the Ultium platform. (Smallest currently announced is the new Blazer which is still much larger than I want as a car.)

(I'm an "ancient" Volt owner and have been watching GM's EV projects with great interest as I'm at about the point where I'd like to replace the Volt with a proper EV, but so far GM's EV strategy still seems a bit hit-and-miss and like "next year's models" might be the ones to watch for. From my perspective, at least.)

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