GM 200 mile Bolt EV Due 2017

http://www.electric-vehiclenews.com/2015/10/chevrolet-bolt-battery-cells-to-cost.html

Looks like it could be a year earlier than Leaf II ?

Knowing the Americans it won't be slow either.

I wonder will Opel Ireland bother to import it like Kia Ireland decided not to import the 30 Kwh Soul. It would be a crying shame if they didn't import it.

Only thing about the Bolt is it doesn't seem to have a boot. Why would they design a car with a tiny boot ? I have little info on that atm.

BoatMad

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/17/chevy-bolt-another-ev-will-sell-in-europe/

its coming only in LHD version

They will only produce 30K units a year ? no wonder it's not heading to the U.K.

Oh well, another bad decision by GM, that's a shame.

Car manufacturers still showing such resentment for electric cars it's unbelievable.

BoatMad

Car manufacturers still showing such resentment for electric cars it's unbelievable.

I wouldn't agree with that at all, in fact within 5 years I suspect all major car companies will have an EV in the range

BoatMad

BoatMad wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with that at all, in fact within 5 years I suspect all major car companies will have an EV in the range

The tech is there today to make a model S equivalent, they can't be bothered because there isn't an incentive for them, electrics are tesla's bread and butter tot he rest they're a pain in the ass.

The car makers are fiercely fighting the Euro 6 regulations which in fact will mean if they succeed cars will emit more Nox than the Euro 5 regulations.

The resistance to change is unbelievable, they can't meet Euro 6 with current tech so is that not time to change ? regulators will give in to them as they have in the past. And we'll still unnecessarily have diesels spewing out crap into out atmosphere for god knows how long.

cros13

The problem is that car companies decided long ago that their added value was the combustion engine.
They then systematically stripped their development teams of the very skillsets they now need. In most cases they simply don't have the software engineers, mechanical engineers and electronic engineers to produce a competitive EV.

An EV maker in these early days needs to be heavily vertically integrated. You can't just use off the shelf parts. Tesla tried to do that with the roadster and it ended up complicating development greatly and increased costs. They started with a Lotus Elise and ended up with less than 7% part commonality at launch (which became even less when they had to retrofit the new gearbox).

Funnily enough it's the japanese and german automakers who didn't trim the fat as much who now have the best shot at the EV market.

BoatMad

I'm not sure which automotive companies you mean when you say " resistance to change " , I mean virtually all the German companies are developing EVs. You have nissan /Renault , the rest of the japs are following

Everyone will have an EV within 5 years.

What's holding them back is cost effective 300 mike range battery packs. As we see more cost effective lithium packs we will see EVs coming out of the wood work. Right now the market is too small for all the companies to have EVs in it.

Car companies have no allegiance to the ICE. They have allegiance to customers and profit margins.