Chevrolet Bolt & Bolt EUV

[cwerdna]

I read some threads over at the Bolt forum. Apparently at least a handful of people have handed in their cars to GM. One person said he received a $28k check for his 2017. I didn't pay attention to trim, and there is some chatter that this is a CA thing.

So if you are feeling lucky you:
Dump your LEAF
Buy a Bolt for $13k
Dump the Bolt on GM for say a $10k profit
Buy a Tesla

I don't think this strategy would work at this point if one didn't already have an affected Bolt before the recall was announced and evidence of actually needing most/all of the range and so on.

I don't see how any of that is relevant. The car is damaged goods, and GM will have to compensate the owner. That said, GM has a legion of lawyers and they have perhaps THE richest history of any car company of screwing their customers in court. So I'd take it as a given that GM will unleash its legal beagles to try and screw its customers, but its position is weak.

It's absolutely relevant. The recall was announced around Nov 13, 2020.

There's a stop sale on the affected vehicles. Documents at https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/CHEVROLET/BOLT/4%252520DR/FWD#recalls like the below say the vehicles must not be delivered to customers, even w/the interim 90% limiter fix:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCSB-20V701-2489.pdf
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCMN-20V701-3731.pdf
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCMN-20V701-3779.pdf

This info is all out in the open. GM dealers aren't supposed to (by law) sell vehicles w/open recalls. See above. Apparently, used car lots aren't bound by this nor are private sellers.

But anyhow, from what I've seen so far on chevybolt.org and a few Bolt FB groups is that GM has been accommodating of people who actually need the previous range of their vehicle (e.g. loaning them an ICEV or 2020 Bolt) on a case-by-case basis. It doesn't seem like many are demanding buybacks. To me, one would need justification for a buyback (just like you might for a loaner)... to go a buy a vehicle that isn't supposed to be sold in the first place (due to open recall) for cheap and try to dump for a profit doesn't sound like a valid justification.

As I said, GM has all sorts of records including from Moronstar. Put yourselves in the shoes of the automaker and its decision makers. Let's say it was some other automaker that you don't have utter hatred and contempt for.... If you were a decision maker, would you want to authorize a buyback for a pretty shady situation, for the lack of a better word? I wouldn't. Let's say you did anyway. Might you get in trouble w/your manager and/or management chain for authorizing something so questionable?

But, if it were someone who owned an affected car before the recall and there is plenty of evidence that it's been driven from full to nearly empty numerous times in its life w/o charging in between and they're demanding a buyback, then sure, I'd be MUCH more inclined to authorize it. And, that's after other options have been exhausted (e.g. somehow a loaner won't work for them).

Also, another possibility is to replace a pack w/one where the cells do not come from South Korea. GM already collected some packs from the field and replaced them w/some other packs, for research purposes. The "lucky" drivers were already notified awhile ago.

 

[SageBrush]

I don't think this strategy would work at this point if one didn't already have an affected Bolt before the recall was announced and evidence of actually needing most/all of the range and so on.

I don't see how any of that is relevant. The car is damaged goods, and GM will have to compensate the owner. That said, GM has a legion of lawyers and they have perhaps THE richest history of any car company of screwing their customers in court. So I'd take it as a given that GM will unleash its legal beagles to try and screw its customers, but its position is weak.

It's absolutely

A weak case.

GM has two arguments:

1. ITS dealerships broke the no-sale law, but the customer should shoulder the burden
2. The car is defective but the customer is not in GM's view inconvenienced.

As I said, the class action lawyers are drooling.

 

[cwerdna]

https://electrek.co/2021/02/09/bolt-recall-update-provided-by-chevy/ has a small update. FWIW, the author of that article/blog entry is an admin of one of a Bolt Facebook group.

BTW, regarding "weak case", sounds rather unethical to me to knowingly buy a recalled vehicle w/a stop stale, not legitimately need the range then turn around asking the automaker to buy the car from you for substantially more than you paid for it. I think the best case one could hope for with such nefarious intent is a buyback for the actual cost of the vehicle.

 

[webeleafowners]

I didn’t realize the stop sale affected 2019’s. It explains the 8 brand new 2019’s on the lots around here.

 

[cwerdna]

I didn’t realize the stop sale affected 2019’s. It explains the 8 brand new 2019’s on the lots around here.

It only affects a subset of 2019's. Mine built in 12/2018 isn't affected the last time I checked (via My Chevrolet App and via VIN at https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls).

See Q12 of https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RMISC-20V701-9894.pdf which is one of the documents at https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2019/CHEVROLET/BOLT%252520EV/5%252520HB/FWD#recalls.

 

[coleafrado2]

Hard to take concerns about ethics seriously. We're talking about Government Motors here - the guys who crushed the EV1, the same guys that killed hundreds of people cheaping out on a $5 keyswitch.... not to mention their financial irresponsibility in continuing to make ICE.

But you're not wrong. For whatever reason, GM seems to be treating original owners better than secondhand owners. I'll be holding on to mine until they publish the final fix, be that a new battery or a firmware update.

 

[SageBrush]

The Bolt case may also be the Hyundai case, since they share the same battery/pack.
Last week Hyundai pointed a finger at the electrode separator as the root cause but LG disagrees.

The idea of the separator being the problem has to do with its failure to prevent dendrite penetration (and thus a short.)
May be true, but those sound like some serious dendrites.

 

[cwerdna]

The Bolt case may also be the Hyundai case, since they share the same battery/pack.
Last week Hyundai pointed a finger at the electrode separator as the root cause but LG disagrees.

The idea of the separator being the problem has to do with its failure to prevent dendrite penetration (and thus a short.)
May be true, but those sound like some serious dendrites.

No. I've never heard of Bolt and Hyundai Kona Electric sharing the same pack.

Seems unlikely given that https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/bolt-ev/2019.tab1.html says there are 288 cells whereas https://electricrevs.com/2018/12/20/exclusive-details-on-hyundais-new-battery-thermal-management-design/ says 294 for Kona EV.

There's a pic that says:

This image shows the type of LG pouch cell used in the Chevrolet Bolt EV. It is about 4 inches high, 13 inches long, and 0.6 inches thick and weighs about 1.8 pounds. The Hyundai Kona Electric, Kia Niro EV, Jaguar I-PACE, and Audi e-tron use cells with a roughly similar shape, size, and energy capacity.

A common thread is LG Chem.

OT, I just finished watching this ad but on FB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I26NjqqLjKo. Lots of Bolt EV and EUV news out now due to today's announcement and presumably a media embargo that got lifted.

https://insideevs.com/news/487770/chevrolet-bolt-euv-ev-refresh-reveal/
https://electrek.co/2021/02/14/2022-chevrolet-bolt-ev-and-euv-announced/

If "DC Fast charging is finally standard, but retaining the same 55kW rate and charge profile as before. " from Electrek is accurate, that is really disappointing. Was hoping to see improvements there.

the same guys that killed hundreds of people cheaping out on a $5 keyswitch.... not to mention their financial irresponsibility in continuing to make ICE.

I'm not sure it was GM "cheaping out". They apparently wanted to make their keyswitches feel not cheap and have a quality feel.

Unfortunately, it seems that GM's insular culture and them not communicating properly w/dealers left dealers clueless as to the cause and even throwing many parts in vehicles (sometimes kilobucks worth) to no avail. When someone brings a car in for service, people do not usually hand over an entire wad of keys on a keychain. They'll hand over a single key, so of course the problem w/the switch slipping out of ON/READY won't happen w/that single key or a light keychain.

Anyway, GM totally screwed the pooch on that.

As for financial irresponsibility, unfortunately, ICEVs are GM's bread and butter + actual profit center. If they suddenly dropped all that and moved 100% to EVs, they would have to lay off a TON of workers and close a ton of factories. Heck, they might even go under if they did that all at once.

 

[danrjones]

So if I have the numbers right the new 2022 Bolt with 259 miles of range starts at $32k and the bolt EUV at $34k.

While the entry level 2021 Leaf plus with 226 miles of range costs $38.2k?

That seems pretty easy choice if the tax credit comes back for the Bolt, assuming the new seats are good.

Did the Bolt get adaptive cruise finally? The euv gets Supercruise but I'm curious if it has a separate adaptive cruise mode for non mapped roads.

The charge speed on the Bolt is still slow but at least it should work repeatedly with cooled batteries.

All in all not a bad refresh.

 

[SageBrush]

All in all not a bad refresh.

The new Bolt is the old Bolt + a small facelift.

Is the EUV the same old tech ?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Is the EUV the same old tech ?

As I understand it, it's the latest version of the Bolt drivetrain, with a reworked body shell. I'm curious about the rear cargo volume in the EUV.

 

[cwerdna]

Is the EUV the same old tech ?

As I understand it, it's the latest version of the Bolt drivetrain, with a reworked body shell. I'm curious about the rear cargo volume in the EUV.

I don't know that the drivetrain has changed.

Oddly, it doesn't seem like there's much more rear cargo room in the EUV. See https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/bolt-ev/2020.tab1.html vs. https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/2022-bolt-euv-bolt-ev.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/feb/0214-boltev-bolteuv.html. EUV has more rear legroom.

It seems the biggest changes are Super Cruise available on EUV, standard DC FCing inlet, up to 11 kW AC charging, dual voltage EVSE (standard on EUV), Wireless CarPlay, a bunch of safety features now standard, adaptive CC is now available and the interior and seats are supposed to be better. Also, they went w/buttons instead of a shifter lever. Seems like the headlights have gone to LEDs instead of HIDs. EUV also offers sunroof. The cup holders got moved back.

The interior got cleaned up a bit. On 2017 to 2021 Bolt, even on a fully loaded Bolt, the right couple "buttons" in the row of buttons underneath the HVAC controls are blank, which looks silly. Opel Ampera-E used those slots but no Bolts ever did, so some people would buy stickers like https://www.etsy.com/listing/704744356/you-choose-6-designs-universal-blank to apply to those blank spots. 2022 Bolt moved those buttons so there should be no more blanks. Also, people noticed USB-C port, whereas previous Bolts didn't have USB-C.

At least they finally added a clock to the "gauge cluster". I wish they also added the outside temp there. On current Bolt, clock's on the big touchscreen and if you have CarPlay or Android Auto up, you can't see the outside temp. (On Android Auto, I hear Google added a temp but I hear that's from Google weather, not the car itself.)

My speculation for the EUV is GM did whatever they needed to in order to get it classified as a "light truck" (just like many Subaru models esp. ones that look like wagons) so that it could help GM's light truck CAFE numbers. The CAFE fleets are DP, IP and LT (domestic passenger cars, imported PC and "light truck").

For Bolt EV, seems like a nice mid-cycle refresh but with the biggest disappointment w/supposedly DC FC still maxing out at 55 kW. The lowering of the MSRP by over $5K hopefully will make people consider the Bolt who ruled it out before (who didn't know about big incentives).

 

[BrockWI]

I believe only the highest level trim gets Super Cruise. I didn't see anything about Adaptive CC on the Bolt, I sure hope it does, honestly I was amazed when we test drove one it didn't have adaptive cc. And yes if that $7k gets back on the books it will be the low cost option for an EV for sure.

 

[cwerdna]

I believe only the highest level trim gets Super Cruise. I didn't see anything about Adaptive CC on the Bolt, I sure hope it does, honestly I was amazed when we test drove one it didn't have adaptive cc.

https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/2022-bolt-euv-bolt-ev.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/feb/0214-boltev-bolteuv.html says
"Available driver assistance technologies for both vehicles include Rear Cross Traffic Alert5, HD Surround Vision5 and Adaptive Cruise Control..." That hmmm... does leave it a bit ambiguous. But yes, the lack of adaptive CC on '17 to '21 Bolts as an option has raised eyebrows.

You are right on the 1st point. Above says "Super Cruise is available on Bolt EUV Premier."

 

[BrockWI]

I know I read that as well and was like, hmmmmm, maybe

 

[danrjones]

All in all not a bad refresh.

The new Bolt is the old Bolt + a small facelift.

Is the EUV the same old tech ?

To the first point, yes maybe so. But at the price is it a better deal than the leaf plus?

To the second, the EUV gets an "available " for upgrade super cruise. I'm still left wondering if there is adaptive cruise on roads without super cruise mapping? Others above seem to be wondering about this too.

The entry level bolt will start at 32k and if the fed tax credit comes back that's 25k before dealer discounts.

 

[LeftieBiker]

GM really has a knack for falling short in unexpected ways - like making a Bolt SUV and not giving it any extra cargo space.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

I saw that...where did the 6 inches go?? Supposedly a few extra inches in rear seat. Were are the other 3...an extended hood?

 

[SageBrush]

To the first point, yes maybe so. But at the price is it a better deal than the leaf plus?

I don't make that determination for other people. Priorities vary. I tend to point out to people shopping these cars that CHAdeMO sucks even worse than 55 kW CCS, but even that is something of a YMMV. E.g., Canada (apparently) has a decent CHAdeMO network.

I will point out though that your presumption the value will stay the same if the tax credit renewal comes through is naive. Mostly it just means that Nissan will continue to discount its cars and GM will not.

 

[danrjones]

To the first point, yes maybe so. But at the price is it a better deal than the leaf plus?

I don't make that determination for other people. Priorities vary. I tend to point out to people shopping these cars that CHAdeMO sucks even worse than 55 kW CCS, but even that is something of a YMMV. E.g., Canada (apparently) has a decent CHAdeMO network.

I will point out though that your presumption the value will stay the same if the tax credit renewal comes through is naive. Mostly it just means that Nissan will continue to discount its cars and GM will not.

We will just have to wait and see what they do.

I did hear that the heating steering wheel is Canada only. I hope that's wrong. Strangely it's one of favorite things in my Leaf.