3 years with a Chevy Bolt
Last week, I turned in our Chevy Bolt, as it’s 3 year lease was due.
I wrote briefly about our first two months with the car.
The Bolt was a good car, but not a great experience. The Bolt was our third EV car, but we won’t be getting another one from GM.
tl;dr: good car, bad company
The only real failure was about 6 months in where the car basically stopped on the highway as the power system shut down. I was able to get off the highway and pull into a parking lot. The dealership had to replace the entire battery pack to fix the problem.
Not many other mechanical issues during the rest of the time with the car. Much simpler in terms of regular maintenance compared to other cars.
We went on several long trips without a lot of issues and learned a bit about charging strategies.
The Bolt has several drawbacks that are frustrating. It lacks adaptive cruise control, which for a cutting edge car, makes no sense. We had cars 10+ years ago that had adaptive cruise control and the lack of it is a significant drawback for highway travel.
In terms of charging, the Bolt has a lot of trouble doing a high speed charging with any charger above 50kW. Yes, it’s supposed to auto-negotiate and be able to use a higher power CCS charger, but in practice, it doesn’t work. We tried several times and it always ended in failure. Incredibly frustrating when you are mid-journey and the car won’t charge.
As more and more CCS chargers are installed with 100kW+ capabilities, this a real issue. Charging is everything with EV cars. Chevy needs to remedy this ASAP.
Over the three year period, there was basically one significant software upgrade to help with Apple Carplay that I noticed. Nothing else that the average driver would see. The UI remained mediocre and full of shiny but useless screens. It’s like the UI was designed by people that didn’t drive the car and had just watched movies about people who did. The phone app was basically useless for anything other that seeing the battery level and even that took several minutes to update.
In today’s world of regular app updates, GM seems disconnected and oblivious, clinging to a past of locked in time automobile software. When pizza delivery apps have better interfaces than an expensive automobile, it shows a clear disregard for the way the world works today.
When I leased the car, the Tesla Model 3 was not available and I went with a 3 year lease believing that there would be lots of EV models to choose from for a replacement. I thought GM would have several cars to choose from when the time came and the Bolt was just first of many new models.
However, from GM there is nothing new. The only EV car Chevy sells is the Bolt and all they’ve added is a tiny amount of increased range. No significant new features and no other models. Unbelievable.
They promise adaptive cruise control is “coming soon” and a few new car models in 2022. Pretty pathetic for GM to be so far behind. The next model released is going to be a Cadillac. Yes, a Cadillac, because people associate innovation with Cadillac. What in the world are they thinking? Could they pick a brand with less resonance with anyone under 65?
Tesla completely owns the EV market at this point and has followed up the Model 3 with the Model Y, all within the timespan of my Bolt lease, while GM offers literally nothing new.
In default features, GM is 3–5 years behind Tesla. Elon Musk isn’t taking his foot off the innovation pedal so I have no idea how GM will ever catch up. GM is even dawdling on building charging infrastructure, while a Telsa charging network is fully operational.
GM is not alone is being behind. VW is behind, trying to deploy hybrids instead of EVs. Ford has delayed a pickup truck which would a winner, at least two years.
Lastly, if you want a Chevy or GM car, you still have to deal with a dealership. Dealerships are basically run by con men, intent on shaking every last penny out of your pocket. Dealerships work on misinformation and intimidation with a follow-up of robo-calls about service appointments & recalls to try to suck money out of GM’s wallet as well.
GM used to have Saturn, a bastion of sensibility in the 90s that broke the model and made the dealership an extension of the brand and an unstressful environment. I had a Saturn and loved the car and the process. Of course GM killed it and is sticking with their 1950s operating model.
The Bolt was a good car, but I don’t think the company behind it has any real commitment to making a new kind of car and changes to what car ownership is like these days. They make a lot of press announcements, but not a lot of cars. Go to a Chevy dealership and sees for yourself, even the salesmen shit-talk the Bolt because they don‘t make as much commission.
EV car #4 arrives soon. Let’s see how that journey goes.
