The Bolt is lacking a couple of things that are very important to Tesla enthusiasts:

1. The charging situation, and the ability to drive long distances without much trouble. Thanks to the Supercharger network, Tesla's cars can plan a route to get you from nearly any point A to any point B without too much longer of a drive than most people would do in a gas-powered car. The Bolt can use third-party chargers, but AFAIK it takes longer to charge and there's no concerted effort to ensure coverage with those. (Here's an article on this from a reviewer who likes the Bolt: https://electrek.co/2016/09/14/the-very-good-chevy-bolt-revi...)

I think this is a bigger point than most people who aren't actually planning to buy an EV think. The Bolt's lack of an answer to range anxiety makes it more of a commuter car, which puts it more in the same arena as the Nissan Leaf rather than any of Tesla's cars.

2. Autopilot. This is a very exciting feature Tesla is pushing very hard that the Bolt doesn't have at all.

And on top of those, there's also the fact that AFAIK you can't buy the Bolt in most places, which kind of puts a damper on how popular it can be.

I am in the perfect demographic for the Bolt: I am a previous Chevy owner (with a car that ran well for over fourteen years!), I want an electric car, and I'm not afraid of being an early adopter.

I can't buy one.

Chevy doesn't appear to be manufacturing them beyond a handful of review units for magazines like Motor Trend and a small number of end-user sales in states where they need the ZEV Credits. People are unenthusiastic about the Bolt because they're matching Chevy's apparent level of enthusiasm.

The rhetoric around the Bolt ("Chevy did it! They were first at scale with a $35k car!") is arguably even more disconnected from reality than anything people are saying about Tesla. The Model 3 isn't a compliance car that is masquerading as a serious effort. Tesla is planning on selling it nationwide. They didn't restrict pre-orders to California and Oregon. Setting aside the actual cars, these are big differences.

At Chevy's current roll-out pace, my Model 3 pre-order will arrive long before any local Chevy dealerships are willing to sell me a Bolt (while passive-aggressively pushing me towards an internal combustion vehicle the entire time).

But Elon Musk is literally Iron Man/the God King. What does it matter if I don't understand anything about the industry, Elon will lead me to the promised (of mars, or hacking the matrix).

The Model X slipped repeatedly. Autopilot on the new "full self-driving" hardware is way behind schedule. The Model 3 remains to be seen, but even it their rosiest scenario, it seems unlikely they'll be able to get through the existing backlog by the end of next year.

I like Tesla and got one of the first reservations for the Model 3, but it seems pretty fair to say that they often take on a lot more than they're actually equipped to deliver.

Don't forget about his plan to dig a tunnel under LA.

Bingo. Musk understands how many things work, including Wall Street.