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Comment by ansible | Hacker News Reader

It is interesting that at the same time, sales of the Chevy Bolt aren't doing too good. This despite that at least a few reviews I've seen indicate it is a decent EV with decent range.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/04/05/ev-sales-table.asp...

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I believe there is internal resistance to the Bolt. There have been reports of dealerships being reluctant to sell them. I remember reading an article mentioning it was hard for potential buyers to actually find a Bolt to test drive at a dealership even though GM had plenty of inventory.

I believe there are also supply problems in hot markets. The Bolt is currently sold out with waiting list in Canada, I believe it takes months to get one there.

http://driving.ca/chevrolet/bolt/auto-news/news/the-chevrole...

I'm calling it now: This will be how EV adoption looks for the next five years. Partly the dealers won't cooperate, and partly the manufacturers won't be able/willing to produce enough vehicles (depending on the market in question). Multiple manufacturers have sold out the entire 2018 production, in some cases before deliveries have even started.

What's the reason that dealers won't cooperate? Fears that repairs will be lower?

That and selling the EVs means making sales pitches that make their other inventory look bad.

Maybe the Bolt was a loss-leader meant to make GM look good, rather than a serious product?

If I had to make a cynical guess, I'd say it's for CAFE standards.

GM may not be the only one. Other commenters have made a similar claim about the i3 in this thread - that BMW don't want to sell many.

Ford abandoned the sedan market, as they couldn't make money on small, efficient cars. (This is something that Henry Ford Jr told Lee Iacoca in the 1970s, according to Iacoca's autobiography - they'll never make money on small cars.)

Toyota is converting their fleet to hybrids to meet these standards. Nissan has been pushing the Leaf for several years, alongside a temporary Altima hybrid. Chrysler has the Pacifica, a plug-in hybrid van.

15.000 electric cards sold in the U.S. in March, out of 1.6 million is an interesting number, closing in to 1%

My country (Uruguay) is at about 0.5% electric cars.

China is the world leader by quantity, about 2.1% of new cars are electric.

By percentage, Norway has an astonishing 40% of new car sales being electric, due to heavy tax incentives, it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

Since we're talking about the Model 3 and the Bolt, both all-electric vehicles, it's important to differentiate between only electric and the various hybrids. That 2.1% figure in China includes all variations of plug-in electric hybrids.

There were 26,373 plug-in electrics of all types sold in the US in March, a 42% increase over the prior year, and about 1.6% of all vehicles sold.

You're right, I hadn't realized that.

However, it's about 80% plug-in electrics and 20% plug-in hybrids according to Wikipedia.

Anecdotally, the plug-in electrics sold here in Uruguay are mostly Chinese BYD e6s (there are some Renaults, and other brands are starting to import). They're used mostly by the taxi fleet and seem to be faring well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_e6

The same applies to the Norwegian numbers, 20.9% battery electric, 18.4% plugin hybrid, 12.9% other hybrid

I don't get GM. Just make it look like a ATS or something sporty.

Cars are still a fashion statement and a social signal. What are you saying with the bolt?

You assume these big car companies want to actually sell Hybrids or EVs. Until recently (still might be the case), I was only to find hybrids with every single option. Making Hybrids one of the top tier models.

Or they would create some odd looking car like the Bolt, Prius or Leaf.

I believe they don't want to sell many...just like BMW did with i3

That's plausible. It's also a really bad way to go. Tesla will hit ~$16-$18 billion in sales in 2018. All of that directly comes out of the pockets of BMW, Mercedes, Toyota (Lexus), Honda (Acura), and Nissan (Infiniti).

If they keep giving Tesla time, they might actually reach a point of being financially self-sustaining. In two more fiscal years they'll probably be at $28 billion in sales.

Small crossovers like the Honda HR-V, KIA Soul, and Chevy Trax are what sell to people looking for economical cars at that price point. The Bolt is designed to blend into that segment.

The ATS, by contrast, has been a huge failure in terms of sales for GM.

Maybe it’s a regional thing, but in this country I’d say at least half the cars on the road look more or less like the Bolt; non-descript hatchback. If anything, GM’s being safe there; by going with the less popular sedan format Tesla is taking more of a risk.

The Bolt has weird details on its snout. It’s like the slots in the side of a dogs nose. Compare to the Chevy Cruze Hatchback which is much more normal looking.

The Cruze also has a nice subtle curve to the side windows, whereas the Bolt looks like someone grabbed the roof and yanked it up.

I am quite certain they intentionally keep their design A-team far away from the EVs.

And as a side note, Tesla only has AAA designs for their EVs because they poached Mazda’s design lead, Frantz Von Holfhausen. Mazda was killing it during his tenure, with some of the best designs of their history.

They are saying “Yea it’s better for the environment but don’t fall in love with it too much we don’t want to start having to make tons of electric vehicles yet.”

Chevy Bolt's aesthetics look ridiculous and there's no way I'd buy it on that point alone.

I don't want a hatchback. I hate hatchbacks. Car manufacturers have hatchback fever right now, and they may sell ok, but I personally will spend extra money just to drive something that looks like a normal car.

EDIT: Some of this may be because other countries love small cars and it's easier to sell the same platform overseas as well. I still think they look awful and will pay extra money to not have to drive one. Yes I reserved a Tesla, and yes it's getting delivered in 3 weeks.

I can't speak to your desired aesthetics, but hatchbacks offer a lot of utility over a sedan/coupe in terms of cargo capacity. They're simply a much more efficient use of space for the same size car, and more versatile in terms of the kind of activities the platform can support. Its basically like having a small SUV. I drive a Golf GTI, which is quite compact of a car, but I can still carry a suprising amount of cargo without having to play too much tetris. YMMV of course, and I can empathize with your desire to have a nice-looking car, since I love mine paritally for the same reason (its also incredibly fun to drive!)

Yeah, totally understand that from a utilitarian point of view, hatchbacks are an incredible value buy. I have a truck just because of how useful it is.

It also looks cool (to me).

So I understand your position, but I honestly can't get over the look.

sounds just like your average truck commercial in america

"Real men, drive really big trucks, and they look really manly. and cool"

I will admit, there is many a time I wish for a truck for its cargo and towing capacity. Happy driving!

Chevy Bolt's aesthetics look ridiculous and there's no way I'd buy it on that point alone.

Looks like a pretty standard econobox hatchback/wagon to me.

I don't want a hatchback. I hate hatchbacks.

I guess that's how you see it.

> Some of this may be because other countries love small cars and it's easier to sell the same platform overseas as well.

The Bolt is the size of a subcompact SUV, like the KIA Soul, Honda HR-V or Chevy Trax. This is a fast-growing segment with a lot of new entries, so it makes sense for GM to put their new EV in this segment, rather than having it compete with their very profitable Equinox in the compact SUV segment.

Why do you like sedans? Why does anyone like sedans, actually? You can barely see out of the windows in the sun, let alone the rain, and they just look like those 50s land boats run through a wind tunnel.

> I don't want a hatchback. I hate hatchbacks.

I dunno, I like my eGolf -- mostly because it looks like a normal Golf, which looks like a normal car. Shame VW doesn't want to make them anymore.

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