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Comment by kmonsen | Hacker News Reader

Bolt is getting outdated, and I think for example the Kona EV is more competition. And I don't really see any good reason to get the Bolt.

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At 10k off, it might be a fine EV grocery getter. Right now a lot of people buy 4-5 year old leafs for like ~10k as EV grocery getters

Yep, I bought a 2 year old one with 19k miles for $8,500.

Wow, is that a normal price though for a 2 year old Leaf? Was it so cheap simply because they depreciate that much?

I imagine much of it would still be under warranty too as well no?

They were fairly cheap to begin with. A new battery is like 6k so that’s s big chunk of the price drop. If you can deal with old battery though you are golden.

Is there a catch to this? I know that Leaf batteries aren't liquid cooled which degrades them a lot quicker than liquid cooled batteries, but still that's an absurdly good deal.

Might just be the fact that they are quickly getting dated, especially the models with less than 100 miles of range new. Like back when you upgraded your computer every 18 months.

In 4-5 years tour range is half if rated. Half that in winter. Should get you to the grocery store :)

No catch. A 2015 base model with fast charger option. Bought it in 2017. A ton of these 2015 were coming off 2 year leases in 2017, and I bought it off a guy who re-sells then from auctions.

So I wonder what he got it for at auction?

jesus christ the us market is amazing. (yea yea there are trade offs)

Why would it be outdated? It has 200+ miles range.

I don't think it's outdated, but it just doesn't have the features (semi-autonomous driving, slick minimalist if controversially-so interior, OTA updates, etc.) you get with a Tesla. It's like comparing an original 2007 Apple iPhone to a 2007 Palm Centro.

Random and uncontrollable shuffling of the software in your car is a FEATURE?

I would definitely consider having your braking/acceleration/navigation/security upgraded without a visit to a service center a feature.

Until a bug disables them, Yes. Raise your hand if you know of someone who writes bug free code.

Yes, nobody writes bug free code and that's why having a car that can't update software OTA is a good thing. Got it. I do enjoy knowing that if a bug crops up I have to schedule an appointment at the dealership and take a day off work to drop it off to be upgraded instead of waking up to a bugfix having been already deployed.

This is why they don't upgrade everyone at once. People in the early-access program get the updates earlier and do so with the understanding that there may be bugs.

This is a non sequitur. Your car still has code in it, whether or not it can get OTA updates.

I wish it was more controllable, but yeah, it is a feature. There are lots of almost unfixable bugs in my non-Tesla's software stack, but they don't improve. The situation for the rest of the industry is that they are adding increasingly large amounts of software driven features but are even worse off than Tesla's occasionally buggy updates.

Is semi-autonomous driving really that big a deal to people? Driving in the carpool lane is the "killer app" for me.

The only situations where I would trust self-autonomous driving are: (a) 5mph bumper to bumper traffic and (b) I-5 between SF and LA on a dry, clear day with little traffic around.

It's damn great. It has transformed the way I deal with traffic.

TACC is definitely a really nice thing to have. I'm a little less convinced by the stuff in the FSD package above it.

For me the killer feature is not having to maintain the car every 3 months like a ICE car. I also save a ton of time not having to get gas every week.

A friend described his bolt as 'a car'. As in it's a car. That's it.

It' the type of car that would appeal to they type of person that would buy a Camry. Except those people avoid GM products.

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