Let’s welcome back the 2027 Chevrolet Bolt.
The Chevrolet Bolt was discontinued after 2023, presumably because somebody in the automotive business had decided that Americans were desperate to drive electric vehicles with the dimensions of small apartment buildings.
But now, the Bolt is back. Yes, it’s still a hatchback. Yes, you can put things in it. Yes, you can buy it without needing a second mortgage and an understanding spouse.
What You Get for Your Money
The new Bolt starts at $28,995 and has an EPA-estimated 262 miles of range. The electric motor produces 210 horsepower and drives the front wheels. That’s it. No second motor. No all-wheel-drive arms race. No torque-vectoring system designed for a Le Mans qualifying session. It’s front-wheel drive because the front wheels are perfectly capable of moving the car. They’ve been doing it successfully for generations.
The Power Behind The Throne
Its 65-kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery can charge from 10-to-80 percent in about 25 minutes on a suitable DC fast charger. There is also a native NACS connector, so owners can use compatible Tesla Superchargers without carrying adaptors. GM says the Bolt’s 150-kW DC charging capability is more than 2.5 times faster than the previous model. It can also provide vehicle-to-home power when paired with the appropriate GM Energy equipment and a properly equipped house. This is genuinely useful. When the power goes out, your inexpensive little Chevrolet can help keep the house running.
Now, the battery’s use of lithium iron phosphate doesn’t sound glamorous. It sounds like something the chemistry teacher keeps in a locked cabinet. But it is well suited to an affordable electric car, where the objective is not to impress a venture capitalist but to move people around without bankrupting them.
Meanwhile, somewhere, another automaker is congratulating itself because its new electric crossover has ambient lighting in 64 colors. Priorities are difficult things.
More Screens, Because We Aren’t Distracted Enough
Inside, Chevrolet has installed an 11.3-inch center touchscreen and an 11-inch driver display, along with Google built-in and various entertainment applications. While parked or charging, you can play Angry Birds, watch HBO Max and browse Chrome, turning your automobile into a hotel room in which the furniture occasionally moves. The Bolt can now entertain you while it charges, which is useful because charging an EV remains one of those activities in which mankind has somehow managed to combine transportation with waiting at the DMV.
The Google-heavy interface will appeal to people who like their automobiles to behave like smartphones with seats. Others may wonder why the people who sold them a car now feel entitled to decide how they use it. This is a growing automotive tradition: first they sell you the automobile, then they sell you the software. Next, they’ll sell you the password to open the glove box.
The Great American Hatchback Heresy
The cabin is practical rather than luxurious. Then again, the Bolt was never intended to be a rolling tribute to the excess profits of the financial-services industry. It has physical controls for frequently used functions such as climate and audio volume. This means you can operate important things without hunting through a touchscreen menu while driving 70 miles an hour.
And the hatchback body remains perhaps the Bolt’s most subversive feature. The automobile industry has spent years convincing Americans that they need SUVs to transport two people, a handbag and twelve ounces of iced coffee. Chevrolet has apparently remembered that many people actually need a car that’s smaller, lighter, eay to park, great at carrying stuff and doesn’t require you to climb into it using mountaineering equipment.
SO, it may come as no surprise that it’s endangered.
Buy One Before GM Changes Its Mind Again
Here is where the Bolt becomes almost painfully funny.
GM has finally taken the car, added the battery and charging improvements it needed, given it useful modern electronics, kept the price below $30,000 and produced exactly the sort of affordable EV that people have been asking for. And even though it just got here, production is scheduled to end in 2027.
Of course it is. This is General Motors. The company has developed a proprietary product-planning philosophy in which a vehicle becomes most interesting immediately before the executive committee cancels it.
What’s remarkable is that the Chevrolet Bolt has now managed to be discontinued twice. That’s an impressive for an automobile whose principal crime was being sensible.
The Upshot
The Bolt was never the future, because it’s not a luxury car, nor is it a performance car. It isn’t some rolling electronic theme park designed to make you feel as if you’d purchased a small piece of tomorrow. No. It’s merely a car you can actually afford, actually drive, actually live with.
But now that General Motors has miraculously figured out what the Bolt should be, it’s going to kill it. No sane automaker would do it. Then again, automakers don’t go through bankruptcy because they make good decisions.
The best explanation is that GM is still GM. And suddenly, the mystery solves itself.
