The Chevy Bolt will be gone soon. Good luck finding an EV for less than $30,000

By Claudia Assis

There’s more to the Bolt demise: auto makers face the realities of making a truly low-cost EV

The end of the line for General Motors Co.’s Chevy Bolt underscores how hard it is for auto makers to make money out of electric vehicles despite soaring new-vehicle prices and as several makers throw all their weight on a full transition to EVs.

General Motors (GM) earlier this week said that it will end production of the Bolt, the car it says “set in motion GM’s all-electric future,” by the end of the year. Dealers will take orders through the summer, with GM on track to build more than 70,000 Bolts this year.

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The Bolt and its big brother, the Bolt EUV, are built on an older platform, and GM has thrown its weight onto its new Ultium battery and car architecture platform.

New EV offerings, including an electric Chevy Equinox, the compact SUV widely viewed as the Bolt’s natural successor, will be built on the Ultium platform. GM is also retooling a factory in Michigan to be able to make electric versions of the type of vehicles U.S. buyers for years have favored over hatchbacks like the Bolt: pickup trucks and full-size SUVs.

“When the Chevrolet Bolt EV launched, it was a huge technical achievement and the first affordable EV, which set in motion GM’s all-electric future,” a Chevrolet spokesperson said. “Chevrolet will launch several new EVs later this year based on the Ultium platform in key segments, including the Silverado EV, Blazer EV and Equinox EV.”

There’s more to the Bolt’s demise than being built on an older platform, however.

“Auto makers are still battling the realities of making a truly low-cost electric vehicle,” said Karl Brauer with iSeeCars.com. “My high suspicion is that there’s little to no profit on the Bolt currently.”

Most car makers are still struggling to arrive at a profitable business model for their transition to EVs. EVs have fewer moving parts and are more straightforward to make than vehicles with gas- or diesel-powered engines. “They should have every advantage” in terms of price, Brauer said. “Then there’s the frustrating reality of battery costs.

“Among the painful lessons we’ve learned with EVs in the past couple of years, going to EVs is not going to shield us from the frustrations of volatile raw-materials costs.”

Battery prices trended lower for years, until soaring prices for lithium and other raw-materials used in battery cells rallied in mid-2022.

In December, battery pack prices rose for the first time after more than a decade of declines, BNEF said. Up until then, falling battery prices had been “one of the most consistent trends in the electric-vehicle industry,” coming down from “well over” $1,000 a kilowatt-hour in 2010 to $141 per kWh in 2021, BNEF has said in a blog post.

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BNEF has pinned the increase in battery prices on rising raw-material and battery component prices as well as inflation. BNEF said it expected prices “to stay at similar levels next year, further defying historical trends.”

As expensive as ICE vehicles’ components are, they are still less expensive than battery products.

The Bolt’s phaseout also means that most auto makers, including Tesla Inc. (TSLA), which has promised a new-generation EV that could be priced lower than its Model 3 sedan and Model Y compact SUV, are going to stick with making pricier cars for now.

It’s hard to make money with sedans and compact cars, and even for gasoline-powered cars the choices are paltry and getting smaller. GM discontinued its Chevy Spark last year, only a recent example of auto makers cutting down on their cheaper offerings. It’s even more difficult to make money with smaller EVs.

With the Bolt gone, cheaper EVs include the Hyundai Kona and the Nissan Leaf, said Jessica Caldwell with Edmunds.com. The Bolt was “one of the rare ones that is more within people’s budget,” Caldwell said. “There’s really not a lot of options out there.”

The Chevy Equinox is important for GM and likely to become a leader in the EV segment, she said.

EVs also afford auto makers the opportunity to snap up customers that are new to the brand, out of the sheer fact that since they haven’t been around for long buyers are less likely to develop an attachment to the brand.

Caldwell said that “eventually” more EVs at lower prices will emerge as auto makers battle for volume. But electric cars are also part of a general trend of pricier new vehicles, as cars sport more safety and infotainment features and more tech, plus inflation.

The Bolt’s seven years on the road were not without hiccups: the most recent recall, related to potential battery fires and requiring a battery swap, involved all Chevy Bolts and Bolt EUVs ever made.

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-Claudia Assis

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04-29-23 1057ET

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