GM is reviving the Bolt!  It’s been said that mistakes are a good way to learn a lesson. When it comes to General Motors, sometimes it takes a time or two or three before course correction. GM’s past has been dotted with the premature cancellation of some of its most unique and famous cars. From the Corvair to the Fiero, to the Cadillac Allante, just when the cars reached maturity, GM euthanizes the nameplates to widespread mockery and derision. Let’s not even go there about the EV1 from all those years ago. After all that, you would think that Mother GM would have learned its lesson, yes?

Not so fast. Three months ago, GM announced they were discontinuing the Chevy Bolt after seven years of production and almost 180k units sold. This pinged around the world and gave hundreds of lazy journalists a chance to crib an old headline, “GM Kills The Electric Car, Again.”

2023 Bolt EV

General Motors was off to a great start when it delivered the Bolt to the world in 2017. They beat all major OEMs (including Tesla) to market with the first sub $35K, 250-mile range battery electric vehicle.

Although not glitzy, the Bolt was attractive, reliable, and expertly conceived. Yet all was not rosy. After a whopping 18 battery fires, and a huge recall, GM refreshed the Bolt and its sales skyrocketed in a post-Covid car market. The news that it was going to be discontinued and replaced by the Chevy Equinox didn’t seem to matter.

All that is behind us now, as GM recently brought Bolt fans some good news from Detroit. “GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra announced during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call that Chevrolet will introduce a next-generation Bolt, continuing to deliver what customers have come to expect: great affordability, range, and technology.

“Our customers love today’s Bolt. It has been delivering record sales and some of the highest customer satisfaction and loyalty scores in the industry,” said Barra. “It’s also an important source of conquest sales for the company and for Chevrolet.”

“We will keep the momentum going by delivering a new Bolt…and we will execute it more quickly compared to an all-new program with significantly lower engineering expense and capital investment by updating the vehicle with Ultium batteries and Ultifi technologies and by applying our ‘winning with simplicity’ discipline.

“Drawing on various Ultium and Ultifi technological advancements will help GM bring this popular model back to market on an accelerated timeline. Timing and specific details about the next-generation Bolt will be announced at a later date. The Bolt is expected to join Chevrolet’s growing lineup of all-electric vehicles, three of which are launching this year — Silverado EV, Blazer EV, and Equinox EV.

“From its market introduction in 2017, the Chevrolet Bolt changed the game as the first long-range, mass-produced EV available to customers at a truly affordable price. Sales of Bolt EV and Bolt EUV through the first half of 2023 have been the strongest to date. Eighty percent of Bolt owners are staying loyal to Chevy and nearly 70 percent of buyers who are trading in a vehicle for Bolt are trading in a non-GM product.”

Electrified Mag’s Take:  Here’s what we think is unfolding behind the scenes at GM. The Bolt was sacrificed so its factory could be retooled for EV truck production. So where will this revised Bolt be created?  

We suspect the Bolt production line will either be retained at the current Lake Orion Assembly facility or moved elsewhere. If we were betting folks we’d say it’s easier to leave the line where it is, but equipment can be moved to a new location.

What would a new Bolt look like and what would be powering it?  The key to the Bolt’s success is it’s a great EV at a great price so a complete rethink is NOT what we’ll see. Get your head around the current car with newer, more efficient Ultium battery tech with Ulitifi software integrated into a heavily revised, existing model.  

In fact, the only way to keep the car at around $30K is to change as little as possible. While this might not be the state-of-the-art EV chassis even with the Ultium upgrades, it’s a proven, reliable design that works and that’s really all budget-minded EV buyers care about.

In the meantime, this seasoned journalist wishes the Corvair or the Fiero would have been given a stay of execution all those years ago. Think of what they could have evolved into.  Oh well, today the Bolt revival is a shot across the bow not only to GM haters but to the world’s OEMs that the General is lean and light on its feet. This news signals the company will quickly correct course to leverage product demand and marketing conditions.  Lesson learned.