Thursday, December 1, 2016

Chevy beat Tesla to the punch, you can now buy a Chevy Bolt, and for 30% less than Telsa Model S

Chevy intends to keep its promise of cars on the road before the end of 2016, and starts with selling the Bolt in California1st, the largest sales market in the country.

The Bolt has a 238-mile range, which gives it an edge over mass-market electrics that have been around for a while; the Leaf can go 107 miles on a single charge, the Fiat 500e just 85. GM will also have a jump on Tesla Motors Inc.’s first and hotly anticipated mass-market offering, the Model 3, due late next year.

But will it cost them? Chevy may be losing money on each car delivered. Not the first car model to do that.

Why do it though? So soon after a bankruptcy? Just to do business in some states that have legislated zero emissions cars (1st I've heard of this) from the big car makers in order to sell ANY cars in those states:
California crafted the doctrine, with tough clean-air rules and a mandate that automakers sell some non-polluting vehicles if they want to do business in the Golden State. Nine others have adopted it, New York and New Jersey among them, and all told they make up close to 30 percent of the U.S. market. 

That goes a long way to explaining why zero-emissions models from more than 10 brands are on the roads, with more on the way. 

Jsut consider how many gas guzzler trucks and sports cars Chevy wants to sell in those same markets, and those gas guzzlers are all the most expensive, and most profitable, vehicles that Chevy makes

Two California cities, Los Angeles and Bakersfield, are the most smog- and particulate-laden in the U.S. Brown has called climate change “the existential threat of our time.” And California is where ZEVs are being dumped. More than half of all electrics were sold there in the first six months of 2016, according to IHS Markit Ltd.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s battery-powered Fiat 500e is made for California alone, and Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said in 2014 that it was losing $14,000 per sale. The company’s pretty much giving it away, at a monthly lease-rate of as little as $69.

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/12/chevrolets-bolt-configurator-goes-live-deliveries-before-years-end/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/gm-s-ready-to-lose-9-000-a-pop-and-chase-the-electric-car-boom

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