The Chevy Bolt is back, better than ever and just as cheap as before it went on hiatus. But it’s not the only affordable electric vehicle General Motors is cooking up.
During an interview for the Plugged-In Podcast, airing Friday, I asked GM President Mark Reuss about the “family of Bolts” he mentioned on stage at an investor event about a year ago. What can we expect those to be like?
“What comes after this, whether it’s called a Bolt or not, will be a family of things that is low priced,” he said. “And when I say family, they won’t be adopted. They’ll be in the same vein of size and price.”
So, the family members won’t all be Bolts, but they will share its general price point and size. That is, they’ll be compact electric vehicles that cost around $30,000. The launch-edition Bolt goes on sale for $29,990 early next year, and Reuss said the upcoming models would be “around that price point, so plus or minus.”
The big question, then, is what kinds of EVs to expect. Understandably, GM is playing it close to the chest, as none of these vehicles have been officially announced. But Reuss did say broadly that they could slot into “white spaces” in the EV market.
“I also think there’s some white spaces in size, class, of forms—not only the Bolt that we just introduced but also some different things, for different people’s styled tastes,” he said.
There’s one glaring “white space” to me, and that’s the compact electric pickup segment. Ford has seen great success with the Maverick, but there’s no electric equivalent to that yet. Ford is working on a roughly $30,000 electric pickup, and Slate is getting ready to launch one in the mid-$20,000 ballpark.
It wouldn’t be at all surprising if GM was considering the same thing, especially because hulking, expensive, big-battery trucks like the Silverado EV haven’t exactly taken off in the marketplace. Plus, we know the automaker has at least toyed with the idea in its affordable EV design studio.
Otherwise, I’d bank on another Bolt-sized compact crossover. Chevy said the 2027 Bolt will be “limited run,” and GM will likely want another small SUV to fill in its place in the EV lineup below the roughly $36,000 Equinox EV. A small sedan or hatchback seems unlikely, since GM has largely exited that segment.
Earlier this year, GM said a mysterious “next-gen affordable EV” will be built at its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, where the Bolt is produced.
The new Bolt is a partially redesigned take on the latest version, packing a new 65 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack, better charging and a new motor into the same general package. Reuss suggested that the cheaper “family” will use different underlying technology from GM EVs that came before. That could mean a wider adoption of LFP batteries, or something different like the lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) cells it’s working on to cut costs.
Ford, for its part, has developed a ground-up platform and manufacturing system designed to make its next-generation EVs cheaper to build. GM is trying to drive down production costs, too.
“I think it’s another opportunity for us to look at battery chemistry and form, and a different architecture underneath that can be even more efficient, and give people even more car for the money,” Reuss said.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
