Is 200 the magic number? Would that many miles of reliable electric driving range make you consider an electric vehicle as your daily driver? Chevy hopes so and as such has invested considerable effort into making sure the purely electric Bolt is a real car with a useful package and respectable ride and handling chops. Heck, Chevy even installed an SCCA racer, Josh Tavel, as chief engineer to make that happen. How did he and his bi-continental team (design and development work has been split between Korea and the U.S.) do?
The front and rear lighting units of the cars we drove were all prototypes, as tooling these complex parts requires among the greatest lead times.
I’m in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, where Chevy has set up an elaborate Electric Avenue display showing off all its electrified offerings with the opportunity to take them for a spin around a closed course in a parking lot. There are no bumps, and the few jinks left and right that the coned course provides don’t give too much opportunity to assess steering feel, body lean, and things of that sort. What it does reveal is that the front motor pulls the Bolt away from a stop or a corner with EV-grade authority. Power and torque specs are being held until the vehicle’s launch at the Detroit show, but we are told the 0-60-mph dash will take less than 7 seconds. If you drop the shift lever into low “gear,” you get one-pedal driving, which summons more regenerative braking when you lift off the throttle. This is more relaxing than moving from gas to brake in stop-and-go driving. The degree of regen is considerably less than in the early Mini-e (which felt like the airbags might trigger if you jumped off the gas), and if it’s not enough, you can trigger the paddle on the left side of the wheel to increase the level of regen a bit more. The self-sealing Michelin tires seem to provide reasonable grip for a low rolling resistance tire, and the brake pedal feel seemed slightly better than average for such blended regen/friction systems.
Exact EPA range numbers and other key electrical system details have not been divulged yet, but we are assured the three-digit range number will start with a 2, and we’re told that the battery pack will charge in 9 hours at 32 amps and 240 volts. Inductive vehicle charging wasn’t considered, as these systems still weigh too much and suffer low efficiency. They’ll be incorporated when full autonomy arrives.
Designing the Bolt from scratch on a brand-new architecture presented great opportunities for integration of the electric equipment, such as designing an extra-long (for a B-class car) wheelbase with GM’s shortest front and rear overhangs to accommodate a big, low, flat battery pack as an integrated structural element. The pack contributes 25 percent to the torsional stiffness of the car. That’s a luxury that’s impossible when electrifying an existing gas car such as the Spark, but dedicated EVs present their own challenges. Routing the angled forces of the new small-overlap crash test through such a small overhang without a nice, big lump of nearly solid metal to help distribute the load proved tricky. The electric motor is too small and low to be of much help, and the power controller mounted above it isn’t massive or stiff enough, so an upper cradle and cross-car beam had to be developed to stabilize the front clip.
Chevrolet is classifying the Bolt as a small station wagon, not as an SUV or hatchback. There’s no AWD option, so SUV was out, and the way cargo volume is calculated for hatchbacks would have shortchanged that number (20.2 cubic feet to 56.6 behind the front seats). At 94.4 cubic feet, its interior passenger volume is said to be larger than that of a Nissan Leaf. Add the 16.9 cubic feet of cargo behind the fold-flat 60/40 rear seat, and you’d have an EPA midsize car if not for the station wagon designation. The rear-seat roominess is made possible in part by the (industry-first) ultra-slim front seat designs that involve a metal framework with a flexible plastic shell lined with a thin (0.4-0.6-inch thick) layer of foam. They provide ample support, and in our brief drive we felt no hard pressure points. And anyway, nobody will ever spend 10 hours at a stretch in these seats.
Naturally, since this is CES in Vegas, Chevy spent a good bit of time demonstrating the Bolt’s connectivity and infotainment features, which get displayed on a huge 10.2-inch center console screen, with another 8.0-inch screen serving as the instrument cluster—both of them reconfigurable. The inside rear-view mirror is another screen, fed by a camera on the rear hatch providing an 80-degree field of view that’s always visible, even if passengers or cargo obscure the rear window. Flip what looks like the day/night lever on ordinary mirrors, and you get normal glass mirror—perfect if the hatch is open (or the camera broken). There’s also a 360-degree around-view that shows on the center-stack screen.
A “false floor” will be offered to make the floor level with the bumper and provide concealed stowage, but the cargo dimensions are measured with it removed, as shown here.
Seven devices can connect to the onboard Wi-Fi hot spot, and 10 phones can pair with the car. The driver’s various infotainment, nav, climate, and other preferences can be dialed up, but they’re not keyed to a particular key fob. Rather, they’re associated with the paired phone. Which phone? The first to be detected upon startup is assumed to be the driver’s. If multiple phones are detected, the phone assigned the highest priority is selected. And Bluetooth low-energy senses the phone approaching and can unlock the car. Eventually, it will enable car sharing by authorizing other users’ phones, but for now the key must be present to drive off. There are new functions enabled on the MyChevrolet mobile app, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard. Myriad screens offer a multitude of eco-coaching and recording capabilities, and it will be possible to share these results with other EV owners to compete for top miles/kW-hr, energy regeneration, climate efficiency, etc.
The Bolt is scheduled to go on sale in the fourth quarter of 2016 at a net price (after federal tax credits) of less than $30,000. Watch motortrend.com for more details following its official Detroit debut, and expect a more extensive drive coming this summer.
The post 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV First Drive Review appeared first on Motor Trend.
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