General Motors is downplaying sales expectations for the Chevrolet Bolt EV, the industry’s first affordable, long-range electric vehicle, which goes on sale in December in California and Oregon and will be available nationwide by next spring.
“It’s not about how many we sell,” insisted Alan Batey, president of GM’s North American operations and head of global Chevrolet, perhaps mindful of critics who argued the first-generation Volt plug-in hybrid wasn’t a success because it didn’t sell in high volumes. Rather, what matters is what the car says about General Motors as a technology leader in the seismic shift toward clean, autonomous, shared mobility.
So while there will undoubtedly be comparisons to how the Bolt fares in dealerships vs. Tesla’s Model 3 (which has 400,000 reservations and doesn’t go on sale until late 2017), GM’s expectations for the Bolt are different.
