Die-hard Chevrolet Bolt fans rejoiced when General Motors announced it was bringing a refreshed version of the EV subcompact back into production.
The GM brand gave a lot of credit to those owners — and to Bolt supporters within General Motors — for the car’s revival. But fandom alone doesn’t restart a multimillion-dollar program. The math has to pencil out in more ways than one.
An examination of GM’s business and market conditions at the time it was approved hints at what compelled the automaker to bring the Bolt back.
It started with GM’s factory capacity. The U.S. automaker had capacity to spare at its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas. The factory previously made the Chevy Malibu, which ended production two years ago, and it isn’t going to start making Chevy Equinox SUVs until mid-2027 or Buick Envisions until 2028. Into that gap went the Bolt.
Perhaps more critical to the Bolt’s comeback was the broader availability of EV-specific parts, which helped bring the costs of the new model down. It’s not built on a flashy new platform, instead relying on incremental improvements to make the final product better.
TechCrunch recently drove the new Bolt. It is compelling enough to suggest it will give GM an EV sales bump in an uncertain U.S. market.
The original 2017 Bolt was GM’s first dedicated EV in 20 years. It was a ground-up effort, which meant the company had to design and build the motor and battery management system while also coordinating with LG Chem (now LG Energy Solution) to make the battery pack. The car got an entirely new chassis that wasn’t a rehashed version of an internal combustion engine platform. None of those items are cheap.
Fast forward to today, and GM sells about a dozen all-electric models in the U.S. across the Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC brands. That gave it plenty of parts and experience to draw upon when engineering the new Bolt.
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