Surprisingly, there’s no adaptive cruise control available – surely a glaring omission in anything but the cheapest entry level vehicles these days. Moving up to the Premier trim adds rear park assist, rear cross traffic alert, surround vision, lane-change alert with side blind zone alert. It includes: low-speed forward automatic braking, lane-keeping assist, forward collision alert, following distance indicator, front pedestrian braking, and Intellibeam automatic high-beams.
2019 CHEVROLET VOLT EV DRIVER
The Driver Confidence II package, previously equipped on the Premier trim only, is now available as an add-on for LT. The base Bolt EV LT comes standard with electronic traction control, pedestrian safety signal, LED daytime running lamps, 10 airbags, OnStar and Chevrolet connected services, rear vision camera, LATCH system, Teen Driver (a configurable system that customizes vehicle settings, limits certain features, turns on safety systems, and provides an in-vehicle report), tire pressure monitoring system, tire fill alert.
The dash and centre console are streamlined and uncluttered by knobs and buttons, but there’s an abundance of hard plastics. Modest, it isn’t.Īlthough the cabin is clean and modern, quality was obviously sacrificed to deliver EV technology at the Bolt’s base price of $44,800. My tester’s “Shock” paint (a $495 option) is an iridescent lime-green with yellow flake which shimmers in the sunlight. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even take a second glance at it if not for the colour. The charge port, located on the driver’s front fender, is the only obvious giveaway that the Bolt is anything other than your average compact grocery-getter. Black trim surrounds the slanted headlights, sweeping back to join the side mirrors in a fair imitation of Cleopatra’s smoky kohl-rimmed eyes. Viewed head-on, the Bolt has a sharply defined, modern front end with a black, etched panel where the traditional grille would be. A tall, four-door hatchback, the Bolt looks like a raised-roof version of the Chevy Cruze hatch. If EVs are going to gain mainstream acceptance, they’ll have to appeal to a wide range of people, and not just early adopters who flaunt the reverse cachet of driving a dorky planet-saver. One of the Bolt’s original claims to fame was that it looks more like a real car instead of a science experiment. Perhaps the Bolt’s greatest asset is that it blends in with every other conventional car on the road and normalizes the EV driving experience. But what’s really remarkable about it? Just how unremarkable it is. Not only because of its impressive range, but its prodigious torque and flat-bottomed stability make it surprisingly delightful to drive. I’ve driven the Chevy Bolt several times and it’s one of my favourites in the EV category. Elon Musk and Tesla may have been garnering all the attention, but GM’s Chevy Bolt snuck in as the first EV under $40,000 (with rebates) to deliver nearly 400 km of range. The Bolt EV was introduced in 2017, a time when manufacturers were hustling to bring the first affordable, long-range EV to market.
Fortunately, my Trader colleagues knew there was a Level 3 quick charger at the nearby IKEA, and best of all – it was free.
2019 CHEVROLET VOLT EV FULL
About 60 km remained of the Bolt’s full 383 km range – impressive to be sure – but not enough to get me home to Peterborough. I’d picked up the 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV in Oshawa with a full charge, driven 80 km to Etobicoke, then spent the day doing drive loops for our autoTRADER.ca EV comparison test.
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