Chevy Bolt interior

With all the hype around Tesla’s Model 3, it’s easy to forget that Chevy is probably the first in line to deliver a 200-mile range electric vehicle for under $40,000.  Now Motor Trend has the geeky details on the car:

The 60-kW-hr battery pack was co-developed with and is fully assembled by LG Chem in Korea. It employs 288 prismatic pouch cells (each 3.9 inches tall by 13.1 inches wide) that are curiously packaged in pairs but wired in three-cell groups. Their chemistry is similar to that used on the Spark EV but with a bit more nickel content to allow it to operate at a slightly higher temperature. The whole setup is considerably different from that of the extended-range Volt, as the Bolt requires energy-storage optimization whereas the Volt needs a balance between power delivery and energy storage. Capitalizing on copious lessons learned in the second-gen Volt and Spark EV, this battery holds more than triple the energy of the Spark EV battery pack (60.0 versus 18.4 kW-hrs) but weighs just over twice as much (961 versus 474 pounds).

The bottom line: the car will get you about the same range as the Model 3, but for probably a lot less money.  This is because Chevy should still have enough $7500 federal tax credits to offer purchasers, whereas Tesla will have exhausted theirs by the time the Model 3 comes out.

But the performance of the Bolt will be nothing near a Model 3, as dual motor drive and therefore fast acceleration look to be impossible with the current Bolt battery configuration.  In addition, the Bolt won’t have the fast-charge speed that Tesla offers, with about 90 mile range in 30 minutes being the best you could hope for.  By comparison, Tesla offers 170 miles of range in the same charging time frame with their Supercharger network.  So road trips will be slow in this vehicle.

Still, if range and price is what you care about, and not so much on performance, this vehicle will be a good option — and it should be available a lot sooner than the notoriously late Tesla.