From the day Chevrolet announced that it would be bringing back the Bolt EV, we knew it would be a short run. But it wasn’t clear just how short it would be, and now a new report suggests that GM will build far fewer than it had originally planned.
The final figure could be a small fraction of what GM wanted to get into the hands of customers.
Bolt Came Back To Big Expectations
2027 Chevrolet Bolt RS from the front three-quarter angleJoel Stocksdale / CarBuzz / Valnet
When Chevrolet announced that it would build a new run of Bolt EVs at a plant in Kansas, the industry expected a big run of vehicles. The plant could build up to 150,000 cars per year, and with the Bolt EV one of the cheapest EVs on sale in the US, the figure didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. This was especially true when Bolt EV sales surged in its final production year.
Now, Reuters reports, the real figure will be much lower. According to documents from the United Auto Workers, the union that represents the plant’s workers, just 35,000 Bolt EVs will be built.
That’s a tiny figure, especially since Chevrolet gave the Bolt a makeover and some improvements for the 2027 model year run.
Chevrolet stopped building the Bolt and slightly larger Bolt EUV in 2023, but just a year later it announced the model was being plugged back in. A slightly revised Bolt EUV wearing just the name Bolt was going back into production for model year 2027.
Not long after Chevy started building the 2027 Bolt, it surfaced that its days were already numbered. 18 months later, before the end of 2027, Chevrolet would kill off the Bolt once again. It needed the space at the Fairfax Assembly Plant to build the Buick Envision, which was being brought back from China, as well as the Chevrolet Equinox.
What Went Wrong With This Low-Dollar EV?
2027 Chevrolet Bolt side-profileChevrolet
Why is Chevrolet chopping it even further? A look at Bolt EV sales this year makes it obvious. In the first half of this year, Chevrolet sold 4,224 units of the small electric. Nearly all of those were in the second quarter, showing the ramp up of production and arrival at dealers, but it’s still a small number. More recent figures won’t be available for a few days, but probably won’t move the needle much.
Chevrolet sold nearly the same number of Bolts in Canada, where it moved 2,774. But even with both countries added together the Bolt is selling less than half of the Equinox EV and even fewer units than the Cadillac Optiq and Lyriq.
Blame EV incentives for the drop in sales. When President Trump removed the federal electric vehicle tax incentives last year, EV sales plummeted and are still recovering. When GM made the announcement it was bringing back the Bolt, ahead of news of the cuts, it would have gotten up to a $7,500 incentive, bringing the price down to around $23,000.
The Bolt EV also uses a battery sourced from CATL in China. The battery was meant to be a temporary measure until it could build US capacity, but the Chinese battery is subject to a 25% tariff which is definitely raising the costs.
Upcoming changes to Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and the removal of enforcement also likely play a role, as automakers don’t need to sell efficient models to balance out large trucks and SUVs.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
2027 Chevrolet Bolt charge port with the door openChevrolet
For buyers trying to save at the dealer and at the pump, the loss of the Bolt EV will take away one of the best ways to do both. But based on sales so far, unless the third quarter data shows a major change, it seems that there weren’t many buyers looking to do that.
There is no official word on when Chevrolet will wrap up production of the Bolt.
Source: Reuters
