Yesterday, General Motors announced that its upcoming all-electric Bolt will have an EPA-approved range of 238 miles. This came as quite a shock to electric carmaker Tesla’s ardent fans. According to Reuters, the Chevrolet Bolt “will be launched in a few months, nearly a year before the Tesla Model 3,” it will have a starting price “similar to the announced starting price for the Model 3,” but it will outdistance the Model 3’s targeted “range of about 218 miles.” With those stats, and helped by the metal-moving moxie of some 3,000 Chevrolet dealers in the U.S. (compared with the 100 or so Tesla stores) the Bolt has everything to disrupt the erstwhile disruptor Tesla.
Yet, it took only 5 entries on the Tesla Motors Club message board for the fans to regain their composure, and to name what the Bolt is missing: Tesla’s Supercharger network. It’s a well-known refrain: Whenever Tesla’s vociferous followers near the losing end of a debate, they deploy a catch-all argument that sounds a bit like the old “But does it have a hemi?” from the last century: “But does it have a Supercharger? But does it have a Gigafactory?”
Surprise: The Chevrolet Bolt, along with the many upcoming longer range EVs by Nissan, Volkswagen, BMW, etc. etc. have their supercharger networks.
