Wither The Electric Stove Bolt, GM?

IN CASE YOU haven’t heard the news, the electric Chevrolet Bolt—with its official 235- mile range (or more, as I ran up 267 miles)— is great.

- Jamie Kitman

In fact, it makes the best case yet for Americans to own an EV, starting with double the battery range of most its antecedents. The price—$37,495 before options and a $7,500 tax credit—is stiffer than we’d like but a hell of a lot cheaper than a Tesla and not beyond the means of most early-intender-type buyers. The cost is also likely to fall in years ahead with greater volume and advances in battery manufacturing.

The Bolt is not, to be clear, a Tesla Model S when it comes to luxury, flat-screen fantasia, or top-end performance. But then it costs considerably less. And it stands up to Tesla’s popularly priced baby brother, the Model 3, both in the fact you can buy or lease one today and in that it is a fully engineered machine, ready to use daily. The Bolt offers drivers the reassuring sense they’ve not been sent out into the field, tasked to report back on the state of various open engineering and manufacturing questions. It is a Chevrolet, in the proudest sense of the word.