🧵
So, GM is killing the Chevy Bolt later this year. A lotta folks are upset about that, but as someone who knows a lot about the car and how it fits into the broader EV landscape, I'm not actually too bothered by this news.
There's a /different/ bit of news from GM that I'm much more upset about but honestly the Bolt's time has come.
Currently, the Bolt is a phenomenally cheap electric car. Bang-for-the-buck it's unmatched! And people are, I think rightfully, upset that we'll be losing such an affordable option.
But there's a logical reason for its affordability: its underpinnings are from 2016.
Is that bad? Not necessarily. But the car is flat out BAD at DC-fast charging.
The Bolt is a car that I could only recommend if you have charging at-home and are content with never taking on a road trip.
This is the Achilles heel of the car that the broader public is probably unaware of.
Its long range is let down by the fact that you pretty much need - at minimum - a 45 minute charging session after every couple of hours of driving.
Some folks are gonna be OK with that, but many aren't. And honestly, a Bolt taking up a precious fast-charging stall for an hour is a meme in electric car circles.
Could the Bolt be refreshed with a better and faster battery pack? I mean, probably! But it's still a very compact car that is, like it or not, unpopular in this market.
I didn't consider one for myself because it's frankly too small for me. And the 800V architecture of the E-GMP cars from Hyunda/Kia was just too tempting to pass up.
Anyway, the Ultium platform that GM's rolling out is a much more capable platform, and it makes complete sense for them to abandon the Bolt's underpinnings.
The tech in the Bolt simply cannot work for the mass market.
It's a fantastic runabout, and can even work with pretty extreme commutes!
But if you can't charge at home or work, it's a real pain in the ass to live with. In that way, it's a lot like last-gen tech. Great for a specific group of people, but not great for many others.
If you'd like a real reason to be mad at GM, well of course there's a smorgasbord of entrees to choose from, but their decision to drop Apple CarPlay / Android Auto from future EV offerings is really quite bad.
If they don't let up from that, I won't be recommending their products.
Fin
@TechConnectify Very excited for the future where we all drive 9000 lb trucks around and pay monthly for access to music, heated seats, keyless access, and nine other features.
I am sad to see the Bolt go, but I think you are right.
@TechConnectify Thanks, this helps.
I have a second gen Prius that I just don’t want to give up; I love my dumpy little whale, and the newer Prius generations just don’t do it for me (not a fan of the layout changes and reduced visibility, even if the tech is way better).
But I know eventually I’ll have to replace it, and fewer all-electric options on the low-end of the market was really bugging me. So I will console myself with this thread.
@TechConnectify See, dumping the Apple/Android stuff was great news to me when I heard it. I needba new car soon and the tech stuff is my biggest concern. Not a huge fan of Apple/Google to begin with, but they build products designed to last 2-3 years. I'm currently driving a 2009. A car needs tech built to last *decades*. And hey, maybe they'll use less flat touch screens and give us knobs and buttons again. Maybe Chevy will finally re-learn how to make an aux jack that doesn't have a minimum of five seconds and a maximum of several MINUTES of lag! On an analog input! Maybe we can get a car that isn't constantly sending notifications demanding access to my text messages when I'm just trying to play some music! Why does my '09 Pontiac have a better setup than literally any car I've seen since??
The entertainment systems in cars over the last ten years have been atrocious. More competition in that space cannot be a bad thing IMO.
@admin But see, with CarPlay and Android Auto, the car's infotainment system is handed over to your phone and stays as up-to-date as your phone is.
I plug my 2023 phone into the 2017 Bolt and now it has an infotainment system from 2023. GM doesn't need to worry about updating it, and (for instance) dropping support for 3G modems won't matter because the only modem you need is in your phone.
@TechConnectify Ehh...pretty sure most of my Android devices have not actually supported that, so I dunno about all that...and I'm not sure I want my next ten years of phone purchases to be dictated by what's compatible with my car.
I like the humble aux in. It's compatible with everything, and pretty much will be forever. I like knobs and buttons on the console so I can make adjustments without having to take my eyes off the road.
I also don't particularly want my car to have internet access...and I CERTAINLY don't want a third-party company to have the ability to remotely push an update that could break compatibility with significant features of the car. Because again...can you trust them over a timescale of decades? I don't.
@admin If you have a phone from within the last 5 years it probably does.
At its core, AA/CarPlay are just a slighty-fancy screen-mirroring tech. A audio/video feed from your phone gets sent to the car's display, and the car forwards touchscreen and other inputs back to the phone.
It's been a standard feature in the market for a long time, now. Dropping it in favor of a baked-in, locally-running software suite isn't something I'm a fan of.
@TechConnectify Yeah, I know I'm weird for expecting to still have control over the things that I purchase...lmao
This stuff feels about on par with the subscription heated seats style of nonsense...but possibly worse because it's not even the manufacturer threatening to cut me off, it's some unrelated third-party.
Did you see the NYT article a while back where a guy lost access to his phone number, contacts list, email, online banking, etc because Google scanned his texts to his son's pediatrician and didn't like what they saw? Google even sent the police to raid his home...the police concluded that there was no reason for all that and he had done nothing wrong but months later he was still banned from Google. Google was his ISP, his cell carrier, his email provider...so all of that was gone. Lost phone backups, online docs and photos, etc. And he was locked out of his online banking and other services that use texts or email as two factor authentication too. Not because he broke the law or even violated the terms of service, but because he asked his doctor for medical advice and the doctor asked for a picture and some Google moderator looked through those messages and didn't like what they saw. Even after the NYT got involved he stilt didn't get any of that restored. He's just lucky he didn't use Nest or he wouldn't even have been able to set the thermostat in his own home anymore!
And yeah that probably seems a bit irrelevant, I get it...but we can't always trust these companies to do the right thing, we can't trust that they won't boot you off their service at any time for any reason...so people making their entire lives so dependent on a single private multinational corporation is pretty scary sometimes...and I personally try my best to avoid that situation.
And it doesn't even have to be that extreme...Google discontinues products all the time. What happens if you buy a car intending it to last ten years and after five Google drops support for it? If it's Chevy's own tech you can sue them for loss of functionality; but if it's Google's tech? Well, Chevy will just say it *is* still compatible and it's not their fault your device no longer supports it. It still works as advertised from their end...
@dhepworth @admin plus, the underlying protocols of AA and CarPlay are easy to hack.
GM undoubtedly wants tighter control and/or subscription revenue. I don't trust them with either, frankly.
@dhepworth @TechConnectify ehh, yeah that sucks...but it does at least have the advantage that you actually have a relationship with the vendor.
If Chevy just makes a car "compatible with" some Google stuff and something goes wrong, Chevy is gonna say you have to talk to Google and Google is gonna say you have to talk to Chevy (assuming you can even get in touch with Google at all). Google doesn't care because you aren't their customer (Chevy was) and Chevy doesn't care because the problem isn't with their product (it's Google's) But if Chevy develops the system, even if they partner with Google for that, they're still the only one responsible for it. You're buying the actual system, not just the vague promise of some level of compatibility.
@dhepworth @admin Yes, that's exactly how it works. The systems I'm familiar with (GM, Toyota, and Hyundai) refer to it generically as "projection" and it's a widget just like any other function (i.e. radio, nav, settings, etc).
Generally it automatically launches once you connect a compatible phone.
It's not like the car doesn't have its own software, it's just that I'd almost always rather let my phone take care of things.
@TechConnectify @dhepworth Hmm...so why do they need special Google software for that at all? I can dock my Android phone to my PC's monitor/keyboard/mouse without installing any special apps for it...hell I remember mirroring my Android device to my PC over WiFi about ten years ago without needing some special Google app. It'd be great if they would just use the standards that already exist instead of inventing new ones...but then Google doesn't get as much control over your data and usage I guess...
Looking into it further though it like they are not actually abandoning this for their own system either...they're abandoning it for a system that gives Google even more control. Moving from Android Auto to Android Automotive. Which they will surely still refuse to support...of course...although it may have *some* advantages there since the software comes with the car now...
@TechConnectify i was looking to buy a bolt recently but was worried a bit about charging.
my question is what ev would be recommended for affordability and decent range also in a winter climate?
@TechConnectify I'm not sure the demand exists in North America, but is there a good solution for an affordable, small, electric day car? Dropping off the kids to school, going to the office, etc.
No need for two large long-range cars per family.
(Genuinely curious, because here in Europe, range anxiety is a thing but most car trips are short and don't require a larger car than the Bolt.)
(Also I live car-free and I'm scared of the proliferation of large, heavy cars.)
@TechConnectify Do you think all cars will end up on an 800v architecture? I like the idea of being able to charge super-fast, but there's going to be a point where charging is fast enough that you don't have time to do what you stopped for (toilet break, coffee, etc.) but slow enough that you don't want to stay by the car the whole time.
I'm finding the charging experience of my VW ID.3 (400v) pretty good, but might want something faster if I was on the road all the time as part of my job.
@TechConnectify Of course, a lot of problems go away if we get to the point where there is an excess of DC chargers:
- Slow charging car hogging a charger? Just use the next one along.
- Car finished charging and still plugged in while the owner finishes their coffee? Just use the next one.
But that's only going to happen if DC chargers come down in price a lot (but we don't need more power converters, only more connectors - this future doesn't involve the total power draw being any higher).
@MrAptronym Day-to-day? Likely not. But there are two stumbling blocks:
First, people want their car to be able to go anywhere at any time. It's a largely irrational need, I'd argue, but since when are humans rational?
Second, though I hate to admit it, I think DC fast charging is likely going to be how we solve the apartments issue. It's just too easy to let someone else solve your problems. It'll cost us all more in the end, but again - we humans aren't rational.
@EricMalves I understand this sentiment, but I do like to remind people that the size of today's crossovers is mostly an illusion.
An Equinox has a nearly-identical footprint to a Camry. It's just a bit taller and employs visual trickery to make it seem a lot bigger than it is.
We don't have dimensions yet of the new Blazer EV, but I don't expect it to be all that much bigger than the Bolt.
Even a small car is a large object!
Technology Connections
MrAptronym
Radu C. Martin
Jeff Olson
The Chaotic Good 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🖖
iaian7
SlightlyCyberpunk
David Hepworth
ChemicalTribe
an interesting bean 
Scot Hacker
Angry Centrist
Kurtis Franklin
flaeky pancako
RustStories
Kevin
TransitBiker
Steve Hill 🏴🇪🇺
2xfo
IonicDriver
Sloan Studio
Tachibana Kanade
Adam I
janusfox 🍅
Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)
Twelve 
GlennMagusHarvey
Eric Malves 
David Plisken 🏳️⚧️ BLM! 🇵🇸
bhtooefr
Scott
Space Hobo