GM Sold Only 1,177 Bolt EV Models In January

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 3:16AM EST · Published Feb 18, 7:38AM EST

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GM Sold Only 1,177 Bolt EV Models In January — © chevrolet.com

GM’s (NYSE: GM) Chevy Bold EV is supposed to be the Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model 3 killer. However, GM only sold 1,177 Bolt models in January, up from 1,162 in the same month last year GM’s once-promising move into inexpensive electric cars is a bust so far

GM’s opportunity with the Bolt may be short-lived. Although the Tesla Model 3 has had production problems, CEO Elon Musk says Tesla will be able to make tens of thousands of them a quarter, soon. The Bolt is in the right price range. The base model costs $37,495, and with a federal tax credit, $29,999. Unlike the Tesla Model 3, Bolts are available. People cannot get a Model 3 for 12 to 18 months, even if they order one immediately. The Model 3 base price is about $35,000

Chevy has several other advantages over Tesla. It has hundreds of dealers spread across the country. Most of the dealerships have service operations for people who need repairs or adjustments to their Bolt EV. The Bolt also comes in several colors. Buyers can also add a leather steering wheel and a rearview mirror that dims.

There are other reasons the Bolt does not sell well. For one, it is not a Tesla. The Tesla brand is strong enough that people who want a lowest-priced Tesla will wait over a year to own one. This sort of wild demand has helped Tesla’s market capitalization to rise to $57 billion. GM’s is about the same, and its sales are dozens of times greater than Tesla’s. GM sells about 10 million cars worldwide. At Tesla’s current sales rate, it will be fortunate to deliver 200,000 this year–across all its models.

Is the Tesla Model 3 actually better than the GM Bolt? For the time being, since neither car has been tested over a period of several years, or tested for flaws and problems, it is not possible to tell. No matter what the reason, GM can’t sell the Bolt, even with advantages it has over Tesla

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.