Skip to footer

Chevrolet Bolt EV pre-production cars now being built

Chevy said Tuesday that pre-production units of its 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV are now rolling off the line at the assembly plant in Orion Township, Michigan. Cars that can be sold to the general public won't start until the end of this year. 

|
Paul Sancya/AP/File
The Chevrolet Bolt EV debuts at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.

There are just nine days to go before the much-hyped Tesla Model 3 is unveiled to the world.

But it appears that the makers of a different affordable 200-mile electric car wanted to point out that their car will actually precede the Model 3 into production by at least a year.

Chevy said Tuesday that pre-production units of its 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric carare now rolling off the line at the assembly plant in Orion Township, Michigan.

What's known as "retail production"—cars that can actually be sold to the general public—won't start until "the end of this year," GM said in a statement.

Until then, Bolt EV team engineers will be working together with the assembly-plant line employees to "finalize testing of plant tools and processes," it said.

In photos and a video provided by Chevrolet, a sequence of white and grey Bolt EVs can be seen moving down the assembly line, carried in bright-orange cradles suspended from overhead.

Another photo shows a Bolt EV body shell suspended above an assembly line, with what appears to be a powertrain behind and below it, presumably to be mated up as the line continues.

The start of pre-production marks an important milestone in the launch of any car, and the months that elapse before actual production underscore the efforts any major carmaker puts in to get the quality of any new vehicle absolutely right.

“We’re at another critical and important point in the development of the Bolt EV,” said Josh Tavel, the electric car's chief engineer.

“We’ve moved from working in math, and building cars by hand, to building Bolt EVs on the [assembly] line," he added.

The months to come will be used to test the plant's new tooling, and to refine the processes that govern parts delivery, assembly sequence, and regular quality checkpoints.

The 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV was first shown as a concept at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show, and introduced as a production vehicle by CEO Mary Barra one year laterat the same show.

GM has so far been close-mouthed about the target date for the first Bolt EV delivery, though it has pushed aggressively to get the car out on a very short development cycle.

Odds are that first Bolt could be show up in California, where more than 40 percent of all electric cars in the U.S. are sold today.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Chevrolet Bolt EV pre-production cars now being built
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2016/0323/Chevrolet-Bolt-EV-pre-production-cars-now-being-built
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe