July 31, 2025 - Chevrolet Teases the New Bolt EV

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 31, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

While many automakers are slowing or cancelling plans for new electric vehicles for the US market, others are continuing to push ahead and learning from some of the product planning mistakes made in earlier efforts. A key element of this, especially now that the federal EV tax credits are going away at the end of September is to create more affordable EVs. Ford has its skunkworks project that will implement many of the key design lessons learned from low-cost Chinese EVs, such as structural LFP battery packs and large-scale castings. Kia is launching its EV4 sedan this fall and the EV3 crossover early in 2026. 

Chevrolet has begun teasing the new 2026 Chevrolet Bolt. When GM ended production of the old Bolt at the end of 2023, it announced that a new generation would arrive in late 2025 and the first teaser images have been released. While the overall design is apparently a refresh of the 2023 Bolt EUV model, it will incorporate GM's latest electric propulsion technology with motors shared with the Ultium architecture vehicles. The outdated nickel manganese cobalt battery pack is also being replaced with a new lithium iron phosphate battery that should be significantly lower cost. GM hasn't revealed who will supply this battery, but LG Energy Solution seems a likely candidate. 

Based on the teaser images, the new Bolt will also feature an SAE J3400 charging port. Assuming that the Bolt is also getting a newer electrical architecture and other Ultium components it will likely offer much faster charging speeds than the previous model that was limited to 50-kilowatts on DC fast chargers. 

Production of the new Bolt will begin later this fall at GM's Fairfax, Kansas assembly plant. Nothing is known about pricing, however the use of an LFP battery and components shared with other GM EVs may help GM match the sub-$29,000 starting price and 250-mile of the previous generation. 

Thanks for listening.