General Motors said on April 25 it will end production of Chevrolet Bolt models at the plant in Orion Township, Michigan, later this year as it shifts zero-emission production to trucks and SUVs built on a new battery platform.
“We have progressed so far that it’s now time to plan to end the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EU production, which will happen at the very end of the year,” GM CEO Mary Barra told investors.
The Bolt, which starts at $26,500 and qualifies for a $7,500 federal tax credit, is currently GM’s top-selling electric vehicle (EV) and accounts for more than 90 percent of all GM EV sales in the country. In 2022, the auto giant sold 38,120 Bolt EVs, up from 24,828 in 2011. In the first quarter of 2023, GM sold 19,700 Bolt EVs.
The company plans to produce more than 70,000 vehicles this year, aiming to sell more than 400,000 EVs in North America from early 2022 through mid-2024. GM expects to increase capacity to 1 million units annually in North America in 2025.
As the Bolt is phased out, the company is rolling out an electric Chevy Equinox EV that will start around $30,000 later this year, and it’s working on a lower-cost EV with Honda.
The plant that produced Bolt vehicles will be converted to make electric pickup trucks starting in 2024.
Through an investment of around $4 billion, the site will be prepared to produce Chevrolet Silverado EV and electric GMC Sierra using the next-generation Ultium EV platform.
GM said its Detroit-Hamtramck and Orion plants will be able to build more than 600,000 electric trucks a year by late 2024.
Barra said employment will nearly triple when the Orion plant reopens in 2024 and reaches full production.
The automaker expects its battery plant in Warren, Ohio, to reach full capacity by year-end, according to Barra.
First introduced in 2016, the Chevy Bolt was intended to be the automaker’s first stab at a mass-market purely battery-electric vehicle with 200-plus miles of range and an affordable price tag. The company released a refreshed model and a slightly larger EUV version in early 2021.
The Bolt is one of the reasons why GM is a top market leader in the EV market, GM CEO Mary Barra said on Tuesday.
In August 2021, GM announced a $2-billion recall campaign it expanded to cover all of the 140,000 Bolt vehicles it had produced over battery fire risks. The recall prompted GM to halt Bolt production and sales for over six months.
GM battery partner LG Electronics Inc. agreed to reimburse the automaker for $1.9 billion in costs connected to the Bolt recall, the Korean company said in 2021.
Though the Michigan automaker relies heavily on sales from gas- and diesel-powered trucks and SUVs, the company announced two years ago that it was setting a goal of producing only EVs by 2035.
