If you haven’t read my posts leading up to this, in July of 2021 I bought a new 2020 Bolt EV Premier. I talk more about the electric-specific aspects of it in the previous post, but this will be a more general review of the Bolt as a car. (Note: I will try to indicate which of the features below are exclusive to the Premier trim, which is similar but not identical to the “2LT” trim on the 22-23 Bolts.)

Utility

My previous cars were both hatchbacks, so I am very happy in a hatch. I think hatchbacks are underappreciated in the States and arguably offer the most utility per dollar, cubic inch, mpg, or whatever metric you use. Despite it not being the best looking hatch, the Bolt EV ticked the boxes of everything I want in a hatchback. It was relatively sporty and fun to drive, while still being efficient. It had pretty good visibility (although the blind spots felt bigger than I first noticed). And most importantly it made the most of its space.

The front was plenty roomy and the back fit two adults well enough. The flat floor across the back made it feel more comfortable.

The flat floor of the car opened up some useful space in the front cabin as well. In front of the center console and below the dash was a versatile storage area that was good for stashing anything from a purse to a gallon of milk. I feel like I’m always carrying stuff that’s too big to fit in a cupholder or door pocket but not worth putting in the back, so I found this storage area really useful.

The space behind the rear seats was impressively practical. It was the perfect size for my 65lb standard poodle – the squared shape of the hatch really maximized the space. With the rear seats folded down you could fit some pretty big cargo. For example, most bikes would definitely fit (although you might have to take off the front wheel). The true floor of the cargo area was about a foot lower than the back of the folded rear seats. The Premier came with a panel that slots in at the height of the rear seats, giving you underfloor storage and a flat load floor with the seats down. Although basically a piece of plywood covered in fabric, I really liked the way this panel worked. When not in use it stored flush with the rear seats, keeping it out of the way but easy to access when needed.

Seats

Giving the seats their own line item in the ‘Pros’ is perhaps generous, but they were better than average in my book. The leather trim (not sure if it’s real or fake) that came with the Premier trim was not soft or supple, but it did everything I want a seat material to do – not hold stains or smells – and it seemed durable enough. The seats themselves were the flattest I’ve ever had in a car, almost no bolstering, but to my surprise I didn’t mind this. I never found myself sliding side to side and the lack of pressure seemed to make them pretty comfortable for longer rides (although I never drove more than 1 1/2 hours at a time). I mostly feel I have to mention them because just about every review I read trashed the seats and I didn’t think they were bad. Strangely, even on the Premier trim there were no power adjustments to the seats. I would have loved a 2-position seat memory, but aside from that I don’t mind manual seats.

Steering Wheel

In the past I would have never thought to mention this, but the more new cars I drive the more I hate the direction steering wheels are heading (and I’m not even talking about ‘yokes’). The more recent steering wheels I’ve felt seem to be getting thicker and thicker and the sport grips (or whatever those bumps at 10 and 2 are called) are getting more aggressive and uncomfortable. On the contrary, the profile of the Bolt’s wheel was very pleasant and the leather that came on the Premier trim was smooth. As a bonus, there were volume buttons on the backside of the steering wheel, which I’d never experienced before and it seemed like a really smart way to maximize the space. Additionally, mine was heated, which I actually find more useful than heated seats.

Headlights

After owning cars with chronically weak headlights, I’m very sensitive to a car’s headlights. The Bolt’s headlights were HID, not LED, but boy were they bright. Fortunately, they must have been angled low enough not to bother most other drivers because I don’t recall ever getting flashed just for having my low beams on. I don’t believe they did any fancy swiveling or had secondary turning lights, but I never noticed an issue cornering at night. The Bolt had auto high beams, which I have not found to be very good on any car. However, that setting was easily toggled on and off by a button on the stalk, unlike my Outback, so I at least appreciated being able to quickly turn it off when it wasn’t working well.

Regenerative Braking

After now having driven almost a dozen different EVs I am retroactively shocked at how good the regen braking/one-pedal driving was in the Bolt. I would say it rivals the best. It felt strong, but easy to modulate, and would hold you at a stop. I loved the concept of one-pedal driving immediately and used it all the time. The one-pedal drive mode was accessed by bumping the shift lever down again into ‘L’. The addition of the regen paddle on the steering wheel, which added stronger regen when pulled, was a nice touch. I actually ended up finding that most useful for canceling cruise control. The true cancel button on the wheel was harder to find by instinct and using the brake pedal would cause regen to kick in before you could get back on the accelerator, making for a jerky transition. By tapping the regen paddle and then feathering the throttle I could smoothly come out of cruise control in an instant.

On the flip side, the default ‘Drive’ mode had minimal regen. Although I loved one-pedal, it was good to have this alternative. My wife didn’t like one-pedal driving so she really appreciated that the car felt familiar this way. I found this setting useful when scrubbing rust off of the brake rotors after they got wet. (Maintenance note: I don’t know how necessary this is, but you could potentially go a long time without using the friction brakes if you rely on one-pedal and I worry about keeping the rotors in good condition.)

Settings/Display

Overall, I felt the various displays and settings were user-friendly and easy to navigate, especially with regards to the electric aspects of the car. For example, it was easy to set a charging limit or see your efficiency stats. This was partly due to the limited functionality (i.e. no route planning, charger search, etc.) but what it did offer was well executed. The center touch screen was large, although not cutting edge, and the only minor gripe I can make is that parts were a bit hard to reach from my driving position. The color scheme and layout bordered on childish, with its big, brightly colored buttons, but it was very practical. Physical buttons underneath cut down on the amount of digital settings to navigate and were a welcome, easy way to access basic functions.

The digital instrument cluster was similarly simplified. There were 2 layouts to choose from: “Modern” and “Enhanced.” They weren’t hugely different, but I preferred the additional functionality of “Enhanced,” which in addition to the estimated range based on past driving displayed a “Max” and “Min” range you could expect if your efficiency drastically increased or decreased. I’m not sure how accurate or practical this was but it felt comforting to go off of the pessimistic “Min” range (in case the temperature unexpectedly dropped 50 degrees and a mountain came out of nowhere) and inevitably beat it. A small gripe is that battery state of charge was not displayed as a number but as a bar graph in 5% increments. It was easy enough to get a good idea of your SOC but at least the option of a number display would have been nice.

One other minor setting that I think is worth mentioning is the tire pressure monitor. The Bolt seemed to have an actual tire pressure gauge in each tire, unlike my other cars which use an algorithm to estimate the tire pressure based on I don’t know what data. Unlike those cars, which require you to drive for a bit before they can calculate the tire pressure, I could check the Bolt’s tire pressure at any time, even while away from the car via the app. I try to really stay on top of my tire pressure and found this little feature very useful.

Cameras

Now we are getting into some of the Premier-specific content. I was blown away by the cameras in my Bolt; not only the number of them but the clarity. I believe Chevy called it “HD Surround Vision.” The backup camera alone was like none I’d ever seen. It was so crisp and the field of vision was huge – I’ve never felt so confident backing up! But that is just the beginning…

I’m sure plenty of you have experience with 360 cameras on cars, but I did not before the Bolt and I instantly fell in love. I am obsessive about parking between the lines and the bird’s eye view was a dream come true for me. It was also easy to turn on the front camera while driving at low speed in order to clear tight corners with ease. I have since seen the 360 view on a couple of other cars and I think the Bolt’s was far and away the best.

There is one more camera to mention and that is the digital rear-view mirror. The tab under the rear-view mirror that normally toggles your dimmer would actually toggle on a rear display that came from a higher-mounted rear camera. I really liked the idea of this, since my dog is often blocking my view out of the rear. Unfortunately, I could never get on board with it for one simple reason: my eyes could not focus on it. Someone who better understands focal points could explain why but the point at which your eyes focus on the image in a rear-view mirror is different from where they focus on the mirror itself. So 15 years of muscle memory had my eyes darting up to focus on a point beyond the digital screen in the rear-view mirror. The view out the back flashed by in my peripherals differently than the image in a mirror does too. All of the this, sadly, combined to make me feel very unsettled using the rear-view display. You could probably get used to it, but I gave up.

Sound System

Another Premier exclusive (might be an option on the lower trim), I thought the upgraded Bose system was superb. I am by no means an audiophile (I have been known to shamelessly use $30 wireless earbuds), but I still think I’m as discerning as the average person and I thought the sound system, especially the bass, was awesome.

Premier Trim

To round out the Pros I will just say that in general I thought the Premier trim offered a lot of great features. Short of a few strangely missing things there wasn’t much more I could ask for. Granted, it was the top trim, but on an otherwise economy car. Now, whether it was a good value really depends on the price. I would argue that it certainly was not at its original MSRP, and possibly not even at the discounted price I paid.

Neutral

These are things that either had both pros and cons or were truly just middle of the road.

Infotainment

Some of this goes back to settings, but there’s not much to say about the infotainment and I think a lot of people appreciate that about the Bolt. The fact that some EVs have more features than your phone is daunting to some people and the Bolt’s tech feeling similar to a modern ICE car is very approachable. Personally, I could go either way. I could absolutely see myself digging into settings or using apps in my EV, but only if executed well. Frankly I don’t have a lot of confidence that GM could have pulled that off with the Bolt, so I was happy to forgo those options. It had Apple Carplay and Android Auto (wired in mine, wireless in the refresh) and that was plenty good for me.

Driving

This is really a case of pros and cons, but I would say there were more pros to the Bolt’s driving than cons. It accelerated well, it handled pretty well, it felt more solid than you would expect. However, the front wheels would spin more often than I liked and you could feel the cheapness of the car in the way it bounced over bumps at slow speed. Basically, it was perfectly adequate.

No Frunk

Although definitely a neat feature to have, I think the lack of a front trunk gets far too much attention in reviews. Sure, with the Bolt being a dedicated EV platform it seems like they could have factored in a frunk, but it never would have been big. As a place to store a mobile charge cord, tire inflator, or other rarely used tool it would have been handy, but the focus should be on the totality of a car’s storage and I never felt the Bolt’s was lacking.

The App

The Chevy app was solidly neutral for me. It had several useful features, but like the car itself they were limited. The best I can say is that I don’t remember it having any bugs or being slow. It got the job done and was a nice companion to have.

Charge Port

The location of the charge port was not bad, but it was far enough along the side that some specific parking spot/charger combinations were a bit difficult. The charge port door wasn’t especially robust, and it wasn’t motorized or anything, but I don’t remember it feeling flimsy. It created a weatherproof seal when closed, so they were able to leave the J-1772 port exposed (one less flap to mess with). Then to DC fast charge I just had to flip down a little orange tab – easy, and nice not to have a cap dangling.

Start/Stop Button

The Bolt is one of several EVs with a vestigial start/stop button. As there is no engine to start/stop, this button is unnecessary. Manufacturers like Tesla, Polestar, and Volkswagen have ditched it, instead turning the car on automatically when you are in the driver’s seat with the key. I like this concept, but I’ll admit it’s not hard to press a start button…except it sometimes was in the Bolt. Often the car would not turn on the first time I pressed Start and I’d have to press it again. The upside of having an on/off button (and what lands this in the Neutral category) is that I could leave the Bolt “idling” while I ran into the store or something. All EVs have a similar mode to keep climate control on, etc., but it often needs to be activated, so it was kind of nice being able to just exit the car and leave it on. It would shut off eventually.

Cons

Build/Material Quality

This was the first issue I noticed when the honeymoon phase wore off and it somehow took me by surprise. I read a lot of reviews online, both from journalists and owners, and I don’t remember any of them bringing up material quality as an issue. I don’t remember noticing it during my test drive. But once I got the car home I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a more common complaint.

I think the first thing that struck me were the stalks for the turn signal and windshield wipers. It’s probably a nonissue for a lot of people (heck, there are plenty of drivers in Texas that don’t seem to know they have turn signals), but for me turn signals are right behind pedals and steering wheel in terms of most-used touch points, and these felt awful. The plastic felt terrible, the engagement was really dissatisfying, and they felt like they could break off at any time. Similar story for the twist knobs to engage wipers, etc. Then you had the window buttons and dome lights, which felt really mushy and had no clear engagement point.

After that I started to be bothered by more and more quality issues: much of the cockpit was cheap, gray plastic, the exterior door handles felt like they were from a toy car, and the doors didn’t close with a satisfying thunk. To me, this is all relative: at the price the Bolt is at currently I would not be nearly so critical (and I think they even improved a lot of the materials issues with the refresh). However, I bought a new Outback at the same time and paid roughly the same as I did for the Bolt. The Outback was one step above the absolute base trim and the Bolt was the absolute top trim, yet the Outback felt miles ahead in terms of material and build quality.

Charge Speed and Curve

I’ll start by saying this wasn’t an issue the way I used the car, but had I kept it longer it surely would have annoyed me. The Bolt is notoriously terrible at fast charging. The 50kW peak charge speed is bad enough (worse that it wasn’t upgraded with the refresh), but apparently the charge curve is terrible, meaning you don’t even get 50kW for most of your charge session.

It seems online that the Bolt has become something of a pariah at charging sites due to its long charge time. I would imagine this is due in part to some drivers not understanding the charge curve and fast charging near the top of the pack more often than necessary. However, sometimes you don’t have the luxury of staying in the bottom half. Even if you do, that takes a lot more strategizing and stopping. Bottom line: while doable, road tripping in a Bolt is going to take longer than just about every other EV, which can be annoying at least and costly at most if paying per minute.

Shifter

This complaint is only relevant for the 2017-2021 Bolts, and really just when shifting into reverse. To shift you would hold the unlock button on the side while pushing or pulling the lever in the appropriate direction (with the exception of “Park,” which was a button on the shifter). Holding this button and pulling down into Drive was no issue, but something about the shape of the shifter, the placement of the unlock button, and the up-left motion to get into reverse felt very awkward to me. A minor issue, but it bothered me every time I drove the car.

Steering Wheel Buttons

Another minor one (and only for ’17-21 Bolts), but worth mentioning. The steering wheel buttons sat almost flush with the wheel and, while real buttons, they were covered in a rubber mat that kind of blended them together. The effect was that they were somewhat hard to find and even harder to distinguish from each other without looking. Steering wheel controls are meant to keep your hand on the wheel and your eyes on the road and I found myself having to look down at them a lot more than I liked.

No Adaptive Cruise Control

This became a big deal for me, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be for everyone. Similar to the bird’s eye camera view, this is one of those revolutionary features that I got by fine without…until I experienced them.

At the time I bought the Bolt ACC wasn’t even on my radar, let alone a priority. I didn’t have much experience with it and I wasn’t planning on road tripping the Bolt much. Then my Outback came with it and I realized just how useful it is, and not just for long-distance highway cruising. Pretty quickly I became disappointed that the Bolt lacked ACC, then downright mad! It just seemed crazy to me that the top trim didn’t have this feature, even though it could detect following distance for the automatic emergency brake.

Whether or not I’m just being spoiled or have a valid complaint is for you to decide, but it seemed like such a miss to me. I would have gladly given up some of the other features to have this (but not the 360 cameras!).

Wireless Charger

This is a Premier/option-specific complaint, and a minor one because it seems like most wireless chargers in cars don’t work well. But the one in the ’17-21 Bolts is pretty useless. It’s a vertical slot in the center console, which is actually a pretty clever idea, since the more commonly used pads leave your phone exposed to sliding around. However, I think this was first designed before phones started getting massive, so many phones (especially in cases) just don’t fit. An iPhone SE in a slim case should fit fine but anything bigger than that will struggle. Not that it matters because I don’t think it charged very fast anyway…

Summary

Most of my complaints about my Bolt were either minor, personal preference, or relative to the price I paid. The ones that were more fundamental, like fast-charge time, are dependent on your use-case. All in all I thought it was, and continues to be, a good EV and a great car, so much so that I am still considering going back to one if the price is right. The ’22 refresh addressed nearly all of my grievances and is kind of a perfect car for me on paper.

I also think the Bolt is a really important car because it remains one of the few truly affordable EVs in the US that doesn’t demand significant compromises. Its biggest downside is its dealership network, which I talked about in the shopping post, and its manufacturers, which I’ll get into next…