Driving the Chevrolet Bolt is a bit anticlimactic at first; it feels a lot like driving an ordinary car initially, albeit one with more pick-up than the average compact four-door can offer. It’s still fun, but the real fun starts when you fully embrace the car’s electric side.
The Bolt is designed to be approachable and at least a little familiar at first, even though it’s actually a very different kind of car under the hood, thanks to its 60 kWh battery and electric motor. Chevrolet knows that a lot of its owners will be first-time EV buyers, and that there’s a learning curve when you’re coming from a long history of driving gas-powered cars.
Bolt is intended to say “Hi” in a way the average driver can understand, but if you make a little effort and look deeper into what makes this purely electric vehicle with class-leading range unique, you’ll definitely be rewarded.
I got to drive the Bolt EV at an event set up by Chevrolet in Palo Alto, hosted in part at the beautiful, modern abode of one of the Bolt’s first buyers, and also across a broad stretch of Northern California’s most appealing roadways, including snaking, narrow roadways with the Bolt handled with ease, even in unusually wet weather. The ride also included the Pacific Ocean-skirting 1, a highway so scenic it’s almost a shame to drive it fast.
The Bolt isn’t exactly a speed demon itself – but it’s no slouch, either. Its 6.2-second 0 to 60 mph time won’t win it a place atop the list of the world’s fastest production vehicles, unlike some other EVs. But it feels fast, and fun – both in its basic drive mode, and with the Sport feature engaged, which gives you a very noticeable boost when it comes to pick-up, but taxes your battery reserves quicker as a trade-off.
No, in general the Bolt doesn’t feel like a sports car, but it isn’t one; it’s a spacious, small vehicle perfectly at home in urban driving conditions, with comfortable space for a family of four and convertible storage that offers a lot of room for bags, particularly if you’re using the fold-flat back seats in their closed position. You could reasonably get checked backs for a family of three in the back with a tight fit, for instance, or a week’s worth of camping provisions for a duo using the full fold-flat storage space.
Bolt does feel like is a family car with some fire, however, and a fun quotient that deepens if, as I hinted above, you venture out of the car’s default drive mode and take advantage of some of the unique features it can offer specifically because it is an EV.
In Drive, which you enter by simply pushing the new electronic shift down, the car feels very similar to whatever fossil fuel-based ride you might be used to; It accelerates when you hit the now-inappropriately named ’gas’ pedal, and coasts when you remove it, decelerating slowly and smoothly. Tap that electronic shift down once more, however, and you enter ‘Low’ mode, which is where the Bolt’s regenerative breaking swtiches on by default – and where the car’s character really starts to shine through.
