General Motors (GM) knows that in the electric-car wars, it must use every weapon in its arsenal.
Its main rivals, Tesla (TSLA) and Ford (F), have redoubled their efforts to dominate the market.
Elon Musk's group in coming months should see its production notably jump as car manufacturing starts in its new factories in Austin and Berlin.
Ford, for its part, has started delivering the first electric Transit vans and in the spring is due to begin production of the long-awaited F-150 Lightning. The Dearborn, Mich., automaker has also made a spectacular about-face: After saying six months ago that it was leaving India, Ford said it soon would start producing electric vehicles there.
Startups Lucid (LCID), Rivian (RIVN) and Nio (NIO) also puff out their chests.
While production of the GMC Hummer is under way and deliveries of the Lyriq will begin in less than 60 days, according to Chief Executive Mary Barra, GM has just added back a string to its bow.
The Chevy Bolt Will Be Back in April
The Detroit auto group on April 4 will resume production of the Chevy Bolt and the Bolt EUV, ending a seven-month hiatus that has significantly hurt its production of electric vehicles on American soil. The Bolt is GM's mass-market electric car aimed to compete with and kill the Tesla Model 3.
"We appreciate the patience customers have shown throughout the recall," Dan Flores, a spokesman, said in an emailed statement. "While continuing to complete module replacements, GM will resume production at its Orion Township, Mich., plant the week of April 4, 2022."
He added that GM is planning to resume shipments very soon as well: "We remain committed to Bolt EV and EUV, and this decision will allow us to simultaneously replace battery modules and resume retail sales soon, which were strong before the recall.”
The Bolt, GM's only electric model marketed in the U.S. until the end of last year, will share its production site with two new GM electric models. The automaker said in January that it was going to invest $4 billion to build electric versions of its best-selling pickups, the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra, by 2024, in its plant in Orion Township.
The spokesman declined to specify whether GM had determined the number of Bolt units it intended to manufacture this year.
"We will continue to balance battery module production between the recall and retail production, which makes it difficult for us to provide any accurate projection on production volumes for the remainder of this year," Flores responded.
Will GM Overtake Tesla?
The company had halted production of the Bolt while it worked to replace defective batteries in cars that it had already sold.
GM delivered 24,828 Chevrolet Bolt cars in 2021, up 19.6% from 2020. The end of the year was disastrous for the Bolt, whose design has evolved quite a bit. Only 25 cars were sold in the fourth quarter, compared to 6,701 vehicles a year earlier.
Tesla sold more than 120,000 Model 3 units in 2021.
The Bolt, however, is much more than numbers.
Presented in 2016 as the car that would enable GM to catch up with Tesla in the electric-vehicle market, the Bolt immediately won over the media. From headlines to awards, the car racked up accolades. Motor Trend crowned it "Car of the Year 2017" because "Chevy changes the game. Again."
Given the ambitious production targets set by GM, the resumption of production of the Chevy Bolt is good news for the automaker. The company wants to deliver 400,000 EVs in North America over the course of 2022 and 2023.
GM has projected it will overtake Tesla as the top U.S.-based seller of electric vehicles by mid-decade. The company has pledged to invest $35 billion in EVs by 2025. By the end of 2025, GM wants to have more than 1 million units of electric-vehicle capacity in North America.
Tesla produced nearly a million electric vehicles in 2021 and analysts expect that number to rise sharply in 2022
The newly redesigned Chevrolet Bolt has an estimated 259 miles of range. Its base price is $31,500.
As for the Model 3, its minimalist design and massive touchscreen control center set trends for the rest of the EV market. It has 267 miles of range (standard-range-plus model) and 334 miles (long-range model). The standard-range-plus begins at $40,690.
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