Gadgetory

hey it's Chris from the verge and I'm standing in front of the Chevrolet bolt Evy now this is a very very important vehicle for GM they first announced it as a concept last year at the Detroit Auto Show so it's been about one full year between concept and prototype this car is camouflaged obviously when GM unveils it at CES we're going to see the whole car but for our test drive here today it isn't quite final now let's talk a bit about this car in the specs they're saying under $30,000 for this car after tax rebates and it's a practical evie can do over 200 miles on range they're also saying about 7 seconds for a 0 to 60 run a little bit under that which is not terrible it's not a performance car but it could be worse so anyway let's take a test drive this is the very first lap in the bolt that I'm doing it's definitely a relaxed steering ratio like it it's I think that this car is probably designed a little bit more for comfort than it is for performance but it's not a slouch I mean it you know I feel I'm only pushing the accelerator like ten percent I think that if I yeah i mean the thing can move I feel totally comfortable going around this pretty tight test track and if you mash the accelerator you can get you know you can put a smile on your face this is awesome the fact that it's on full time is very interesting is normally with these electronic rearview mirrors I feel like they're only on in Reverse so to have it on full time is kind of novel the bolt is obviously not a Model S competitor it's not designed to be if anything it's a little bit more comparable to BMWs i3 which I've driven you can watch my video drive of that car but the difference is that the i3 was not designed to be a long-range Eevee if you're super lucky you could probably get 90 or hundred miles out of it this is a true Eevee that GM is saying will get over 200 miles between charges which makes it practical as far as I'm concerned the entertainment system for the bolt is all new and it's unique to the Volt which is interesting they're not at least right now putting this system in any other car thinking back to like the original Chevy Volt there's a lot of room for improvement they've obviously made it here the display is huge it's a 10.2 inch displays like physically larger than my entire hand and you can see how this works here there are different boxes these are all widgets and these are configurable you can have different widgets in different places and you can configure the location those widgets by hitting this edit button you can choose different layouts standard layout there you go and you can see the radio is bigger now and any of these widgets you can click this make fullscreen icon and pops up fullscreen so after several laps many laps with the bolt here at Chevy's tent outside Las Vegas Convention Center I'm not carsick quite often when I'm on a track with a high performance car I make myself carsick this isn't a high-performance car and it's not an exciting car in that sense of the word but it's exciting for different reasons right it's the first affordable high range EB hit the market or will very likely be assuming that GM makes its launch target of the end of 2016 and I think that it still can be very fun for the driver in many ways the infotainment system is legitimately one of the better ones that I've used the car on the road still feels fast is just not lightning quick there is a sense of evenness to it where when you hit the accelerator the acceleration is instantaneous I need a lot more time with it to be able to say it's any good but my first impression is positive so we'll see you later this year hopefully we'll have a full review up before the car is actually on the road I'm Chris Sigler with The Verge keep it locked we're gonna have a lot more from CES this week obviously and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube page at the Virg