Chevy Bolt Nationwide Deliveries (USA) Move Forward 1 Month
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Originally published on Gas2.
Chevrolet’s original sales plan for the Chevy Bolt — its long-range, all-electric car — was to begin nationwide deliveries in September. That timeline has now been moved forward by a month. This week, Steve Majoros, Chevy’s head of automobile marketing, said that orders can now be placed in all 50 states and that deliveries will begin across the US in August.
Fred Liguori, another Chevrolet representative, confirms that advanced timeline and says that deliveries to an additional 5 states will begin by the end of June, bringing the total of US states where the Bolt is now available to 21.
The rollout of the Bolt has been a bit fraught, according to Majoris. “It’s this delicate balancing act,” Majoros said. “But we think we’re at the right level of sufficient inventory. We can keep feeding where there’s a stronghold of sales.”
Inventories in California are greater than expected. In the Golden State, the Chevy Bolt has not been flying off dealer lots as quickly as Chevrolet hoped it would. In fact, dealers in that state have already begun discounting the cars to reduce inventories while dealers in other states are charging a premium for the cars.
Meanwhile, buyers are queued up waiting for deliveries in South Korea and Norway. Last week, Pope Francis took possession of a white Ampera-e — the European version of the Bolt — as part of the Vatican’s plan to convert its fleet of automobiles to electric cars.
Speaking about the revised plan to get the Chevy Bolt into all states sooner, Majoris told the press, “We were waiting for the training to be done. We were waiting for the right tools to be in place. We are kind of ahead of schedule on implementing all of those things as well as making sure we have enough sufficient inventory.”
Through the end of May, Chevrolet has sold 5,950 Bolts, compared to 9,187 Volts. No doubt, wider availability of the Chevy Bolt will help boost its sales numbers in the US. Now that the Bolt will be available in all 50 states soon, Majoris says Chevrolet will kick off a “highly targeted” national advertising campaign in the near future.
It will be interesting to see what that means, exactly. One of the complaints about EV advertising so far is that it caters to early adopters who have already made up their minds to buy an electric car and does little to educated the mainstream shoppers who may be confused about electric cars and their many benefits.
Source: Inside EVs
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