Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the Chevy Bolt

There are three topics in the news right now that I’m really tired of hearing about: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Tesla bashing. I think everyone can agree that the American political system is broken, so let’s talk about cars, or more specifically, electric cars.

Tesla is the undisputed champion of electric cars in the West, and all the articles about some big German car company’s “Tesla killer” that will be released five to ten years from now are just sad. A particularly comical act was Mercedes “beating” Tesla Motors to the truck game with the unveiling of the worlds first electric truck, that by the way, won’t be commercially available until five to ten years from now. Uh, ok, that’s great.

But the most annoying trending “Tesla killer” right now is the Chevy Bolt. It’s a decent looking car with a modern technology package and good range, but it’s no Tesla. The Bolt is not a Model 3 killer, it is a Leaf and i3 killer. In the category of funny looking, boxy electric hatchbacks I’m sure the Bolt will take the crown. But it is not slick, edgy, or sexy like a Model 3. I think that people buy Tesla’s because they are bored with the same old car designs that never change, and the Bolt fails to break free from GM’s traditional design language. It has the same GM steering wheel and interior design, and even a shift nob carried over from the old days of manual transmissions (you don’t really need that anymore GM, just use a button or something that takes up less space). It’s just not edgy enough. Tesla’s lack of history gives their cars the breath of fresh air that people are looking for; they are the cars of the future that we were promised in comic books and movies 50 years ago.

At the end of the day, the Bolt is a good car, and I hope that it will be really popular. Let’s not forget that Tesla’s main goal is to save the planet by eliminating dependence on oil, so each new competitor actually brings them closer to success. And hopefully someday the German’s will start producing some of their “Tesla killers” to displace all of their fossil fuel chugging, earth killing AMGs, Ms and GTs.