Bolt factory shutdown

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Too many Bolts?

https://electrek.co/2017/07/18/gm-chevy-bolt-ev-inventory-factory-shutdown/

 

[GetOffYourGas]

It will be interesting to see how the market develops in the next few months. We still don't know everything about the Model 3 or the 2018 Leaf. That is one of the main reasons I don't have a Bolt in my driveway today. I have to imagine I'm not alone.

I doubt many will drop Model 3 reservations to pick up a Bolt. However, given the ~400k reservations, the excess Bolt inventory only amounts to 1.5% of them.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

I'm also waiting to see how Leaf 2 compares, but if they can't deliver 60 kWh right away, it's looking good for a good deal on a Bolt.

Strange distribution though. There are waiting lists in Canada.

 

[jhm614]

InsideEVs has a little more detail: http://insideevs.com/chevrolet-extends-shutdown-bolt-factory-inventory-hits-selling-days/

The factory is also making Sonics as well as Bolts and it looks like the huge drop in Sonic sales has a bigger impact on the factory shutdown rather than the Bolt:

Sonic Sales
2014 – 93,518
2015 – 64,775
2016 – 55,255
2017 (through June) – 17,958

I still think once the inventory is evenly distributed to support nationwide sales, the Bolt will clear 2k sales per month, easily - if GM discounts the LT down to 32 - 33k.

Still, it seems like Chevy could clear excess inventory Bolt with Canadian and European sales and probably should ship enough there to at least clear the backlog. That makes me think there is some data that hasn't been released to the general public. The positive spin would be a price drop or feature increase happening with MY2018, the neutral spin would be GM is waiting to see what the M3 / Leaf 2.0 does to the market so as not to get caught with a high inventory and the negative spin would be that the Bolt really is a loss leader.

 

[jeff3948]

I ordered my Bolt In Las Vegas last month. Will the extended summer factory shutdown delay the August delivery of my Bolt? If so, how long?

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

No CARB money for sales in Canada.

 

[oilerlord]

InsideEVs has a little more detail: http://insideevs.com/chevrolet-extends-shutdown-bolt-factory-inventory-hits-selling-days/

Still, it seems like Chevy could clear excess inventory Bolt with Canadian and European sales and probably should ship enough there to at least clear the backlog.

They *could* clear excess inventory, but clearly GM chooses not to. From your insideevs.com link:

"This shutdown is probably of more concern to those looking for the Opel Ampera-E in Europe, as that car is a badge-engineered version of the Bolt EV, that also runs off the Orion assembly line. Opel has a many thousand vehicle backlog of Europeans who have ordered the Ampera-E, however GM has reportedly decided to artificially limit the number of EVs heading outside the US."

From GM's online inventory:

There are over 800 Bolts available within 25 miles of 90210, but a "many thousand" vehicle backlog in Europe. It's become evident that GM is only interested in selling this car in key US states while limiting the number being sold outside the US. If we have to ask the question, we already know the answer.

 

[SparkE]

No CARB money for sales in Canada.

Is there CARB 'money'? I thought it was tied to *fleet* pollution and mpg numbers, as well as minimum ZEV percentages (of total vehicle sales). Well, in California, at least.

And didn't Quebec adopt CARB rules at the first of this year? (Or was it just some of the CARB rules?)

 

[WndlB]

I ordered my Bolt In Las Vegas last month. Will the extended summer factory shutdown delay the August delivery of my Bolt? If so, how long?

I'm nagging my sales person as we speak. If there are thousands of Bolts sitting in a parking lot out back of the Orion factory--and there are--I want an already-produced one! While I haven't contacted UAW 5960 (yet), the shutdowns usually are continued until the inventory is brought down to desired levels, and then production is brought back up.

If you were August delivery, your car was likely already produced before the vacation/layoff.

 

[jeff3948]

I ordered my Bolt In Las Vegas last month. Will the extended summer factory shutdown delay the August delivery of my Bolt? If so, how long?

I'm nagging my sales person as we speak. If there are thousands of Bolts sitting in a parking lot out back of the Orion factory--and there are--I want an already-produced one! While I haven't contacted UAW 5960 (yet), the shutdowns usually are continued until the inventory is brought down to desired levels, and then production is brought back up.

If you were August delivery, your car was likely already produced before the vacation/layoff.

My dealer just called me. He doesn't even have an order number yet. He said he should get an order number in the next 2 weeks but mine is the next in queue to be produced. Now that I think about it, shouldn't I have had an order number last month when I ordered the first week in June when I found out that the schedule was changed from being able to order in June instead of July for the rest of the country with a new delivery date of August instead of September?

 

[boltage]

Still, it seems like Chevy could clear excess inventory Bolt with Canadian and European sales and probably should ship enough there to at least clear the backlog.

Differences in regulatory requirements make it difficult to just ship excess already-built new car inventory to another country for sale. The cars would have to be modified to meet the regulatory requirements of the destination country. In addition, option and feature configurations may not match those that are supposed to be available in the destination country.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

No CARB money for sales in Canada.

Is there CARB 'money'? I thought it was tied to *fleet* pollution and mpg numbers, as well as minimum ZEV percentages (of total vehicle sales). Well, in California, at least.

And didn't Quebec adopt CARB rules at the first of this year? (Or was it just some of the CARB rules?)

Yes, sales in CA and the other CARB states too I believe, but not sales outside the US, AFAIK. And not money per se, but credits that can be sold, so, yeah, money. Anyway, GM isn't really pushing for sales.

 

[user 744]

My last car was a Subaru built for the Canadian market, the most noticeable is the "always on" headlights. I would ASSume that the Bolts sitting in a lot at the factory don't have that. I would *hope* that it would be easy to enable something like that in software, but perhaps not...

 

[boltage]

My last car was a Subaru built for the Canadian market, the most noticeable is the "always on" headlights. I would ASSume that the Bolts sitting in a lot at the factory don't have that. I would *hope* that it would be easy to enable something like that in software, but perhaps not...

Bolts sold in the US have daytime running lights. When Canada made the DRL requirement, GM put DRLs in cars for the US market as well, probably to simplify manufacturing and import/export issues. Although some of the early GM DRLs were very bad ones (high beams, turn signals, or separate bulbs that burn out quickly on the GMT800 (1999-2007) pickups).

The Europe market has more differences, like different colors, center rear head restraint, Opel Ampera badging, headlamp levelers, probably language options in the displays, etc..

 

[SNC123]

The other option would be instead of shutting down the factory, to build cars exclusively for Canada and Europe for a while until inventories in the US are down to desired levels.
I'm in Canada and placed the order for a 2018 Bolt at the end of June and estimated delivery is January 2018. There is no option to order a 2017 in Canada anymore. So news about overstock in the US are baffling here...

 

[NeilBlanchard]

Apparently, the reason for the extended shutdown is so they can change the production line to produce 50% MORE Bolt EV's.

http://insideevs.com/chevrolet-bolt-production-to-double-after-extended-factory-shutdown/

 

[oilerlord]

Bolts sold in the US have daytime running lights. When Canada made the DRL requirement, GM put DRLs in cars for the US market as well, probably to simplify manufacturing and import/export issues. Although some of the early GM DRLs were very bad ones (high beams, turn signals, or separate bulbs that burn out quickly on the GMT800 (1999-2007) pickups).

Great point about not being able to simply reallocate existing inventory to other regions. There may be country-specific modifications required.

Depending on where you live, it may be more than the car being equipped with DRL's. I made sure my B-Class had them, but I didn't realize that as per Canadian regulations - they need to be programmed so they need to stay on regardless of the headlights switch position. For that reason, my car initially failed the federal import inspection (they could be turned off) and I was forced to MacGyver a solution to allow the car to pass.

 

[Pigwich]

The other option would be instead of shutting down the factory

would be to advertise the Bolt. At all.

 

[boltage]

Depending on where you live, it may be more than the car being equipped with DRL's. I made sure my B-Class had them, but I didn't realize that as per Canadian regulations - they need to be programmed so they need to stay on regardless of the headlights switch position. For that reason, my car initially failed the federal import inspection (they could be turned off) and I was forced to MacGyver a solution to allow the car to pass.

Yes, for example, Canada bumper regulations are different from US bumper regulations, so some cars which conform to US bumper regulations do not conform to Canada bumper regulations. This can be more expensive to modify than the DRL issue, since some companies just use a different headlamp switch for DRL versus non-DRL locations.

Before purely electronic instruments, US and Canada market cars came with different speedometer dials where the primary measure was in mph and km/h respectively, with the other measure as the secondary marking.

But maintaining commonality between the US and Canada is probably the reason why the airbag labels on the visors on US market cars include French, even though it is a less commonly used non-English language than Spanish or Chinese (all variants) in the US.