[Chevy Bolt News]

Known as the Opel Ampera-e in Europe, the Chevy Bolt EV will not be making an appearance in the UK market anytime soon.

In fact, it won’t be rolling out anywhere that requires the driver to be seated on the right. That’s because General Motors is hesitant to produce and sell a right-hand drive Ampera-e after being burned by poor Volt sales in the UK.

A spokesman for GM’s Opel brand told Automotive News Europe that they’re taking “a more cautious approach. If you don’t want to lose too much money, we prefer not to make right-hand-drive yet. The decision was partly financial."

Their caution stemmed from poor Volt sales because at its height, the model only sold a maximum of around 5,200 units a year across Europe. Sure, EV sales have increased over 9% in the UK this year thanks to government incentives but, that just doesn’t seem enough for Chevy to release a right-hand drive Bolt.

Plug-in hybrids are actually more popular and selling in larger quantities, models like the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, VW Golf GTE, Volvo XC90 T8, etc. Better sales in this segment could mean that GM will be more open to producing right-hand drive hybrids for the UK than full electric vehicles.

Maybe the UK will get to drive future generation Bolts but that’s going to be a long wait.

 

[Electro]

Partly Financial.. ? That sounds to be most financial, which I'm not saying is a bad thing at all. But if it's only partly, what's the other reasoning ?

 

[Bazinga]

Sounds like a purely financial reason for not coming out with RHD cars, maybe they don't think the sales will cover the development costs. That's going to cut off a few markets isn't it? The Uk can't be the only place that has driver seats on the right side.

 

[eops]

At this rate I think the next time they'll have a good opportunity to launch a RHD EV, one of the markets could be China, but the whole driver restriction will slow things down.

 

[Miggy]

This is so short sighted from GM, the Outlander PHEV sales are almost at 30,000 in the UK alone.
The Volt would have sold well if GM had priced it right.
GM over priced the Volt in all RHD counties.
RHD counties make up 35% of worldwide sales.

 

[Bazinga]

35%

That's a huge percentage of sales that they won't make if the Bolt doesn't come in RHD. Tesla would be grabbing all of the RHD in those countries and Chevy may be too later later on.

 

[Electro]

35% is quite a huge margin. It should be a no-brainer to try and price extremely competitively in those regions and try to take advantage of that market.

 

[Miggy]

It sounds like Tesla will bring their release date of the RHD Model 3 forward to supply the UK and other RHD counties that the Bolt is not.
Once Tesla have a foothold it will be hard for GM to fight back.
Keep in mind that 35% of the world drive RHD cars, what will that do for sales and the fact that the Bolt is suited to the UK buyers.

 

[Electro]

Once Tesla gets the RHD Model 3 over there, good luck to Chevy. That's a takeover if I've ever seen one.

 

[LightningBolt]

Since the Bolt costs significantly less than the i3 and on par with the Leaf in terms of price, maybe Chevy just won't be able to meet production demands if they came out with RHD. Horrible decision on their part, they'll miss out on early adopter sales and won't be able to recover.

 

[Electro]

I'm sure they would be able to meet production, this isn't anything crazy where it'll be limited.