This is the cheapest Electric Car on the market! Today I examine it mechanically and conduct tests in the name of science.
This thing is ridiculous hello people of the internet it’s your favorite shop dwelling sarah here with another electric car review today i have the 2023 chevrolet bolt uv euv this is one of two different bolts that chevrolet sells supposedly this one is a little bit more utilitarian than the other but we shall see i’m gonna put on the lift today we’re gonna nerd
Out on the tech specs see how this thing is constructed and then take it out on the road and give it a rip and rate it see how it ranks against the others so let’s get it up i almost walked into the car did you see that wow that is the most basic car i’ve ever had on this lift before this is like a trailer with suspension there’s nothing to this it makes a lot
Of sense why there is no option for all-wheel drive because they would have to completely re-engineer the back of this car this right here is what you call a compound crank or torsion beam rear suspension it is as simple as it gets not much of a performance oriented suspension but if you are a do-it-yourself mechanic this is as easy as it gets for maintaining it
Yourself i think this is the first electric vehicle i’ve had on the lift where you can actually see the total height of the battery compartment and this thing would be easy to work on you see your two bulbs right there for your reverse lights really easy to access under the rear bumper cover the chevy bolt euv by far is the least heavy electric vehicle i have
Reviewed yet weighing in at 3 600 pounds in change it has a 288 cell or 65 kilowatt hour battery pack underneath there and most of which is covered in a black steel shield of some plastic cladding no hairy cardboard under here it’s pretty thick and durable feeling it’s interesting they chose steel underneath here instead of aluminium like most manufacturers to
Protect the bottom of the battery but cost savings that’s the name of the game with this car this splash shield might actually not be plastic look it’s got fibers hairs it’s like it’s fiberglass almost maybe purple panel bonding adhesive interesting as far as the front suspension goes you can see the knuckle and lower control arms are made out of aluminium it
Is a mcpherson strut style design of course i gotta measure the front anti-sway bar that’s just a must am i on it 24 millimeters in diameter this by far is the largest single underbody splash shield i’ve ever seen on a vehicle before that’s all one piece it’s huge i don’t know why all i can think about when i see the nose in this car is those suits that don’t
Have any holes cut out for your eyes your nose and your mouth i think they’re called suits i can’t unsee that now that i have that in my head time for the breaking test no one behind me here goes oh jeez oh i made those tires angry uh okay stopping distance wise that was kind of a violent stop that breaking was just accomplished with a 276 millimeter or
10.9 inch front rotor and a single cop cop paliker what pot caliper the wheels they’re 17 inch wheels i lost my train of thought the wheels they’re 17×8 cast aluminums and you don’t see 17-inch wheels on new cars that often i’m not opposed to it either and the tires are a 215 50 michelin energy saver all season i didn’t even know that was a type of tire all
Jokes aside though that is what matters on a car like this when you’re trying to get the maximum amount of efficiency out of your energy so out back things get a little bit smaller you got a 10.4 inch or 264 millimeter rotor with another single pot caliper and the wheel and tire the same size as you get up front in the name of science i am now going to give this
Thing the e-beans bolstering check i shook the whole car it doesn’t have any bolstering the seats are ventilated and heated which is kind of nice considering this is kind of an economy car driving mode wise there is a checkered flag button down here in the center that enables sport mode and also you can turn off the traction control in this electric front-wheel
Drive vehicle which is i’m doing that it’s gonna be great tc off now this doesn’t have any sort of launch control so i’m just gonna roll into the throttle and let it eat ready go come on you can feel it struggling to get traction it’s shifting all over even with the track control off though it doesn’t let you just burn the tires off that’s good yeah it’s not
Slow it really starts pulling in the mid-range where are you that’s a kind of a heavy hood wow lots of orange fail no hood struts that is an interesting looking engine bay all the orange wires everywhere there’s three coolant expansion chambers crazy under the hood of this 22 volt euv is a permanent magnet synchronous electric motor only one of them up front is
Front-wheel drive and it produces 150 kilowatts or 200 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque at 0 rpm doesn’t sound like much 200 horse and 266 torque but at 0 rpm that torque is very useful this is interesting i haven’t seen this on an electric vehicle yet actually has little placards for firefighters on where exactly to cut in case of a fire you can see right
Here there’s a little tag with a firefighter hat makes it really easy for them to see where exactly they would need to cut to alleviate the risk of further fire again like i said this is front wheel drive only there is no optional dual motor or all-wheel drive configuration for the bolt there also isn’t really a transmission per se with these it is an integrated
Drive module built into the electric motor housing it has a 7.05 to 1 final drive ratio which gives it a top speed just over 100 miles per hour and zero to 60 in about seven seconds or that’s what gm claims at least now the bolt ev version is a little bit quicker i don’t know what a yazaki is but it sounds delicious this has to be probably one of the more compact
Motor compartments out of any other electric vehicle i reviewed so far i mean things are pretty packed in here and layered on top of each other i still think it would be kind of fun to work on one of these as a project car so i picked a wooden roller coaster of a road to test the sun because of one thing it makes the front end light over across the hills again
Oh man electric cars are great at this this thing is ridiculous so 200 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque might not sound like a lot but in an electric vehicle it’s definitely enough to have fun especially when this front-wheel drive the fact that chevy is selling two variants of the bolt an eevee in an euv makes absolutely zero sense to me because the u makes
People believe this is a utility vehicle like a suv a baby suv it is not it has less cargo capacity than the eevee which is supposed to be just the regular non-utilitarian version this has more passenger volume but that just means you can eat more food and be more comfortable as far as cargo space goes it’s that it’s pretty tight back here like really tight you
Can see that’s the charger for this thing it goes underneath headroom wise in the back seat it’s pretty tight my hair is touching i’m five foot eleven like six three six four in these heels though rear heated seats hey that’s what’s up nice looking materials the seats do not recline though with that said they will probably sell way more of these than the regular
Bolt because people will believe this is an suv a baby electric suv it’s not it’s a fat hatchback if you compare this against the hyundai kona evie i reviewed recently i personally like the looks of that one better inside and out and i feel like that one was just a smidge better value than you get with the bolt eevee or euv i am a big fan of the infotainment
System though that is in this i feel it’s visually appealing just the menu system and the graphics that they use in it and it’s kind of the same with all gm vehicles i just think they do a good job in that department the materials they use throughout the interior aren’t bad looking either i like the dash treatment they have here if the little perforated fabric
Covered plastic biggest bonus of all with this though is the fact that general motors will provide free installation of a level two charger included with the vehicle in your home that is a huge one up i feel over a lot of the competitors especially the ones that don’t even include a level one charge cable and on top of that the gauge cluster shows you a max a min
And then just an average for your range expectancy on your battery which is super nice because if you’re like me and you live in a hot desert climate or perhaps cold climate and you’re running your climate control non-stop because you have to you’re definitely not going to be getting the targeted peak range of the battery as advertised so it’s nice that they show
You that and it’s realistic also this one is equipped with the super cruise feature which this thing essentially drives itself i shouldn’t say it drives itself because there could be someone out there that’s be like oh i don’t have to drive let’s go sit in the back hatch and let it dry for me as far as efficiency and charge times go on the screen is the respective
Charge times for the different level of charge that you use it does come with a level one level two charge cable and honestly i didn’t have any trouble keeping the battery topped off on this thing just keeping it plugged into 110 volt when i wasn’t using the car the overall total range you get out of the battery on here is just shy of 250 miles however the real
Question is if your end objective is to buy a cheap affordable economy vehicle is it worth spending this much money for the cheapest ev when there are internally combustion engine powered vehicles out there for literally half the price still all in all it’s not too bad for a little electric mobility bubble running errands in i just wish that you actually stood
For something more utilitarian than being swollen it’s a swollen card all right time to give this thing some scores starting with the bean score which is a rating on a one to five scale based on the feeling you get in your gut when you give it the beans and this little bolt euv is getting a rating of 1.5 e e-beams because of the fact this thing’s front-wheel
Drive it’s mildly ridiculous it likes to burn rubber going around corners and it’s got plenty of torque it’s quick-ish and fun next is the cookie score it’s assessment on a 1-5 scale based on what you get for what you spend assessment of value and this one at just over forty thousand dollars is getting a rating of 1.7 cookies i know they just dropped the price on
These recently but i think they should have kept dropping it a little bit lower just after seeing this thing on the lift and looking at all the components that are used to make the actual car part i mean there’s some cost savings down there the interior is nice it’s got plenty of tech features in there and it looks nice on the interior but uh the rest of the cars
Pretty simple anyway next is the wrench scores assessment on a one to five scale based on how difficult something would be to work on one being super difficult five being easy and this bolt euv is getting a rating of 3.8 wrenches underneath the car is simple as it gets that part is highly easy to maintain i feel and work on inside that motor compartment though
It’s pretty compact and i feel there would be some shuffling around of components to get to other things in there and that kind of adds some complexity to it lastly though is the penguin scores assessment on a one to five scale based on how much i personally like a vehicle and this little bolt euv is getting a rating of 2.1 penguin it’s um i don’t i don’t know
I just i would prefer the bolt ev over the euv i don’t understand the point of the euv it doesn’t make much sense to me just go for the original recipe the bolt ev i think that’s the one to choose out of the two of them anyway i hope you guys enjoyed this review and i will see you soon with another bye
Transcribed from video
THIS IS WHY it's The Cheapest EV.. // 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV Review By Sarah -n- Tuned