So far we’ve seen nothing but teaser images of the new Chevy Bolt, but this weekend it was spotted charging at a Tesla Supercharger in Southern California ahead of its October 8 reveal.
The Chevy Bolt was originally released in the 2017 model year. It was GM’s first real, modern effort at an EV, designed to be all-electric rather than a compliance car like the old Chevy Spark EV. (GM did previously design the EV1 from the ground up, but it came along before the lithium ion era of EVs, and was decidedly a compliance car).
It was also a great car. Not only was it a good size unlike the ridiculous land yachts we’re seeing so many of today, it had a phenomenal price, especially near the end of the model’s life. It was good enough to be Electrek’s vehicle of the year for 2022.
But, due to an extended recall and because the Bolt used GM’s first-gen EV platform, rather than its whiz-bang new “Ultium” system, GM retired the vehicle in late 2023, even though it was having its best sales year ever.
But, that wasn’t the end for the model. After declaring the Bolt dead but before ending production on it, GM said that it would bring back an Ultium-based Chevy Bolt (which our publisher Seth Weintraub has taken to calling the “Boltium”).
Unfortunately, the new Bolt will be larger than the old Bolt. The Bolt had two models, the EV and EUV, which were extremely similar except that the EUV was just bigger (and more expensive). Instead of bringing back the spread of both models, GM decided to only bring the larger one, continuing to let the SUV virus spread unchecked through the American populace.
To be fair, the EUV is still not an enormous vehicle, but it is six inches longer than the EV was, and any move towards larger cars is the wrong direction. But that said, we don’t actually know the dimensions of the new Bolt… but we do, now, know what it looks like.
Chevy Bolt spotted charging at Tesla Supercharger with NACS port
And it turns out, it looks almost exactly like the old one. At least from the outside.
It was spotted charging at a Tesla Supercharger in Southern California (which I don’t recognize, but which I’m sure our readers will be able to point out) by EV Youtuber chargepozitive, who posted his photos on Instagram.
The exterior design of the Bolt looks pretty much identical to the outgoing EUV model. The only differences we can see are the removal of the black border around the fake grille, addition of a black line between the headlights, a change in the taillights to add a slight angular dip around the edges, and more body color paint on the rear bumper.
We can’t tell what the size of the vehicle is, but it’s likely similar if not identical to the outgoing EUV, given how similar the models look.
And while chargepozitive said he could peek through the windows to see inside, the dash was covered up and the GM employee who was there with the car asked him not to take pictures.
What’s more interesting is what it’s plugged into – a Tesla Supercharger, via a NACS port.
Like the entire rest of the industry, GM committed to adding NACS to its EVs, and it looks like we’re finally seeing the end results of that.
While adapters have been available and even the old Bolt has been able to charge on Tesla Superchargers for some time now, GM has not yet released an EV with a native NACS port. Its first native NACS car is scheduled to be the 2026 Cadillac Optiq, but more are coming, including the new Bolt.
The charger the Bolt was spotted at has the new V4-style cabinets, which notably have a longer cable. This seems to matter, because the Chevy Bolt has its charge port in front of the driver’s door – the same place the original model had it.
While this is good for GM’s design and engineering process, and for consistency for current Bolt owners, it could lead to a few snags… particularly when it comes to Supercharger use.
Since Tesla put the charge port for its vehicles in a weird spot (because that’s where the plug was in the garage of the house Elon Musk was renting at the time), that means all Superchargers are configured so the cable can reach the left-rear of the vehicle. And some early Superchargers have short cables, which really can’t reach more than a couple feet.
So, that means a port at the left-front of the vehicle isn’t going to be reachable on those short-cable chargers. Tesla even has an entry about this on its NACS FAQ page, stating:
Most Supercharger cables at NACS Supercharger sites should be able to reach your EV charge port, however, in some cases you might have to park over the line in order to charge comfortably. Avoid parking diagonally to reach the cable and try to obstruct as few charge posts as possible. Charge port locations vary by EV model, which requires cable sharing between adjacent stalls at many sites. Tesla is rapidly deploying our latest V4 Supercharger post which reaches all EVs in the same Supercharger stall. Additionally, we encourage all vehicle manufacturers to standardize charge port locations to the rear driver side or front passenger side.
Notably, the new Bolt’s charging location is not in either of those two quadrants of the vehicle, and is even set back from the nose, which will add difficulty at all but the latest Tesla sites (though it should be said that even the Cybertruck is barely compatible with some Supercharger sites).
This is just an early showing in a few photos, and frankly doesn’t tell us a lot that we didn’t already find when GM sent out some teaser images in July showing the new front fascia and charge port placement.
But we’ll get a closer look at the Bolt next week at an unveiling event in Los Angeles. So stay tuned for more details.
What do you think about the new Bolt’s design, now that we’ve seen it all-in-one rather than through teaser images? Let us know in the comments.
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