There won’t be a small Chevy Bolt EV on GM’s Ultium platform

Say goodbye to the Chevy Bolt EV… again.

General Motors won’t be bringing over the original hatchback Bolt to the automaker’s Ultium platform, just the larger Bolt EUV, GM confirmed after InsideEVs first reported the news. That comes after GM said it was discontinuing Bolt production but later confirmed that it would resurrect the EV as an Ultium vehicle for 2025.

The original Bolt EV was built on GM’s older and soon-to-be-obsolete BEV2 platform. The automaker has since shifted to the Ultium battery architecture for its next-generation EVs, including the Cadillac Lyriq, Hummer EV, and GMC Sierra EV. Chevy is building a trio of Ultium-built EVs, including the Silverado EV, Blazer EV, and Equinox EV.

“We are glad to see the enthusiasm surrounding the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt,” Cody Williams, senior manager for communications at Chevy, said in a statement. “We will share details as we get closer to its launch date. As we’ve said before, the new Bolt will build on the formula that has made it a success today.”

Joining them in 2025 will be the Bolt EUV, which is slightly longer and comes with more cargo space than the Bolt EV. The differences are pretty slight: the 2022 Bolt EUV is about nine inches longer than the Bolt EV but basically the same height and width. The Bolt EUV has 97 cubic feet of passenger volume and 16 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats, while the Bolt EV has 93.9 cubic feet of passenger space and 16.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats. 

First introduced in 2016, the Chevy Bolt EV was intended to be the automaker’s first stab at a mass-market, battery-electric vehicle with 200-plus miles of range and an affordable price tag. The company released a refreshed model, as well as a slightly larger EUV version, in early 2021.

But thanks to Tesla’s dominance in the EV market, sales of the Bolt EV and EUV were pretty anemic for several years. This year has been one of the Bolt’s best sales years yet, with record sales in the second quarter across multiple markets.

But the Bolt’s compact hatchback shape is not what most American car buyers are looking for these days, instead preferring larger SUVs and trucks. And a recall of 2017–2019 model year Bolts related to a flawed battery that left the vehicle prone to fires certainly didn’t help either.