balthazar

Another issue is taking your focal point from a transparent surface (the window) and moving to an opaque one (the door panel). That’s a possible step back from the optimum. A LOT of ‘new tech’ (OEMs have been toying with camera mirrors for around 60 years now) is ‘just because we can’.

Point is - it was an effective price increase. If cost wasn’t a factor, no one would have bought a P75D to begin with. Or a P85D for that matter.

Industry margins are no where near that high tho.

Meh- sounds like more like $6000.

Ferrari!

^ Sure, but -just like full-size vs. mid-size trucks- not everyone wants a compact sedan. I haven't studied it but the S's price jumped an astounding (something like) $18,000. Hope that included a shitload of content.

Mirrors aren't exactly cheap, either. Power control, sometimes heated, and almost always you have to buy the entire assembly. It's hundreds to start. All the 'side view camera' images David posted above suck- both in integration, and field of vision. A distraction. Only reason I can see for overly-complicating side views is for aerodynamics, tho at the average speed most cars travel, it's pointless.

Who would consider a Polestar with it's frumpier design and $155K tag over this??

SO much better to cast your eyes in the direction of where you intend to move (aka; merging left) than in the opposite directions. Easiler to catch someone coming out of your blind spot & into your peripheral. That said, some vehicles have pretty small side views. I like some of the rearview tech, such as Cadillacs, but you're looking in the same direction in that case.

Yet the sales volumes are eerily similar... ?

Everything is ‘limited’ in appeal. Bolt is selling really well for an electric, and still pretty well vs. other Chevy compact hatches.

^ That's what I was implying; a BEV CUV in the same size class as an Equinox.

It certainly wouldnt work as an unlimited volume vehicle, so dubbing it ‘limited’ shields it from that. The bottom 30 BEVs are also, by default; ‘limited production’. ?

Bolt is selling at 63% of the combined volume of the Sonic + the Spark.

Going from a live animal to a machine is a far bigger change that going from a machine to another machine.

It's not about them sharing anything. It's about bringing a small 4-dr hatch to market in the same 'entry-level' size class. Similar consumer preference as to product size/function, and similar material costs… only major difference as far as the investment is in the power train. In other words, is there anything BESIDES the power train in your opinion that makes the Bolt 'worthy' of a $36K tag? IMO; no. That cost differential is ALL in the power train costs. Hence, the Sonic comparison. The track record on EVs dictates that an BEV Equinox would be expected to be approx. $50K. Want to watch BEVs explode in volume? Take a $24K Equinox and offer up a $28K BEV version with the Bolt's range. When that's actually going to happen in anyone's guess.

1000 is nothing! That's 83 units/mnth - by far the worse selling model Volvo offers. V90 moves 3000/mnth.

It's speculation only to a small degree. Sonic & Bolt are in the same size & configuration class. Sonic is $16K, Bolt is 36K. Equinox starts at $24K. What's your MSRP guess on a electric version of an Equinox?

Not surprised to see another piece on another hyper-expensive (partial) electric car where price is seemingly of no concern. $155,000. It won’t ‘sell’.

It will happen one day, just not any day or year soon. Certainly not by “2023” or “2025” as recent articles have proclaimed. RE the early days of the auto, you were changing the very means of conveyance. In order to mimic todays IC vs. EV, you'd have to try and convince the Year 1900 consumer to trade his horse conveyance for a cow.

10 years is FAR too short a prediction. 50 is more like it. 17 million count ship takes agonizingly wide turns. EV price disparity is the #1 obstacle.

Going to disagree with you here. 1. it should sell in higher numbers being it's a CUV, but note it would also, unquestionably, be more expensive. Bolt is the #4 selling electric, but a E-Equinox would be $50K. Recall the flutter over the Blazer RS @ $50K. So the sales question is up in the air. As for profit, no one else has managed that, and volume isn't helping that scenario either, so far. Bolt's on pace to sell 15,900 this year. Let's say the E-Equinox sells 20,000 @ $47K. Do you realistically expect more volume than that? And if not, is that "selling"?? Current Equinox is on pace to sell 348,000 units this year.

I read American buyer, not ‘buyer of American auto’. Friend’s wife has a new CX-5, she just said she wouldnt buy it again given the chance. 1 notch below top trim, all sorts of nannies. Its not ‘education’ IMO, its the features themselves. Folk are more interested in the imagined concept than the actual feature.

Not a single proposed model on the horizon with a sub-median msrp. Even if costs drop so radically that its possible, manufacturers will never do it. No one has better economies of scale than Tesla, and there the Model S, which used to be $57K, is now $81K.