On paper, the 2024 Chevrolet Bolt EV is an interesting proposition. What’s not to love about a fully electric 200-horsepower 3,600 lb subcompact hot hatch with 260 miles of range? That’s my kind of daily driver!
Reality is somewhat different, however. Not only does the interior look cheap, it feels cheap. Build quality is questionable.
Battery health could be an issue as well. Especially once the odometer hits 50,000 miles or so.
I ain’t never experienced range anxiety more than I did while driving around the well-worn 2024 Bolt you’ll see in the pictures below.
My full review of the 2024 Chevrolet Bolt EV
The day was September 23, 2026. I knew I was in trouble when Avis tossed me the keys to a 2024 Chevy Bolt with 46,450 miles on the clock. What could possibly go wrong?
First impressions
To be fair, the 2024 Bolt EV is a pretty darn good looking car. It’s sporty and well-proportioned, completely free of melted cheese-like blobbiness (a common affliction of all electric vehicles these days).
Battery health (and the charging experience)
I normally save discussion about MPG / efficiency for much later in my typical car reviews. However, this particular Bolt had serious issues that are worth highlighting right off the bat.
Right away I noticed that the battery level was depleting at an alarming rate in normal driving conditions. The 2023 Tesla Model 3 I recently drove held a charge much better than this, so I knew something was up.
Finding an open charging station wasn’t all that difficult in the outskirts of Honolulu. I plugged in, swiped my credit card, and expected everything to be fine. It wasn’t. The stupid thing wouldn’t charge.
My assumption is that this car was suffering from a failing battery. This is concerning for an electric vehicle with only 46,000 miles on the odometer.
Styling and design
What this car lacks in battery health, it makes up for in looks. It’s a pretty neat-looking EV with a somewhat aggressive youthful vibe. Consider it the exact opposite of the very grandpa-like 2022 Chevrolet Malibu I spent a few days in a while back.
The aggressive body lines accentuated by just the right amount of black trim help the Bolt appear to be more expensive than it actually is. There’s nothing cheap about the way this thing looks. At least on the outside.
My only complaint about the exterior design of the 2024 Bolt is the limited outward visibility caused by the narrow windows in the rear. It’s not horrible, but just know that this does cause some minor blind spots.
The interior
If you were to tell me that the interior designers didn’t communicate with the exterior designers more than once during the development of this thing, I’d totally believe you. The interior looks cheap and completely out of place with the rest of the car IMHO.
There’s nothing about the interior of the 2024 Chevy Bolt that screams “I’m an EV yo!” It looks like the interior of a normal car from that era. The gauge cluster is tiny and there are physical buttons everywhere.
For the record, I quite liked the small(ish) infotainment screen. It was large enough for me to be able to access everything I needed quickly, but not oversized enough to be obnoxious. Wireless Apple CarPlay worked flawlessly BTW.
Performance
The 2024 Chevy Bolt EV is powered by a single front-mounted 200 hp electric motor with 266 lb-ft of torque. That’s a decent (but not great) amount of power for a 3600-pound vehicle such as this.
My hope was that it would’ve felt as fast as the 2021 Ford Mach E that I once spent a day tooling around in. As with most hopes and dreams, it never came to fruition. Expect 0 to 60 times of about 6 1/2 seconds. Good enough for a city commuter I guess.
A 2024 Chevy Bolt with a 100% healthy battery has a range of about 260 miles. But as you have read in this review so far, battery degradation has the potential to be a problem over the long (short?) term.
Driving impressions
Despite how heavy it is, I actually quite enjoyed the driving experience. It didn’t feel heavy at all, and it was powerful enough to accelerate away from stoplights as normally as any small car should.
The added weight of being an EV was to its advantage IMHO. It felt smoother and more planted than a typical subcompact car over bumps and imperfections in the road.
Pros and cons of the 2024 Chevrolet Bolt EV
If all you need is a small car to run errands around the city, it’s hard to overlook the Bolt. Just as long as the battery is healthy of course. You’re gonna wanna check that before purchasing one.
Pros
- Its small size makes it a breeze to squeeze into the tightest of parking spots.
- Ginormous interior space! Especially with the rear seats folded flat.
- It’s an EV that doesn’t look like an EV.
Cons
- Battery health (and deterioration over time). Perhaps it was just an anomaly, but a 50,000 mile EV shouldn’t have battery issues like this one did.
- Very cheap looking interior. Lots of plastic and low-quality materials everywhere.
- Being at the mercy of sketchy public charging stations is likely to get really old (really fast).
