Why Out of the Blue?

I hate cars. I really do. So why write a blog about buying one?

Because I'm a red-blooded American male, that's why. And you should never completely believe anyone who's lived his entire life as a guy with his feet planted squarely in the American car culture when he says he hates cars. I can't entirely convince myself of it, either.

Narrowing down my conflicted emotions, I'll tell you what I really hate about cars. I hate how much they cost. 

Okay, that was too easy. I hate how they they suck up money every minute of every day, even when they're doing nothing. They sit in your garage, and cost. Depreciation, insurance. Another day, another bunch of dollars. Not much anyone can do about that, short of not owning one.

But then, even when you're theoretically going somewhere, they sit in traffic, and at red lights, and they cost. Zero miles per hour, and still, the money flies right out the tailpipe, along with all those exterminated fossils. I really hate that part. That part always seemed not only ridiculously expensive, but unforgivably wasteful.

Before I even knew it myself, it seems what I always wanted to drive was an electric vehicle. When I ordered my last car 14 years ago (yes, it's been that long), I figured practical EVs had to be just around the corner. They weren't.

Since then, kudos to Tesla for building the first widely accepted EV that could actually take you to the next city. Not so many congratulations are in order for pricing them for about as much as a small farm in Missouri. Sorry, Tesla, no sale — and it isn't about not being able to afford one.

This is where the Bolt out of the Blue comes in. Just as I was thinking about buying a new car for the first time in over a decade, I pick up on this new EV soon to be sold for under $30,000, with an advertised range of better than 200 miles. From who? Chevy? Nah, you've got to be kidding. 

No, it was true.

The last GM product I bought was never, so this was going to be a tough sell. But the more I read about the car over the summer, the more I liked what I heard. It was the right size (compact), and the right configuration (hatchback). It was small, and practical – my two primary criteria.

Even more impressively, they'd designed it as an EV from the ground up, instead of shoehorning batteries and an electric motor into an existing platform, as so many other car makers have done in recent years. Not only that, they'd beat Tesla to market in this price range by a year, or more. For sure this wasn't my grandfather's GM.

They were calling it the Bolt. And though the choice of a name seemed like one of those classic mistakes made by corporate marketing departments (and still does), it ended up being a bit prophetic for me. When bolts come out of the blue, they are unexpected, by definition. This was a bolt in name, and in nature.

So when pricing was announced in October, I acted on the unexpected. I marched myself right over to my local Chevy dealership and slapped down a deposit on one of the first Bolts in their allocation. That car was built in Michigan in late November, and I am told, is at this moment on the back of a flatcar rolling westwards, across the Great Plains towards California. It should be here in a matter of days.

This blog will be a diary of my experience with the car. It will be candid, and I hope, informative.

(LA Times Photo)

Oh, and I ordered it in blue. What else?