Tesla Model 3 vs Chevy Bolt

Post date: 24-Apr-2020 07:19:48

So we know that diehard EV fans have already considered these cars but for those of us dipping our toes in the electric world for the first time these represent the high range affordable go two's on the market.

so if you're watching throttle house for the first time we care more about driving impressions how fun the car is so today we're going to figure out which one of these cars is more exciting and which one is better to live with obviously the short range model 3 is planted perfectly at the bolts price point.

However, it's taking a long time to get here but even still utter the words model 3 at the Chevrolet offices and a coldness fills the room this thing is so hot right now it has more power than the bolt more storage capacity more range more places to charge and those things are still all true for the incoming short-range model 3.

Apart from the range bit and if that isn't enough the Tesla mocks the bolt with this little Easter eggs don't worry you'll get to watch me enjoy some of those later needless to say on paper the bolt is in real trouble here ok before you rush to the comments and say that this comparison makes no sense because.

The Tesla is a rear-wheel drive sedan and this is a front wheel drive hatchback consider the fact that as of right now these are some of really the only affordable EVs with good range for sale even if in the winter I found that this vault only seems to make it to the high 200 kilometers level also we are comparing them because EVs are actually really fun to drive and If you're an EV fan you probably already know that but today we want to see if these two can bring some smiles on our favorite back road now the bolt this is a practical all this comes packed with lots of handy features like a remote start a great breakdown of Eevee and setup info on the main screen and a teen driver function which is handy if you want to set a speed warning or a maximum volume level for your child.

Or you could not let them live either way if you're a gas powered car fan only tune in because these EVs can actually be really fun even if sometimes they are a bit hard to get your head around as demonstrated by this lady who looks suspiciously like James subscribe ride alright the Chevy bolt let's not waste any time I'm on a back road let's have some fun I'm sure James is right behind me whoops all right come on over some corners where is he oh there he is that's the little three Chevy bolt back road let's go.

The bolt doesn't feel like it has a very low center of gravity but it kind of feel you feel the shorter wheelbase it's fun I felt as confident going around these corners as I did in the m2 competition all right one thing I've noticed about this car I've had it for a couple days is that it doesn't really start being fun until you actually push it you just oh you have to measure your speed audibly is the wind and it it's still it's still the thing.

It still increases as you drive so it's just the wind it's kind of like when you're on a bicycle going down here which the wind gets more you realize how fast you're going on to these two cars I'm driving the deep blue metallic Tesla Model 3 Thomas is driving I think what Chevrolet cool abstinence-only yellow which is perfect does that fit his lifestyle ok that's not fair it's actually more of a green okay yes this is a little bit of a ridiculous color.

It's somewhere in between phlegm and a lime but I think it's really bright and you know what people see you on the road and that's a good thing in a small car alright three hundred eighty three kilometers arrange which is more than enough but when it comes down to it both of these cars have more than adequate range to get you through your life so what I'm interested in is which one is more fun this one is front-wheel drive.

And you can very much obviously feel that it is front-wheel drive it spins its wheels all the time even with the traction control on you stomp on the throttle and it'll spin a wheel I can't put it in a sport mode and then do that right now and this actually becomes a pretty fun car you do have to push it though as I said foot down there's a surge of electric torque it is immediate and it is very obviously an electric motor.

James is in that Tesla right now and I have a feeling with his extra horsepower he's probably throwing his head back a little bit more aggressively than I am or even in the non-performance even in the non-performance it will throw your head back so as I was saying before the talk in this car is instant it's such a smooth delivery the moment you put your foot down it's it's crazy for you I love it I still can't get over the novelty of how much more confident electric motors are when it comes to putting down the power.

And the power in this car is a little bit more than that bolt this has got 258 horsepower versus the bolts 200 horsepower and yes cars you just will complain that it doesn't make any sound but I think there's a positive side to that because what they don't account for is the fact that every time you hear a car it's not always delivered in the sound of a sweet v8 v12 thank you very much Lamborghini but I look forward to the point where a Mack truck engine braking next to me doesn't stop my conversation.

Okay this is an electric car it is on snow tires I'm getting quite a lot of road noise coming through but obviously there's no motor noise so overall it's quite quiet and something that I think is cool and that I got roasted in our Tesla Model 3 video over his m24 saying that I thought the Tesla needed more engine noise.

I don't care noise is a feedback that I get when I put my foot down I want to hear something I'm not used to these silent cars yet but this car when you have everything turned off and you put your foot down you might not be able to hear it but I can I can actually hear the electric motor I think it I think it sounds cool electric motors spin to like 12,000 rpm at least and that's that's a cool thing to hear I want to hear it I want some audible feedback to me.

Putting my foot down and this has that so this being the rear wheel drive means it doesn't have the electric motor up front so what it does do is send all the power to the rear wheels which means it kind of feels a little bit more playful than the all-wheel drive that we drove earlier so the steering has great on center feel I feel very confident with it I can't I feel it more through the suspension than I do the actual steering wheel there's not much feedback going over the bumps on this road but I feel it in my feet not on my hands.

But despite that I still feel very connected to the road so whatever test is doing they're doing it right so the bolt does the north of 60 in about 6.5 this does it in a sub 6 second and both cars deliver it without any end and something about the fact that there is no engine noise means that your other senses heighten so that means I'm really aware of the stiffness in the chassis and the low center of gravity thanks to the batteries right below me.

Which means it's absolutely captivating in a corner but one thing both of these cars excel at is feeling like they're lighter than they are these are heavy cars batteries are really really heavy but since the center of gravity is so low you kind of feel nimble it feels a nimble I mean the obviously the Tesla has a much lower center of gravity than that you can feel that when you get in these cars.

But this is still it's fun and what I've noticed with this particular car is if you chuck this thing into an on-ramp it will naturally oversteer at the limit you start to feel the rear come around it doesn't wash like you'd think it would it's kind of it's fun it feels closer to a Fiesta ST than I thought it would so the important thing to know is that this is the long range rear-wheel drive car and they don't make that anymore for the rear-wheel drive.

They still make it for the all-wheel drive right now if you were to buy a Tesla Model 3 and you wanted the base spec it would be a rear-wheel drive mid range so the midrange is a bit lighter than this cheaper than this and it does 418 kilometers which in miles is this for the short range Tesla Model 3 which is not out yet is going to be closer to the bolt in price and range so the main reason these two are accessible is because there's incentives by countries to give money to be able buying them the US for example gives seventy five hundred US dollars for every Tesla and every Chevy bolt Canada's got its own things going on Ontario has its own problems going on thanks Doug.

But where this car differs to the ball people were sleeping outside Tesla dealerships trying to buy the model three when it came out you can't say that for many cars in fact the first car that ever happened to it was the Ford Mustang in 1964 and hats off to anyone that was asleep while the first Mustang pulled out of the garage that's a pretty risky thing to do.

So for you EV owners out there this might be old news but for the rest of us cars like this and for other manufacturers are a wake-up call it's a bit like that time that James realized that the fruit in fruit loops wasn't spelt the normal way now something I really need to talk about this is very important listen carefully the seats in this car are by far and away the least comfortable seats in any modern vehicle I have ever been in.

By a longshot they're way too narrow they're not nearly padded enough and I've absolutely no support for my shoulder blades it's them just about the weirdest thing ever like if I put my arm back like this it doesn't hit anything my shoulders are completely outside of the shape of the seat and I'm not a very big guy I don't have a big frame.

I'm not going to do a whole review of the interior stuff and the entertainment if you want to see more of that Thomas did it in our video with the Tesla versus the m2 competition go check that one out suffice to say the interior this car is very divisive I'm on the side that loves it I think it's fantastic the minimalist thing works really well this screen is super intuitive super easy to use it's as fast as an eye-fi if you're now to use an iPad.

You know how to use this the map is fantastic there all the controls that you can change your driving mode you can turn acceleration from standard to chill you can turn on creep there's regenerative braking choices and also you can choose your steering mode right now I'm in sport know the interior does not feel like a hundred thousand dollar car but thanks to amazing things like this glass roof it certainly doesn't feel like a twenty thousand dollar car either driving positions Greg got massive adjustability in the seat.

And the steering thanks to these little noble bits here which I can move left and right and it tilts and telescopes I kind of wish that the the wheel itself looked a bit more sporty than last the cx-5 I just got to get into this has a better looking steering wheel so I hopefully with newer generations they start to improve that it on the Roadster.

It better look good in fact me the rear view camera alone sets this car apart from any other entertainment I've ever used it's so crystal clear all right what's the interior like well neither of these cars are Rolls Royces so the materials are not amazing they're not terrible but this car is kind of lacking in a few key areas the trim on the doors looks and feels cheap the door like poles feel cheap the plastic down the cupholders feels cheap.

That said it kind of makes up for it in other areas I think this kind of white I don't know how to describe it this trim it looks kind of neat it's unique it doesn't look like any other car and I have two quite large very high definition screens this screen in the center tells me all my useful information I have something in front of me to see unlike the Tesla tells me my speed my follow distance and my range that I have left in my battery as well as the max that I'm going to get or the min that I would get depending on how I'm driving.

When I put my foot down it has a kilowatt meter that tells me how much I'm putting my foot down and it tells me other information about adaptive cruise control or whatever else you want you could show you a call that is incoming now this screen here is very large and it's actually pretty quick to react and I figured it out almost immediately I found it quite intuitive there wasn't really anything bad that I had to say about it other than the fact that it is on a very like horizontal slant.

Which means that it's going to collect quite a lot of dust it doesn't show fingerprints though there's a coating on it to prevents that the climate control is half on the screen half on the front here and I have no problems using it it's all very intuitive there's a physical volume knob unlike the Tesla which is nice and I can control the volume from the back of my steering wheel right here the the the usage of this car is closer to a conventional vehicle than the Tesla.

So if you are bridging the gap between a gasoline vehicle and a EV this is going to be a little bit more of a comforting feeling for you is it's going to be something familiar stuff is where you expect it to be let's put it that way is it slightly annoying to look to the right the whole time for the infotainment yes it is and I wish they did a heads-up display.

But I've had years as a man to perfect the quick glance to the right so I'm okay with it I am curious why I tested them put a heads-up display and I think that would have been good but maybe some questions are best not asked like why is Sam Smith so sad when he sings his songs so when it comes to living with these electric cars the test that does have a supercharger network that is increasing a number.

Today and that means that you can grab a bite to eat and go get back in your car and it's fully charged which is about as close as we can get right now to filling up with petrol apart from hydrogen which is way too early stage to even matter right now that's not to say that on efforts to improve the situation for other evie cars however in the time Thomas's had the ball he's only managed to find one DC fast charger and it didn't even work properly so I'm about to get in the bowl and see what that's like and I want to see why it costs almost as much as a mid-range model 3 Tesla.

Unfortunately this car is very pricy and to be honest the reality of living with an electric car is just quite there yet where I live anyway for example there's all I only found one supercharger the DC fast charger and I couldn't even make it work so I had to leave this at a gas station overnight to get some range it's like a film this review however it's time to go try the rear wheel drive Tesla because I think that that might be just a little bit more fun and potentially worth the money.

All right so I'm in the bolts foot down yeah okay you can feel you feel it's gone to the front wheels because they start working really hard and you can feel them spinning a bit and it doesn't have quite the acceleration level but it will be close to the short range test that's when it comes out in terms of acceleration so they we can't really look at that just yet alright the model 3 and yeah immediately you are so much more connected to this car the seating position is lower the steering feels better steering feels way better actually and it's faster this is a more exciting car to drive I have only done one corner and the major thing here is rear-wheel drive no matter what you say it's just more fun it goes the rear a little bit.

Even with the traction control on which you can't defeat in this one it's fun the first things I noticed when going on the tester games this is one my leg almost hangs off the seat because it's so narrow which which makes you feel like you're in middle school again where your legs are dangling off the chair cuz you're not tall enough so I wouldn't mind some wider seats.

The testers definitely got it beat there however in front of me I'm delivered the information that I require my speed my range what power I'm using whether the brakes are regenerating I don't have to do this every single time because then that's very dangerous so thank you bolt now there's something about looking ahead and seeing no information that I'm having a hard time getting used to the first time I drove it I was.

Okay with it but after having a nice little screen right in front of me I kind of missed that I think there should be a heads-up display I think I agree with James on that one I do miss a glass roof this feels a little bit cheaper than the price that it is so I would like a glass roof please Chevy the seating position is very different to the Tesla.

I don't want to say it's a soccer mum ish so I won't say that however like Thomas I discussed earlier once you'd push this car it does actually get pretty fun I'm not sure it rivals the test that completely but it's it's it's close enough that you still get to enjoy the benefits of an electric car you've still got that instant talk the turn in feels confident even though it's got a higher center of gravity than that Tesla so all in all with fun factor is not top of the list of priorities when you're choosing between these two cars.

Then you haven't got to worry too much about losing any fun in the Chevy it doesn't take away from the fact though that this feels like a little bit more of an occasion it feels a little bit more special and you're spending quite a lot of money to get one of these cars I think that you probably should get the car that just feels a little bit more like the future but this is the more accessible one if you're coming from a regular car however I don't think it's too much of a scary jump to go from a normal car to a Tesla.

And the beauty of the tester is that you don't have a reverse camera that's the quality of a potato which this bolt shares in common with master ultimately this is a style choice if you want that hatchback city vibe car then this is the one otherwise for the sedan comfortable low driving position cruiser that test has really got a good thing going I'm excited to see how this compares to its more closely related compadres so the ex e-40 electric the Koner electric which Thomas and I have driven and the Volkswagen ID when that comes out is quite exciting.

At the very least we will get to enjoy the knowledge that there are more options coming and more options are always a good thing now conclusion time which one of these would I have model three that was easy both great and it's actually quite fun to drive and it feels more like a city car I still would take the model three just because all the other pros and cons completely out of the way the main reason I would pick this car is that it feels a little bit more connected it feels more exciting feels more performance oriented and this isn't even the model 3 performance so really for the price it seems like you might be getting more car for your money with the Tesla however I can easily see how you might choose the bolt over it they are both fun they are both practical in their own way and they both show us that electric cars are winning more and more people over every day.