Looks like the 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EUV, the SUV version of the bow-tie’s small electric car, is still on track for sale next summer. The EUV is the second vehicle in the Bolt electric car family. It is slightly larger, hardier, and designed to look a little more like an SUV than a car and offer more interior room to play with. Importantly, the Bolt EUV will be the first vehicle outside the Cadillac brand to offer Super Cruise, the driver-assistance technology that allows for hands-free highway driving on mapped roads.
Sleeker Profile Sets Bolt EUV Apart
As you can see from the teaser released by General Motors, the EUV has a much sleeker silhouette than the frumpy Bolt hatchback, with a roofline that ends in a rear spoiler. The beltline angles up gently as it proceeds from the A-pillar back, and then flares up at the back to meet the junction of roof and spoiler. The greenhouse shape makes the car look poised to take off.
The silhouette is so much cleaner than the current 2020 Chevrolet Bolt‘s because the roofline needn’t rise and arch over the heads of the driver and passenger. The longer, cleaner lines of the SUV should make it instantly distinguishable from the conventional Bolt on the road. And the greenhouse does not end suddenly, as it does in the current Bolt, making the original car look stubby and a bit awkward.
It helps that the EUV is about five or six inches longer than the Bolt, including a wheelbase that grows by three inches—meaning more room in the backseat. And we are told it will have a sunroof. It appears a roof rack will add to its utility. The wraparound taillights have a distinctive look, though the headlights look similar to those on the conventional Bolt.
GMC Hummer Electric Pickup and More Coming
The Chevy Bolt carried GM’s electric car mantle for four years, but it will soon be eclipsed by a raft of electric vehicles under development for many of GM’s brands over the next five years. GM has said it will have 20 new electric vehicles on the road by 2023.
But an updated 2021 Bolt, and the addition of the 2022 Bolt EUV, remain on the current and aging BEV2 platform which gets some upgrades. And the 2020 Bolt did get more range, increasing to 259 miles from 238 miles in 2019, and there were some cosmetic improvements as well.
For 2021, the conventional Bolt will get new, more comfortable, seats, nicer dashboard materials, and an updated infotainment system, we were told at an event in March. The electric car, which will also go on sale in the summer of 2021, finally gets adaptive cruise control and the gear selector switches to buttons. The battery is unchanged.
