I bought my mom a Chevy Bolt EV – Here’s how it went
When Chevy announced it was dropping the price of the Chevy Bolt EV by $6,000 earlier this year to $25,600, it went from a good EV option to a great one. This is a 5-star-safety-rated sporty hatchback EV with 259 miles of real range, lots of space inside, and a great interior.
So good, in fact, I decided to do the unthinkable: buy one for my 70-something mom. Here’s how it went.
As a background, I’ve owned mostly Teslas (S, X, 3, Y) since 2013, and one of the things I like most about that experience is not having to deal with car dealers. I leased a 2017 Chevy Bolt from 2017 to 2020 and loved the car, but again, didn’t love the dealership experience on either end of the Bolt ownership. I went over this in my Bolt ownership retrospective.
With Chevy’s help, we identified a Bolt that was being sold for MSRP on its way to Serpentini Chevrolet in NE Ohio. I remember their ads from growing up – “American, and prooooouuuud of it!” – and even though the name sounds like “snake” in Italian, they’ve been around for a long time.
I spoke with a salesperson there about my requirements. “Just the car, please. No upgrades. No maintenance plan. No nothing.” We were very quickly on the same page. One nice thing about not being nearby was that I didn’t have to go into the dealership and deal with waiting, paperwork, and of course, the upselling and haggling.
After some minor delays, the car arrived on the lot. After taxes, destination, and other typical miscellaneous charges, the $26,500 Bolt EV price had grown to over $28,692.04. Backward Ohio doesn’t have any EV incentives and, in fact, charges an extra $200/year on registration for disincentivizing EVs. This kind of thinking is indicative of the governance that sends forward-thinking people packing for the coasts – I digress.
I wired the money to the dealership’s bank account and told my mom and brother that it was plated and ready to be picked up the next day. After calling the insurance company and having it added to their plan, they went to the dealership the next day.
Dealerships suck
Did I mention dealerships suck? They almost universally do. I had almost forgotten how bad my experience was in New York when I picked up mine in 2017. The salespeople there in Ohio decided to hit my 70-year-old mom, who doesn’t know much about cars, let alone EVs, with a bullshit maintenance plan upsell. (Free oil changes!) According to her, it wasn’t an option – it was just a choice between that one and a more expensive one. She wrote a check for almost $2000 even though I had already paid for the car and told them I didn’t want any of their BS maintenance plans. My brother called me and told me what was happening.
I picked up the phone and started screaming at those $%#* cockroaches because, apparently, a customer who wanted to buy a car sight unseen with cash wasn’t enough of a gift – they had to try to steal a few weeks of retirement money from a widow. I’m not still mad, I swear.
To their credit (?). they did quickly tear up my mom’s check and apologize, and I guess they have a system in place that incentivizes this behavior. Also, Serpentini did originally offer the car at MSRP, which was decent in those times. Shoutout to Chris there for the help.
After the remote scene I caused, they gave my mom and brother a quick rundown of the car. My mom drove the car home timidly but figured out the car pretty quickly. She’s coming from a 2010 Prius, so it wasn’t night and day different.
Qmerit charger install
One genuinely genius move that Chevy made was offering either $1,000 of EVgo fast charging credit or $1,000 toward a Qmerit home EV charging unit install as part of buying a Bolt. That’s going to get new EV owners off on the right foot, and I was excited to get a Level 2 charger installed in my childhood home.
Unfortunately, Qmerit never responded to the order request, and again, almost a month after the car purchase, I had to intervene. I called Qmerit, and they said the dealer never approved the work order. I called the dealer again, and they said they sent the order to Qmerit. I rang up the Chevrolet concierge to hopefully mediate, but everyone just kept pointing fingers at each other. Finally, I did a three-way conference call and told them all that the call wasn’t going to end until someone took responsibility for this.
Finally, I got a guy at Qmerit to take responsibility and project manage the operation. He got approval from the dealership manually and found an installer near the dealership but 30 miles from my mom’s house. The first estimate was $2,500 (so we’d pay $1,500). That included a device necessitated because the 80A breaker box was nearly full. We had a decommissioned breaker for a hot tub that made this unnecessary.
I had specced out the install with a local electrician who said it would cost $500, which broke down to about $250 in parts and $250 in labor. Inspection was separate.
I got a second installer from Qmerit to offer it for $1600, which would have still cost us more than just having our local guy do it. I showed the $500 estimate to the Qmerit project manager and finally got an under-$1,000 estimate that would be reimbursed with Chevy’s generous offer. Days later, the 240V plug was installed.
The post-mortem on Qmerit that I sent to Chevy:
- Qmerit says that hundreds of new Chevy Bolt owners go through this same problem.
- It sounds like the system that communicates between dealers and Qmerit often breaks down, and it is up to the customer to get everyone on the same page. Bad experience.
- Qmerit needs a dedicated project manager to keep everyone in line. They obfuscated the situation and solution until they knew I was going to keep calling them. I imagine many give up.
- The installers told me that plugs were dumb and wanted to do straight wire. I think this option is best for some but not all – should be some literature about that to help customers decide.
- Two installers told me that Qmerit takes a 20-30% cut, so they pass on the extra cost to the customer. So a real $750 install will use the full $1000 credit.
240V Level 2 charger standard on EUV, but only 120V in EV
So the dealer and Qmerit both dropped the ball earlier so it was my turn to fail. I was under the impression that the Bolt EV and EUV both came with 240V Level 2 charge cables (Webasto Go OEM). Turns out that the Bolt EUV comes with it standard while it is a $295 option on the EV. The Bolt EV comes with an old 120V Level 1 charger, so my mom didn’t have anything to plug into the 240V outlet like I had assumed.
She doesn’t drive much and was doing fine with the 110V charger, which puts on about 4 miles/hour of charge. That equates to about 60 miles in the 15 hours she’s not using it, more than she almost ever drives in a day.
In the short term, I sent one of these adapters which allows the Level 1 charger that comes with the Bolt EV to accept 240V (x12A) and charge at almost 3kW, which means a full charge from dead (65kWh) can happen in 24 hours. I plan to have a proper 240V Level 2 charging option there by the end of the month. I have to wonder how much GM is saving by putting a Level 1 charger in the car vs. a $295 Level 2 charger option. I bet it is under $100, and I’m pretty sure people would rather pay extra for the better charger.
Mom loves the Bolt EV
Initial hesitation gave way to outright love of the little vehicle. Things she didn’t know she would love:
- Always warm when starting. Can start heat in the garage.
- Easy to get in and out. Hatchback easy to open and close.
- Wireless CarPlay great for Music and Maps. Easy to make and take calls.
- Headlights are brighter than the Prius. Easier to drive at night.
- Loves rear view monitor when backing up. Small size makes parking/garage easy.
- No more range anxiety after first few weeks.
- Loves talking about it with strangers who ask about EVs.
- “Smooth!”
Doesn’t like:
- Wipers. They aren’t in sync, and they come from both angles, which is distracting.
- Has left it on a few times because it is so quiet.
Electrek’s take
It wasn’t an easy journey, but it was worth it. The dealer experience is still broken in my opinion compared to EV players like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian. I’m not even sure it is fixable. Ford and Volvo/Polestar are trying to spin off their EV groups so they can escape dealer headaches. Chevy and Ford have told me they are trying to eliminate and threaten dealers who do markups. But they still proliferate. My best advice to consumers is just hold your nose and get the dealer experience over with. Try to do as much over the phone or on email as possible and stick to your guns when picking up the vehicle.
But the final Bolt EV product is fantastic, even for someone like my mom who isn’t terribly interested in learning new technology or changing how she does things. Yes, the Bolt EV has slow 54kw DC fast charging, slippery FWD, and other minor shortcomings. But there are so many positives for every negative, and for my mom, who will rarely (if ever) go on a 250+ mile trip, fast charging is moot.
So my mom loves it, and yours probably will too.
I had a chance to drive her Bolt EV when I drove through town (with the absurdly big in comparison Ford F-150). It was an absolute pleasure, especially for city driving and parking. So much so, I think I might get one of my own.
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Sometimes on Alibaba, you find something that makes you stop, scratch your head, and wonder whether the designer started with a golf cart and added a pickup truck bed… or started with a farm truck and grafted on the front half of a golf cart. Either way, the end result is this glorious mashup of country club chic and back-forty practicality.
It’s also the perfect candidate for this week’s edition of the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week – a chance to dumpster dive through some of the coolest and most innovative EVs on the internet.
Up front, you’ve got what looks like your standard neighborhood golf cart – small tires, stubby hood, upright windshield, and a seating arrangement that says, “I could drop you off, but you’re carrying the clubs.”
But move your eyes toward the rear and suddenly you’re on a rural Chinese farm. It’s basically the epitome of the classic Chinese farm truck… and I’ve walked the line at Chinese farm truck factories. That short golf cart chassis has been stretched into a full-blown flatbed mini-truck, complete with drop-down side gates and a tailgate to turn it into a flatbed. It’s ready to haul hay bales, tools, or apparently, livestock (as our graphics department so tastefully demonstrated above).
The pièce de résistance? That big, plastic laundry basket bolted to the hood with “SPORT” proudly embossed on it. Who needs a glove box when you’ve already got a whole hamper right in front of you? Perfect for golf balls, groceries, or the world’s most precariously placed toolbox.
Despite the hybrid identity crisis, the specs are no joke. Wel, ok – they’re a little funny. This little utility cart boasts a 72V, 1,500W rear-axle motor that can whisk you along at up to 38 km/h (about 24 mph). That’s quick enough to get you in trouble on the fairway or make a speedy feed run at the farm. It can even climb a 20-degree grade, meaning you’ll have no problem hauling a load of goat feed up your driveway. Range is listed at 70 km (43 miles), so you can spend all day zipping between barn and bunker without a recharge.
Weighing in at 317 kg (just under 700 lb), it’s heavy enough to feel stable but light enough that you could probably push it out of a sand trap with a couple of buddies if you really had to. It’s also got a key start, built-in speakers, and of course, that open-air cabin that’s perfect for warm days and questionable weather decisions.
And the price? Just $2,300… if you happen to be standing on the factory floor in China with cash in hand (or just $2,000 if you buy 100 of them!). That’s the factory floor (EXW) price, which means by the time you pay for shipping, import duties, and a customs officer’s confused glare, you’ll be spending a lot more to get one into your driveway. And with tariffs the way they are, now it’s around 40% more than “a lot more.”
For reference, the last time I bought an electric mini-truck from China, the $2,000 truck cost me closer to $8,000 to land it in the US – and that was before Trump Tariffs 2.0.
Is it a golf cart? Is it a truck? Is it a lifestyle? Yes. It’s all of those things. And in a world where we usually have to choose between impractical fun and functional utility, this weird little contraption says, “Why not both?”
Whether you’re hauling mulch around your garden, running parts around a warehouse, or pulling up to the clubhouse looking like you just came from a tractor pull, this Alibaba gem has you covered. Just be prepared for the stares – not everyone is ready for the future of cross-genre utility vehicles.
A casual warning
As always, a friendly reminder before you start reaching for your credit card: don’t actually go buying one of these things. Seriously. These bizarre Chinese EVs are a blast to gawk at, but this column is just a lighthearted weekend stroll through Alibaba’s wildest listings. I’ve scored a few fun wins on the site, but I’ve also taken some expensive lumps (there’s an electric excavator scam story that has yet to be told…), so this is definitely not a shopping guide for anyone faint of heart or who values their hard-earned money.
Sure, some daring (or just plain stubborn) readers have ignored my advice and rolled the dice anyway, but please don’t be the one who ends up with a sad story and a thinner bank account. Consider this your official “you’ve been warned” notice.
For now, let’s just enjoy how wonderfully absurd it is that a golf cart–pickup truck hybrid even exists, and leave the gambling to the pros. Until next week’s weird Alibaba EV, this is Micah signing off.
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If you’ve been eyeing the all-electric G-Wagon, Mercedes-Benz just sweetened the deal – but only for a limited time.
According to a dealer bulletin, the 2025 Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology – AKA the electric G-Wagon – now comes with $9,500 in lease cash, up from last month’s $7,500. That’s a 27% jump in savings. The move comes just weeks before the $7,500 EV lease tax credit loophole closes on September 30.
Like most EVs leased in the US, the G-Class has been able to qualify for the credit even though it’s excluded from purchase incentives. That benefit is about to disappear, which likely explains why Mercedes is boosting the offers now.
The electric G-Wagon doesn’t come cheap. With a base price of $162,650, the $9,500 incentive amounts to only a 5.8% discount. The SUV also carries a steep advertised lease: $1,869 per month for 36 months with $14,613 due at signing. Factor it all in, and you’re really paying about $2,275 a month for 10,000 miles a year. Current Mercedes deals run through September 2.
For context, the 2025 G 580’s lease money factor now sits at 0.00180, which works out to around 4.3% APR – lower than the standard rates previously on offer.
Performance-wise, the electric G-Wagon earns an EPA rating of 62 MPGe and an electric range of 239 miles. Not groundbreaking numbers, but for buyers who want the iconic G-Wagon experience with zero tailpipe emissions, this is it.
With federal lease credits ending soon, Mercedes appears to be betting that drivers looking for a last chance at big EV savings will jump now rather than later.
Click here to find a local dealer that may have the 2025 Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology in stock. –trusted affiliate
Thanks to CarsDirect for digging up this dealer offer.
Read more: From $129 a month: 5 of the best EV lease deals in August
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The Honda Prologue is a surprise hit. It was the second-best-selling electric SUV behind the Tesla Model Y in the second half of 2024. Now, used models are in high demand.
Honda Prologue leads used EV sales growth in July
After it delivered the first customer models last March, the Honda Prologue quickly became one of the most popular EVs in the US.
Throughout the second half of the year, Honda sold an average of over 5,000 Prologues every month. In November, it was the third best-selling EV, trailing only the Tesla Model Y and Model 3.
Honda’s electric SUV continues to be a top seller this year. Last month, it outsold the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Hyundai IONIQ 5. Since delivering the first Prologue model last March, Honda has now sold 52,500 units in the US.
According to Cox Automotive’s latest EV Market Monitor report, used Honda Prologue EVs are selling faster than expected.
Used EV sales rose sharply in July to 36,670, up 23.2% from June and 40% compared to last year. Honda had the biggest increase in used EV sales, more than doubling (+103%) month-over-month. Hyundai (+61.3%) and Rivian (60.5%) ranked second and third.
Tesla led used EV sales last month, selling 15,903 vehicles, up 18% year-over-year. GM’s Chevy (3,499 units, +28.6%), Ford (1,967 units, +25.7%), Mercedes-Benz (1,724 units, -12.3%), and Nissan (1,659 units, +19.9%) rounded out the top five.
Although its market share slipped to 43.4% from 45.2%, Tesla remained the leader by a wide margin. Other luxury brands, including BMW and Audi, reported higher used EV sales in July, with increases of 43.87% and 38%, respectively.
According to the report, used EV listing prices reached $35,263 last month, a 1.9% decrease from June. With a price gap of just $1,266, a record low, used electric vehicle prices are closing in on ICE vehicles.
New EV sales also picked up in July. With over 130,000 EVs sold, up 26% from June, the electric vehicle market share reached 9.1%, the second-highest to date.
Ahead of the $7,500 federal tax credit deadline, set to expire at the end of September, 11 brands posted their best EV sales of the year. The top five included Tesla, Chevy, Hyundai, Ford, and Honda. Volkswagen surged to sixth after electric vehicle sales surged 454% last month.
The Honda Prologue starts at $47,400, but with the credit, you can snag one for under $40,000 right now. Honda is also offering monthly leases as low as $159 in California and other ZEV states. In other regions, it’s still listed for as low as $229 per month.
| 2025 Honda Prologue trim | Starting Price* | Starting Price After Tax Credit* |
EPA Range (miles) |
| EX (FWD) | $47,400 | $39,900 | 308 |
| EX (AWD) | $50,400 | $42,900 | 294 |
| Touring (FWD) | $51.700 | $44,200 | 308 |
| Touring (AWD) | $54,700 | $47,200 | 294 |
| Elite (AWD) | $57,900 | $50,400 | 283 |
Even Honda’s luxury brand, Acura, is selling more electric vehicles than expected. Through the first half of the year, the Acura ZDX outsold the Cadillac Lyriq, and it’s based on the same GM Ultium platform.
Sales are expected to continue picking up ahead of the deadline. As Cox Automotive highlighted, “July’s performance sets a strong precedent, and as policy support winds down, the market’s ability to respond to real-time demand and brand-level dynamics will be critical in shaping the next phase of growth.”
Ready to take advantage of the savings while they are still here? We’re here to help. You can use our link to find deals on the Honda Prologue in your area (trusted affiliate link).
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