Chevy Couldn’t Care Less About the Model 3’s Preorders

2017 Chevrolet Bolt (Credit: Chevrolet)

It’s no mystery that the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3, despite their dramatic differences in style, are direct rivals. They both travel more than 200 miles on a charge, they are both relatively quick, and they both get buyers into the world of EVs for around $35,000. With them competing so closely, Chevy must be worried about the 200,000-plus preorders that the Model 3 has gotten, right?

Not according to what Autoblog has heard. At a recent event, the site had a chat with GM spokesman, Fred Ligouri, and politely dismissed the idea of needing to take preorders by saying “We haven’t taken any. We don’t need to to begin building our products.” Another spokesperson, Kevin Kelley, said “Any interest you see from people in this type of technology, it helps everybody,” implying that the huge interest in the Model 3 will do nothing but increase the demand for the Bolt.

From what Chevy’s spokespeople are saying, it seems as if they are happy that the Model 3 is so in demand. It appears as if Chevy feels that this feeding frenzy that the Model 3 has created could spill over to the Bolt due to the fact that the Model 3 will not arrive until late 2017 and the Chevy EV will roll out later in 2016. This will only be compounded is Tesla pulls a Tesla and misses its release date by a year or more.