The 2027 Chevrolet Bolt EV: America’s Cheapest New EV Is Back From the Dead, and It’s on the Clock

Chevrolet killed the Bolt in 2023. Then it changed its mind. The Bolt is back for 2027, it’s once again the most affordable new electric car you can buy in America, and here’s the twist that makes it interesting: Chevrolet has already announced when it plans to kill it again.

This is one of the stranger product stories in the EV world right now. The Bolt was a beloved, sensible, affordable little EV that Chevrolet discontinued to free up factory space, then brought back because customers kept asking for it, and is now building on a short leash before the factory retools for other vehicles. It’s a comeback with an expiration date, which is unusual enough to be worth understanding before you fall for it.

The Price Is the Whole Point

The 2027 Bolt starts at $27,600 for the LT trim before the $1,395 destination fee, which lands it right around $28,995 out the door. That makes it the least expensive new EV on sale in the United States, full stop. The sportier RS trim starts at $31,600 before destination.

That number matters more than any other spec on this car, because affordability is the Bolt’s entire reason for existing. In a market where the average new EV costs well over $50,000, a genuinely usable electric car under $30,000 fills a gap that most automakers have quietly abandoned. The new Nissan Leaf is the Bolt’s only real competition at this price, and the two of them are carrying the affordable EV torch almost by themselves.

Here’s a nice detail: both trims can be optioned with Super Cruise, GM’s excellent hands free highway driving system. That makes the Bolt the single cheapest way to get one of the best driver assistance systems in the industry, which feels almost like a pricing error in the buyer’s favor.

What Chevrolet Fixed

The original Bolt had two glaring weaknesses: slow charging and an aging charging standard. Chevrolet addressed both. The 2027 Bolt gets a native NACS port, making it the first Chevrolet to adopt Tesla’s charging standard, which means Supercharger access without an adapter. Peak DC fast charging jumped to 150 kW, taking the battery from 10 to 80 percent in about 26 minutes. That’s not going to win any charging speed awards, but compared to the old Bolt, which charged at a pace that tested your patience and your schedule, it’s a night and day improvement.

The Bolt uses a 65 kWh battery paired with a 210 horsepower motor borrowed from the larger Equinox EV, driving the front wheels. EPA range comes in at 262 miles, which is genuinely useful and a modest improvement over the original. Interestingly, Edmunds beat that figure in their real world testing, getting 290 miles out of an RS, which suggests the EPA number is conservative. GM also switched to more affordable lithium iron phosphate battery cells, which is part of how they got the price down.

The Compromises

I’m not going to oversell this car, because the Bolt has never been about luxury and pretending otherwise would insult your intelligence. The interior is pragmatically basic. It’s front wheel drive only, so no all wheel drive option for snowy climates. The 210 horsepower is adequate rather than exciting, and torque actually dropped compared to the old Bolt, so it feels a touch less peppy off the line than some owners might remember.

And then there’s the infotainment situation. The Bolt runs Google Built In, which means Google Maps, Google Assistant, and Google Play apps are baked right into the car. It also means there is no Apple CarPlay and no Android Auto. For some buyers, that’s a complete dealbreaker. For others, the built in Google experience is perfectly fine once you adjust. Where you land on that depends entirely on how attached you are to mirroring your phone, and it’s worth sitting in one to find out before you commit.

The Ticking Clock

Now for the part that makes the Bolt genuinely unusual. Chevrolet has confirmed that this new Bolt will only be built for roughly 18 months, with production ending around mid 2027 when the Kansas factory retools for other vehicles. GM described it as a limited run model from the start, brought back specifically because of strong customer demand.

So the Bolt exists in a strange middle ground. It’s a brand new car with a known short shelf life. That raises fair questions about long term parts availability and resale value, since a model with a brief production run doesn’t have the same aftermarket support as a car built for years. On the other hand, the Bolt shares much of its technology with the Equinox EV, which isn’t going anywhere, so the parts situation is less concerning than it would be for a truly orphaned model.

I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention this clearly. If you buy a 2027 Bolt, you’re buying into a model that Chevrolet has already told you is ending soon. Whether that matters depends on how long you keep your cars and how much you care about resale.

Where I Land

The 2027 Bolt is a genuinely good deal wrapped in a genuinely strange story. As a piece of value engineering, it’s excellent. You get 262 miles of range, modern charging with Supercharger access, and available Super Cruise for under $30,000, which is a combination that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else except the new Leaf.

In my opinion, the Bolt is the right car for a very specific buyer: someone who wants a brand new, affordable EV for daily driving, mostly around town, who values practicality and price over excitement and luxury, and who isn’t bothered by the limited production run or the lack of phone mirroring. For that person, the Bolt is close to unbeatable.

For everyone else, the compromises and the expiration date are worth weighing carefully. But I’ll say this much: Chevrolet brought the Bolt back because people genuinely missed it, and having spent time understanding what it offers at this price, I completely understand why. Sometimes the sensible, affordable, slightly unglamorous option is exactly the one people want, and the Bolt has always understood that assignment better than most. It just has a countdown timer running this time.

*EV Rob writes about electric vehicles, automotive technology, and the future of transportation at The Wonderful World of EVs.*