This is really impossible to validate, we can't just use years monthly sales as it doesn't tell the whole story...In fact, if there was no Bolt EV we could argue GM could have sold even more Volts...Furthermore if your statement is true its somewhat a blackeye for the Bolt because you have a buyer who's exciting to go off "big oil" test drives the Bolt EV and for whatever reason buys a PHEV...I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but we're not seeing any stories reported of this actually happening to add credit to this angle...just as the Bolt increased Volt sales.
It's also for all Tesla's currently being sold, you can no longer purchase a new Tesla with a free forever SC option...Another wild card is if and when fully autonomous comes on board...Think about it like this, we live in/near Los Angeles, while there's a ton to do, there's also something always going on San Diego, but it's brutal traffic if you don't time it right on a weekend trip...Yet if it's self driving, I can either watch movies, play games, get frisky or do some work so traffic doesn't matter...It sounds highly unlikely there will be any autonomous Gen1 Bolts available to the public based on all the autonomous versions we have seen have had huge roof arrays of expensive equipment yet that is another wildcard to your question...Something else that I wasn't thinking about, but the electrek article reminded me of. Most of the current Tesla fleet still has unlimited, free Supercharger access. It is easy to be frivolous with your driving when all (or most) of your fuel is free. However, moving forward (and for all Model 3s), only a small amount of Supercharger access each year (400 kWh, or about 1,500 miles) will be free. When paying for your own fuel, no matter how cheap, you tend to drive differently.
Of course, autonomous cars could add yet another variable.
While I understand there is a lot of doubt, myself included that level 4 will be achievable (specifically with 2017 hardware), Musk is selling it now on the S/X and said it would be on the M3...Still comes down to regulations, odds are some cities will allow some of roads to level 4 as a pilot program prior to nationwide approval...The Model 3 won't be remotely capable of this. At best AutoPilot is a Level 3 system. Have you looked at how many miles AutoPilot was able to drive before it needs human intervention? The report from Tesla said AP needed about 360 interventions per 1000 miles. Compare that to Cruise, which was at 18.5/1000. And then there was Waymo, the clear leader, which was at .8/1000 (the decimal is not a mistake).
If Tesla had a technology which could actually accomplish what you think it can, the stock price would justifiably be a lot higher.
So yes I don't think there will be any Bolt EVs that can do what you're asking anytime soon, but it's more likely to see a Bolt EV get there than a Model 3. I can see big problems for Tesla and even more so for its customers if people share your expectations.
If they were competitors, there would not be thousands of Bolt EVs on the lots right now, they'd sell every one of them until they reached 400Kish...Back to the OP on this thread.
How can you say the Bolt and TM3 are not competitors?
Both are a base price ~$36k / ~230 mile range BEV's. Period
You are in the minority within a minority and there's nothing wrong with that...Most people in the market for the Bolt EV would not consider any other PHEV/anything that uses gas...Then there are those who wouldn't think about an EV if they had to rely on routine destination charging, in which a PHEV/EREV makes sense if ones okay with using gas...They are/were both competing for my money. I put money down on a Bolt, and then later decided the range was not quite sufficient to make my weekly drive. So I bought a Volt and put $1000 down on a TM3. The TM3 has a convenient charging station in the middle of my weekly driving route.
Life isn't black and white, it's 50+ shades of grey...We can choose to ignore any possibility of something being valid until the CEO of the company themselves states it as a fact...Did they? I thought they stayed away from making a sales prediction. I know there have been statements made about manufacturing capacity, but I have not seen any from GM on sales for the car.
