General Motors will take the wraps off its answer to Tesla's forthcoming electric car at Detroit's North American International Auto Show next week, according to several reports. Citing sources, The Wall Street Journal says GM will announce a fully electric model called the Bolt, which will have a 200-mile range and a price tag of $30,000 when it debuts in 2017. The Journal says the concept car will be a hatchback akin to a crossover vehicle and will continue to exist alongside the Volt — Chevy's hybrid gasoline-electric — which itself is due for a sprucing up this year. Chevy already teased a next-generation version of the Volt back in August with nothing more than a sumptuous shot of a trunk lid.

Aiming right at Tesla

The new car will compete squarely with Tesla's Model 3, which was announced in June, and itself is designed to take on BMW's 3 series. Tesla has said only that the car will be 20 percent smaller than the Model S and go for more than 200 miles on a charge when it arrives in 2017. The Bolt would also trump Chevy's own Spark, which is also fully electric, but only has a range of 82 miles. By comparison, the 200-mile range the Bolt is said to get would bring it closer to many gasoline-powered vehicles.

Both the Bolt project and its name shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, notes The Detroit News. GM filed to trademark the car's name in the US back in August, and its executives have been talking about a project to build a $30,000 electric car with 200 mile range since 2013.