Despite the fevered arguments of conspiracy theorists and the sort of people we can only refer to as drooling wackos, General Motors’ infamous decision to kill its first electric car was entirely rational. The EV1 proved comprehensively that in the mid-1990s, an era when gas frequently dropped below a buck a gallon, the world was not ready for combustion-free mobility.

Twenty years on, gas is still relatively cheap and we’ve still not reached the ion-fueled future The Jetsons promised, but we’re getting closer. The Chevrolet Bolt touches down in a different world, one that is edging toward the point where EVs start to make sense to people other than the sort of folk who campaign against cruelty to fruit. The Bolt isn’t an excuse-free electric car, but it earns its place on the 10Best list by being the one that comes closest to rebutting two of the biggest criticisms that have been levied against the genre: expense and range.

“The Bolt is GM’s iPhone. It’s not perfect, but it is a significant and sly agent of change.” —Mike Sutton, senior online editor

The Bolt was also the only EV in this year’s test. We would love to tell you how it compared with the pricier and glitzier Tesla Model S, but despite our repeated requests, Tesla refused to supply us with a car and thereby failed to defend its 10Best berth. We’ve since changed our cologne and started to chew mints.

The Bolt is inexpensive but still a pricier proposition than conventional internal-combustion rivals, arriving at its $29,995 price tag only after the $7500 federal EV tax credit gets factored in.

View Photos TOM SALT, MICHAEL SIMARI

So although it’s still a ways off a conventional Volkswagen Golf or Chevy Cruze on a cost-benefit analysis, it has redefined its own part of the market. It offers more than twice the range of even the bigger-batteried versions of the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3. If GM had produced a Corvette that could go twice as fast as a GT-R or a Porsche 911, you’d be impressed, right?

The Bolt delivers, too. We’d already beaten its 238-mile EPA ­rating on a coastal California drive in a prototype before this production-spec Bolt came to play, but its arrival at our campsite still triggered an unseemly scramble from our judges. We were drawn to its novelty, but many of us were also motivated by the experience of EVs in previous years that started to run short of charge long before we started debating what to have for lunch. Would the Bolt fizzle out, too? Despite a week of scientifically applied abuse, ­dozens of laps of the test loop, and several trips farther afield, the Bolt never ran short of juice, needing only to be recharged each night. You can pretty much whale on it and still expect 180 miles from the e-tank, although faster cruising does gobble charge. (Yes, we did confirm the presence of a 93-mph speed limiter.)

View Photos TOM SALT, MICHAEL SIMARI

The driving experience is painless, in much the same way local anesthesia is. And though the Bolt is no Aventador, it is amusingly different than a conventional car. All the EV hallmarks are here: effortless off-the-line acceleration, a monorail soundtrack, and the running-into-molasses sensation of regenerative braking when you lift off the right pedal (provided the Bolt is in its maxi-harvesting “low” drive mode). It’s certainly quick at 6.5 seconds to 60 mph. That’s not Tesla-fast, but it is more than enough poke to make the Nissan Leaf feel like a glorified golf cart. With the Bolt’s arrival, the Leaf pretty much is.

TOM SALT, MICHAEL SIMARI

The Bolt battery pack’s 60-kWh capacity means it’s big, constituting 960 pounds of the Bolt’s overall 3569-pound curb weight. That makes the car heavier than both the Leaf and the carbon-bodied i3, but about 750 pounds lighter than the elephantine Tesla Model S 60. The Bolt doesn’t feel so portly in everyday use, riding well and handling with tidy if disinterested precision.

And it is refined: Once the motor whine fades, the cabin is almost silent. But there’s no appetite for faster progress; the Chevy’s eco tires struggle to find traction to match enthusiastic deployment of the motor’s 266 pound-feet of peak torque. The lateral-grip limits are similarly modest, with excess speed in slower corners causing the Bolt to understeer like a puppy on a freshly waxed floor. We’re already lobbying for an SS version rolling on Michelin Pilot Super Sports.

View Photos TOM SALT, MICHAEL SIMARI

The Bolt’s purity of purpose came into focus when the car was pitted against the two hybrids that visited 10Best this year: versions of the Chevrolet Malibu and Honda Accord sedans. Both of these part-electrics made the first cut, but they’re fence sitters that haven’t gained much of anything from hybridization beyond fractional increases in real-world fuel economy. The Accord feels slightly heavier and less wieldy than its sweet-handling four-cylinder sister and suffers from a hybrid arrangement that makes its engine sound like a food blender when asked to deliver acceleration. The Malibu hybrid turns effortless into bland, its unexceptional competence confirming that GM’s engineering A-team was focused on the pure-electric side of the fence. We’re increasingly convinced that electrification needs its own wheels, its own dedicated platform, rather than continuing to borrow the keys to dad’s sedan.

Design is where our opinions on the Bolt divided. The Korean-penned styling had both fans and haters, but the most-asked ­question was why GM chose to launch its brave new electric architecture in the guise of a geeky hatchback rather than one of those crossovers people are lining up to buy. The cabin is practical and spacious enough, although we found the roofline too low in back. The interior materials feel tough and durable but not upmarket. Inside, it feels closer to $20,000 than $30,000, but it’s easy to do the math on that one. GM has disclosed that it’s paying LG $145 per kWh for battery cells, meaning the 60-kWh lump is responsible for $8700 of the car’s cost. And that’s before you consider the price of the motor, the transaxle, the wiring, and the cooling system.

The Bolt is a car that inspires respect rather than poetry. Its presence here is justified on the strength of its engineering rather than its looks or performance numbers. It advances the EV game further than anything since the launch of the Model S. Like every pure-electric vehicle, it requires compromise—you could fly from L.A. to Europe in less time than it takes to replenish the battery pack from empty using a household 110-volt socket. Yet the Bolt is irrefutably a landmark car, as sensible as you’d expect an electron-powered Chevrolet to be, and welcome proof that established auto­makers can indeed make class-leading electric vehicles.

2017 10Best Cars: Return to Overview

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