Well, That was easy.

Twenty years and a million tears after General Motors’ GM, -0.13% senior scientists built a fleet of nimble, lovable all-electric cars (the EV1) and then crushed them -- an episode told in Chris Paine’s film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” -- GM has delivered the world’s first affordable, long-range EV, the Chevrolet Bolt, with an EPA-estimated range of 238 miles and an MSRP of $37,495, before the $7,500 federal tax credit.

Now read: GM earnings: Will driverless-car, ride-sharing investments pay off?

GM reached this mark a few months sooner than industry pioneer Tesla TSLA, -3.46% , which is only now ramping up production of its Model 3 compact sedan to satisfy some 450,000 preorders. The Bolt -- a compact four-door, five-seat hatchback, assembled at the Orion plant near Detroit -- offers about the same range and acceleration as reported for Model 3 with the standard battery (50 kWh) and a bit more cargo flexibility, owing to the hatch design.

The situation is ironic, since building a mass-market EV has been Tesla boss Elon Musk’s goal all along, whereas GM management had to be dragged to it, kicking and screaming. But there is value in being first. Wait-times for new orders of the Model 3 stretch from 12 to 18 months. While no raving beauty -- rather like a glass boot -- the Bolt is certainly good enough to peel some off the Tesla waiting list. If nothing else they can lease the Chevy until their Model 3 arrives.

Obviously, these machines have very different pedigrees -- Tesla the disrupter, GM the disrupted -- and hold out contrasting owner narratives. The Bolt doesn’t reinvent GM’s wheel entirely. My butt could tell those seats blindfolded. Also, in our $43,905 Premier test car, the driver’s door’s inner seam wasn’t quite plumb. They do that to make me crazy.

See also: How to buy a $35,000 brand-new electric car for under $14,000

But the Bolt is a hell of a car, the quickest soulless appliance you could ask for, an absolute hoot in the sack. It dominates the BMW i3 and the Nissan Leaf, with more room, more power and more range. That’s amazing when you think about it: Nissan sank an entire year’s worth of R&D, $6 billion, tooling up for the Leaf. If the Bolt team had been given $6 billion they could have made it fly.

What made the difference? At the risk of being reductive, the falling cost of automotive-grade lithium batteries. And while the Bolt’s liquid-cooled battery pack certainly boasts some respectable numbers, volts- and amps-wise, mostly it’s just big: 60 kWh sandwiched between the floorboards. The Bolt is all about the battery.

While they were flirting with innovation, the designers worked to keep the human interface familiar. Unlike Tesla products, the Bolt waits for the driver to press the start button before the instrument panels bloom (the Tesla unlocks as you approach and lights up when you touch it). The Bolt’s gear selector is conventional in position and operation (you have to remember to press the P for park button). It’s not nearly as fun as the BMW i3 gear selector, like turning the right bolt in Frankenstein’s neck.

At a stop, if you release the Bolt’s brake the car will start creeping forward, as if it had an engine and automatic transmission. As owners become more familiar with regenerative braking -- one-pedal operation, whereby the car slows when you lift the e-throttle -- they can slip the gear selector into L mode. One-pedal operation is more intuitive and safer than conventional foot controls and is one of the benefits of EVs.

But after my first week with the Bolt, I would say the Bolt’s primary innovation is emotional. It’s the Prozac of range anxiety.

Your humble correspondent is learning as I go. I had a Level 2 charger installed at my house this year; the Bolt is the first test car to get home-charging treatment. At 240 volts/32 amps, the Bolt can acquire 25 miles of range per hour of charging, amounting to a full charge overnight. At a fast-charge station (480 volts) those figures are 90 miles of range in 30 minutes, but that requires the optional fast-charge hardware ($750).

Not being the fretful sort, I didn’t think I suffered from range anxiety, the fear of being stranded on the road with a flat battery. Even in EVs with less than 100 miles range, the charging duties seemed manageable. But, in retrospect, those ever-dwindling states of charge were never far from my mind, always in the corner of my eye. I never registered this gloom until it was lifted.

The Bolt’s +200-mile range puts it beyond the nagging agues of range anxiety. I drove more than 170 miles in a day last week, mostly highway miles between 70 and 80 mph, with no apprehension. Just as important, the Bolt’s long legs means the average owner can skip several days between charges. If I owned a Bolt, I’d plug in about as often as I take the family van to the gas station now. And the bathrooms at home are cleaner.

The Bolt’s mighty electron reserves change the experience fundamentally. It’s amazing how much fun EVs are when you’re not worried sick about running out of juice.

What follows only sounds controversial but it’s not: For a general audience, electric vehicles will offer a better driving experience than cars with internal-combustion engines. It’s in the nature of the mechanism, which dispenses with the trembling gas-fired whirligig under the hood, the transmission, gas tank and tailpipes, in favor of a murmuring electric motor(s), a single gearset, soft-singing voltage controllers and low-slung batteries.

For example, auto makers spend millions of development dollars keeping engine noise, vibration and harshness away from the cabin, lately including exotica like active noise cancellation, dynamic engine mounts and damping flywheels in the transmission. The Bolt doesn’t have any of that and at 70 mph it was so quiet in the cabin I could hear my wristwatch ticking, and my hearing ain’t all that good.

It’s also quiet on the outside. I’m afraid I surprised a squirrel.

Efficiency? The energy content of a gallon of gas is about 33 kWh, which means that the Bolt travels 238 miles on the equivalent of less than two gallons of gas (128/110/119 mpg-e, city/highway/combined.)

Did somebody say acceleration? The Bolt is as good as its name. From a standstill, and hampered by its low-rolling-resistance tires, the Bolt hits 60 mph in less than 6.5 seconds, officially. But once it’s rolling, say, between 20 and 60 mph, the Bolt is outrageously, throw-your-head-back quick, stealthy and spontaneous. With 266 lb-ft of torque on hair-trigger alert, this little family car squirts past slower cars like a Subaru WRX STI, except nobody thinks it’s an air raid. The Bolt should come with a traffic attorney on retainer.

As with other such EVs, the battery pack (960 pounds) imbues the Bolt with a low center of gravity, which is all the more palpable from the elevated perch of the driver seat. The low C-of-G does nice things for the Bolt’s standard-issue small-car suspension (struts in front and torsion-bar rear), like lead in a keel. With its low CofG and minimal body roll, the Bolt gives and gives in corners until the tires chirp their surrender.

That, right . . . there . . . is gasoline’s Achilles’ heel: the comparative user experience. In the end, it will not matter how much the Big Oil spends propagandizing against electric cars or if gasoline goes back to 30 cents a gallon. Gainsayers need only run down to a Chevrolet dealership and drive, back to back, dollar for dollar, one of the company’s anodyne family haulers and the Bolt. Which one is quieter, more refined, quicker around town (much!), with better ride and handling? Which one feels like the future and the past?

This column originally appeared at WSJ.com.