Arguably the Model 3 is not a high end luxury car either, not priced at $35k. The Bolt is a direct competitor to the Model 3 with first-mover advantage.
The only argument against that is one has a badge that says "Chevrolet" and the other says "Tesla". If the Model 3 didn't have the Tesla name, no one would think anything of it. It'd just be yet another compact electric car, yawn, who cares, and then they'd buy the Chevrolet.
I'd say that the model 3 is comparable (in price also) to the BMW 320i.
The Chevrolet Bolt is similar in price, but I think somebody making a comparison between a BMW and a Chevy would be similarly mistaken. BMW and Tesla are luxury car manufacturer. Chevrolet isn't.
IMHO, the bolt is overpriced. It's a crossover SUV from a manufacturer that is known for making low cost, high-volume cars. It looks like it is most similar to the Chevy Trax, which starts at $21,000.
The Bolt is GM's first practical EV. If it succeeds, GM could easily choose to compete in the luxury EV market against Tesla.
If GM decided to do this, it would have many advantages over Tesla: a huge dealership and service network, lots of suppliers, easy financing, and all of the other perks you get when you buy a "normal" car from an established company.
Tesla aims to have razor thin margins for the thing that they actually produce. So their lack of dealers who supply an automatic mark-up is something that they cite as a strength, not a weakness.
The thing that Tesla is producing, however, is really expensive to build right now. The cost curves are great for it to come down, but until they do they are in the ironic business of selling expensive things with thin margins.
GM would find it harder than it thinks to compete against Tesla with an equivalent product. Just as Tesla is running into challenges scaling up production.
> So their lack of dealers who supply an automatic mark-up is something that they cite as a strength, not a weakness.
They don't have an automatic mark-up, but car dealers also operate on razor thin margins (the real money is in service and trade ins). However dealers pay their own rent and even spend money advertising. Tesla is on the hook for all of its dealerships, a significant cost that its competitors don't have. In the end I don't think it's such a game changer. It makes sense for Tesla, but doesn't magically make things cheaper.
It also makes it easier to service your car. If you own a Tesla and need warranty service, and you live in middle America, you may have a long drive ahead of you. If you own a Chevy, it's rarely a problem.
