【18 U.S.C 2257】

America's nascent electric car industry got a major shot in the arm Tuesday8 U.S.C 2257 when Chevrolet revealed that its forthcoming Bolt EV has been rated by the EPA: It will officially be able to drive 238 miles on a single charge.

That number is none too shabby considering that Elon Musk's Tesla, the current electric market leader, got to 208 miles in its EPA rating for the Model S sedan. (Both cars boast a 60 kw/h battery.) Musk has said that Tesla's next car, the Model 3, is aiming for at least 215 miles of range.

"The Bolt EV is a game changer for the electric car segment," said General Motors North America President Alan Batey in a statement. He also promised that the 2017 Bolt "will start to become available at Chevrolet dealerships later this year."

That's the closest the company has come to an official launch date for the $37,500 Bolt, but it is expected to arrive roughly a year ahead of the $35,000 Tesla Model 3, which has a waiting list more than 300,000 buyers strong. Both numbers are before federal and state tax credit deductions, which should knock at least $7,500 off the price.

GM says the Bolt will also be launched in Europe, marketed as the Opel Ampera-e, at some point in 2017. (The Bolt is not to be confused with the Chevy Volt, a gas and electric hybrid car.)

Chevy has pursued an aggressive launch schedule and savvy media strategy for the Bolt. It was unveiled in concept form, to much surprise and fanfare, a mere 21 months ago at the Detroit International Auto show.

It then entered pre-production in March 2016, a week ahead of the Tesla Model 3's official announcement event. The Model 3 isn't expected to hit its pre-production milestone until late 2017.

Chevy has also been careful to under-promise the Bolt's range, saying only that it would likely exceed 200 miles. On Monday, the automaker started asking its fans on Facebook to guess what the Bolt's official EPA estimated range would be. Very few offered a number above 220, let alone 238.

The Bolt EV also received an unexpected boost last week when Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, universally known as Woz, declared that the Bolt EV "may replace" his Tesla Model S. So much for Silicon Valley veterans supporting the local team.

Meanwhile GM's chief executive engineer, Pam Fletcher, told a conference late last week that the Bolt EV would receive its software updates over the air, in the next year or so. Over-the-air updates are standard on the Tesla Model S.

For comparison, regular gasoline-powered cars rarely achieve a range of more than 400 miles on a single tank, assuming 30 miles per gallon. The average American driver commutes roughly 40 miles in a day, meaning they'd get a full work week of travel out of the Bolt EV before they had to plug it in.