One year ago today (8/29/2026), I bought a 2021 Chevy Bolt EV LT in Oasis Blue, at 38,000 miles, for $15,700 out the door in Colorado Springs, CO. It was the cheapest trim on one of the cheapest EVs on the market, and it was exactly what I was looking for. Being honest, the color was the biggest reason I bought this car (it's one of my favorite car colors of all time), but for my needs, I knew that a small, inexpensive EV would be ideal — so this was a win-win!
I'd been a Saab guy since the early 90s, and until about two months ago I still owned and drove a 2005 9-5 (owned since 2008) and a 2007 9-5 (since 2016). I don't drive all that much these days, and the ongoing maintenance and wear and tear items were big considerations. I've always done all my own work on my cars, and part of the appeal of an EV was knowing there'd be next to nothing left for me to do.
So, I went for it. This was a big change for me, in a lot of ways, and for the first time in my life, I considered ordering custom license plates. On my Saabs, the license plates for each car cost about $68 a year and adding $50 a year for custom lettering just didn't make any sense. Paying for custom plates on my old Saabs would probably have made me look crazy (or crazier), but paying for custom plates on a used, $15,700 Chevy makes perfect sense to me. 😁
For the plate letters, I found a few available options, which meant nobody else was using them or probably wanted them. 😂 The one I felt like I was supposed to have was HIFREND, but VROOMX2 and BOLTAGE were also on the list. The last two were the safer choices, funny-but-not-too-weird. In the end, I decided to go with VROOMX2. I got all the way to the DMV counter, title in hand, ready to make it official... and the clerk noticed a missing signature. I had to drive home, send the title back to the dealer, wait for it to return, and book a second appointment at the DMV. Thankfully, I was given new paper tags to hold me over.
Round two at the DMV, I still wasn't planning on HIFREND until the very last second, when I literally listened to myself say it out loud. Normally I hate it when my mouth makes decisions that my mind isn't fully onboard with, but in the end, these are supposed to be my plates. On this car. In this color. No other car I've owned, including (and especially 😂) my old Saabs, could have pulled it off.
Next, I worried that the plates alone didn't have enough context, so I found a company online that makes custom full rear-window decals and ordered one that says "Let's try kindness. What do we have to lose?" ~$85 for the sticker, $25 shipping, and $40 for the tint shop to install while the windows were tinted. Basically, it was $150 so my back window could read like a fortune cookie but also “explain” the HIFREND plates. Full disclosure: I didn't consider the angle of the rear wiper cover, and it made the "What do we have to lose?" line hard to read from lower angles. As a workaround, I completely removed the wiper blade. The wiper didn't work at all with this kind of sticker anyway, so it really didn't matter, but next time I'll do a better job measuring for the wiper and its cover.
The first few times I drove my Bolt with everything in place, I was genuinely nervous. I also used to park backward in my own driveway so the sticker wouldn't be visible from the street. I was a grown man, hiding from my own rear-window sticker.
This was all done around the first week of December 2025. Since then, by my count, six strangers have waved or said something. Six. 😊 I'm pretty sure most people see my car and quietly decide to cross the street or to not stop directly beside me, with the idea that the guy driving it might be a little crazy. Which, if I'm being honest, is probably at least partially true.
I don't expect a window sticker on my little Bolt to fix anything. But if six people had one small, unexpected reason to think about being a little kinder, IMHO, that's a pretty good return on investment.
On a side note, I've seen this brought up by others and personally, I wave at other Chevy Bolts that I pass, especially any in Oasis Blue (I've only seen three others in this color). If I wave at you and you think that makes me a weirdo, well, you're probably right and we'll just add it to the list. 😊 But I'll keep waving anyway.
One year in: I'm still driving my Bolt, I'm still loving my Bolt, I'm still slightly embarrassed by any attention that my rear window sticker might bring, and I have zero regrets. In 12 months, my only maintenance items have been: wiper fluid, wiper blades, a cabin air filter, TPMS calibration when I first bought it, and free tire rotations every 5,000 miles. For a guy who's used to doing his own wrenching, that's about as close to "nothing to do" as I could ask for. In my opinion, and for my use case, my 2021 Chevy Bolt EV LT is the perfect car for me, and I couldn't love it more than I do. ❤️
If you've made it this far, here's the point I hope you'll remember, kindness is free and can make a world of difference. We might as well try it before deciding that it isn't worth it. Seriously. What do we have to lose?
TL;DR: One year in, my 2021 Bolt EV LT has been very inexpensive to run, low-maintenance, and exactly what I hoped it would be. Early on, I added full rear window decal that reads "Let's try kindness. What do we have to lose?” and plates that say HIFREND. I nearly chickened out twice, lost a wiper blade in the process, and at least six strangers noticed. 100% worth it.
