Life with Chevy Bolt EV

[PV1]

This thread is split off from the Chevy Bolt Production Version thread, which mainly highlighted details from unveil to production start.

This thread is meant to report experiences and comparisons to the i-MiEV from owners/leasers.

 

[PV1]

I decided to purchase a new Chevy Bolt. It is an LT with quick charge, comfort and convenience package, and confidence package in Orange Burst Metallic.

I left the dealer with a full charge and 236 miles on the dash (regarding range, unless I specify otherwise, I'll use the median number, since the Bolt gives a Max, Min, and Average that all dynamically adjust). It was a 50 mile drive home, nearly all on the highway at 60-65 MPH. When I got home, I still had 210 miles left. After an 11 mile drive to work on main roads, I only used 4 miles (206 remaining). After driving all week and charging up over the weekend, I had a full charge range of 279 miles. After charging for the second time, I'll be enabling the Hilltop Reserve to extend battery life.

I'm loving L mode and the Regen paddle. I can judge distance to engage regen in L fairly well. The paddle still needs some getting used to, as the car slows down way faster than I anticipate (at least both L and the paddle engage brake lights). When I got off the highway the first night driving home, I didn't even touch the brake pedal, regen alone brought the car to a complete stop at the end of the ramp.

The headlights are great, though they are aimed a tad higher than I'd prefer. I should be able to adjust that, though. The tail lights are really neat, as is all exterior lighting on the car. The dome lights are very bright compared to the I-MiEV. No interior light addition is necessary.

The radio sounds good with full range and a deep sound. I'm still trying to find my way around the head unit. So far it seems fairly intuitive, except for the next/previous buttons on the steering wheel being backwards.

Cruise control is really smooth and keeps the speed right on without overshooting on the highway. I'll need to test this more on rolling hills on main roads.

As for why I bought the Bolt, although I explained this a bit in the Model X thread, is that I want to keep the I-MiEVs for a long time. While Koorz gets driven 3-4 days out of the week, it only does about a 5 mile round trip. I've had it two years and haven't put 6,000 miles on it yet. It will remain as a backup for me and for friends/family to drive. Bear was my daily driver up until now, getting 10,000-12,000 miles put on a year. The Bolt will become my daily driver to save miles on Bear, but I'll still drive it occasionally. Because it has the hitch receiver on it, I'll still need to drive it when I haul bikes around. The I-MiEV is still the car I'll take to many events. It may also still be my winter car; that depends on how the Bolt handles snow. As some members here know, a simple fender bender can total an i-MiEV

Overall, I'm impressed and astounded at how similar the Bolt and I-MiEV are, with the Bolt improving on most aspects especially range. It checks nearly every checkbox on the i-MiEV wishlist. It's exciting to think about all the places the Bolt can go to and back on electric without public charging. Hopefully I don't regret being one of the first in the Pittsburgh area to get one.

 

[Don]

Could you fill us in on some of the purchase details? What you paid, what discounts or rebates you were able to take advantage of and so forth

We also have two iMiEV's and are very interested in getting something which has a longer range for those occasional trips beyond the iMiEV's range. Being retired, I don't think any of the rebates would be available for us, as our taxable income isn't high enough to qualify for much, if any, of the federal rebate and Mississippi has no state program

I *think* if we had something like a Bolt, we would probably use it more like Joe is using his Tesla - Stored in the garage for those times we really need the extra range and it probably wouldn't change the miles we put on the iMiEV's much

Thanks!

Don

 

[PV1]

Sticker was $40,225. They got me supplier pricing and credited me the cost of the extra level 1 cord which I have no use for.

All said, the Bolt cost me about $39,000 out the door with taxes, fees, and extended warranty. Then we get home and find a paper in the mail from GM that knocks and additional $3,000 off, which I'm trying to get applied after the fact but no luck so far :evil: .

PA still has an EV rebate of $1,750, plus whatever I'd get of the FTC.

 

[JoeS]

...Then we get home and find a paper in the mail from GM that knocks and additional $3,000 off, which I'm trying to get applied after the fact but no luck so far :evil: ...

Ouch! :shock:

Been lurking on the mychevybolt forum and see that their threads also occasionally get derailed off-topic. Guess I'm old school as I distinguish between the randomness of social media postings vs. trying to maintain some type of structure on forums so we can hopefully find what was said at some point down the line. (sigh)

Anyway, PV1, a question for you: unlike the i-MiEV, the BoltEV's back seat does not fold completely flat (although it's pretty good compared to most other cars). Inasmuch as I keep my i-MiEV in 'station-wagon' mode almost all the time, with three containers wedged in directly behind the front seats, can you comment on the effects of that sloping floor and how it affects your ability to carry 'stuff'?

 

[pbui19]

thought I chime in. We got our BoltEV on Jan 1 and my daughter has been the main driver. My plan was to purchase the Bolt in the spring as there was a waiting list. We were at the dealer to test drive one and there was one available because the reservation was canceled. So we paid a little more for the pre-ordered: $800 or so for the Orange Burst color and the silly rear compartment shelf $100. Our final cost after all licensing/tax/credit/rebates would be about $35K, , including the $750 for the DCQC. We would get the federal $7500 credit next year upon filing 2017 tax.

It has about 12Kmiles now, that's a lot miles in 8 months. The driving will slow down in the coming months as she's going back to school. She just really loves the Bolt, but she has been eating up my solar production.

I am looking to finally get to drive it. A couple of pointers: the GM mobile app is kinda cool, it can control charging etc, but it can also give a rough location where the vehicle is (we didn't tell our daughter this feature); the 120vac charger, as similar to the Volt2, can be used as 240vac to get a level 1.5 amp, at around 3kw. Don't bother paying extra for navigation, as the infotainment system can be linked to your mobile phone and used for navigation

I have a few work travel trips coming up to Palmdale, about 365 miles away. There are enough CCS stations now along hwy 101 to get to LA. I usually stay at my sister in Culver City and commutes to Palmdale daily. Unfortunately her place does not have easy plug access. I really wish there is a Chamedo-CCS adaptor as there are a few Chamedo stations near by.

I haven't try to carry much cargo in the Bolt, but i think a hitch and an external luggage rack are in the future. It is just awesome to see the 200+ available range.

I am toying with the idea of morphing my 2014 iMiev to serve as power wall.

 

[pbui19]

Don - if you lease, you sort of indirectly get the fed tax credit, as the dealer includes the credit in the lease calculation

 

[PV1]

Right off the bat, you'll need the optional false cargo floor to get anywhere near a flat cargo floor. Although it is a window sticker option, it can be added later (just need to make sure you get the brackets).

The rear seats lay at about a 10 degree angle. The cavity is about the same depth and width, but not quite as tall.

Pbui, what's the average range your daughter's getting? My first charge advertised 279 miles, and this charge so far is adding up to 292 miles.

 

[sandange]

Congratulations PV1 ,
I can see how happy you are with the range improvement over the I Miev.
My brother traded his i 3 BMW with extender for his Bolt and loves it.
He usually gets 265 mile RR and is very happy with it.
Only problem is his wife keeps stealing it.

Keep us in the loop on how your experience pans out -
Curious minds want to know

 

[PV1]

Thanks. That's what this thread is for, to lay it all out.

The thing that's exciting about having a big battery isn't that I'm getting 200+ miles on a charge, it's that I'm doing so much better than the EPA rating, which seems to be pretty common with the Bolt. The only thing I can figure is they drove the car hard during testing. There's a picture on the Bolt forum showing 314 miles on a full charge.

That's one thing I knew but didn't really think about at first. A full recharge would absorb a full Summer's day of solar production :shock: , where the I-MiEV could recharge on less than what I generate on a rainy day. On the other hand, so far I'm only charging once a week :lol: .

Only problem is his wife keeps stealing it.

Where have we heard that before? :lol:

 

[pbui19]

I mis-quoted yesterday, my final cost was $32K for the LT after the $7500 fed, $2500 CA, PGE (electric util) $500. I've heard that the leather seat is not as comfortable due to the stiffer feel of the seat edges, digging into your legs.

PV1 - my daughter never really pays attention to her range, she just drives it. We also lives at 2200-ft elevation and always use the Hilltop charge stop which is about 90% SOC. When it gets hot here, I actually try to stop charge at 75%, albeit manually.

I do very much prefer the 6.6kw L2 charging than the iMiev/Volt2 lousy 3kw rate.

I've heard reports of people in LA getting 300-mile, given the traffic there.

 

[PV1]

I got my Eaton charging station wired for Bolt charging. 6/3 copper on a 50 amp breaker to handle that 7.2 kW charger. It fits nicely between the man door and garage door so it can reach the port on the front left fender.

It's nice to see the battery still charging while pre-conditioning. Speaking of that, you can simply power up the car while charging and use the HVAC while in the car without using remote functionality (good if you're car-camping at a charging station).

I set up departure charging so that the car holds off charging until it reaches a calculated start time in order to finish charging at a certain time. There is also a priority charge function that immediately takes the car to 40% if it's lower than that. Unlike the 1st gen Volt's (confusing) dash light, the charge status light blinks based on SoC. One blink at a time is 0-25%, two is 26-50%, three is 51-75%, and four blinks is 76-100% charge. A solid green light means fully charged.

 

[PV1]

I'm going back through this forum and trying to tally up wishlist and some standard items for the I-MiEV to compare to the Bolt.

Here's what I have so far (forum members with Dropbox accounts can add to it as well):

https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Bolt-and-I-MiEV-Comparison-k5eW5c2y2eTKula6yORxp

A blank box means not included/unavailable. An X marks that feature as standard.

 

[PV1]

I'm also pleased to share that the Bolt does not cause much, if any, driver fatigue. We went on a 170 mile drive yesterday, only getting out of the car once to try a quick charger and use the restroom, and it felt like we only went a few miles.

Cruising the highway at 65-70 MPH with the A/C on doesn't seem to make a big impact on range, as it's still calculating at least 20 miles over EPA. It's so nice to travel outside of my norm and not even worry about charging. That quick charger was broken and would've been game over in the i-MiEV as there is no other charging around it except campgrounds (then again, I would've likely not even attempted it in the i-MiEV unless PlugShare indicated it was stable).

 

[PV1]

Took the Bolt on a 524 mile drive yesterday.

The first leg of the trip was 166 miles, and when I stopped to charge I had 67 miles left for a total possible range of 233 miles. I charged up at a ChargePoint Express unit for just over an hour and got back to 90% charge (the Bolt counts down time to 80%, but it will keep going to full if you and the station let it).

Leaving the first stop, I continued to my destination and back to the same charger at a sum of 184 miles and arrived with 42 miles left. I charged up to around 90% again, this time with 231 miles of range and set off for home. The trip back was at speeds between 70-77 MPH depending on what traffic was running at, drafting other vehicles to keep a 20-mile margin between my Minimum range and distance to go. When I got home, I had 41 miles of range left, traveled 524 miles, and used 128.5 kWh at the battery. EVSE meters report a sum usage of 140 kWh, which include charging losses (overhead, charger losses at home, and battery cooling).

I'm nowhere near as fatigued as I was driving the Volt (or other ICE vehicle). I hardly had to adjust my driving for range (staying 5 MPH below the speed limit on the expressway except for about 5 miles of 10 MPH below when there was no other traffic to and from destination between charges). Having a windbreak allowed me to drive faster on the home stretch and not affect my range. However, I noticed something interesting. It seemed that the Bolt got better range at 65 MPH than it did at 60. When going at 60 MPH, the range coach was falling below the average range, but once I sped up to 65 MPH, it came back to the average range (this is a small bar that goes up or down depending on if you're doing better or worse than the average range calculation). Following another car, I could speed up from 70 to 75 MPH and not affect my range.

It was a long and boring trip, but doing it in the Bolt made it a much more pleasurable ride. As a final note, the regen paddle and one-pedal driving are amazing .

 

[JoeS]

PV1, thanks for the writeup. I think that less fatigue when long-distance EV driving (compared with ICE) stems from the silence, lack of vibration, and stops to recharge and stretch one's legs every 150 miles or so. I think that the 60mph vs. 65mph predicted range discrepancy you saw was perhaps due to a local anomaly (wind? slope?). Drafting a truck at 75mph probably results in better range than driving alone at 60mph (good math problem).

...drafting other vehicles to keep a 20-mile margin between my Minimum range and distance to go.

Isn't it wonderful that we have the instrumentation available to allow us to control this variable so easily!

As a final note, the regen paddle and one-pedal driving are amazing .

I had asked for these features on the Aptera forum ten years ago, and am really jealous! I hope that Tesla and all other EV manufacturers implement a paddle (or some other fingertip-control scheme), more regen options, and perhaps implement a cruise control which provides the option of constant power or constant speed or some blending of the two. That constant power option would do away with the incessant small surges and regens as the cruise control compensates for every road undulation. Now, if we could get it to mimic hypermiling by reducing power (coasting) without kicking in regen on every little downslope...

PV1, do you have Cruise Control on the BoltEV and have you used it much?

The BoltEV paddle is time-dependent: the longer you hold it the higher the regen. Edit: wrong - it's an on/off switch - see subsequent discussion. What if the amount of regen was dependent on how far you pull it toward you - I'm awfully curious why GM implemented the time-dependent rather than this distance scheme - anyone have any thoughts on this? It's a human-factors issue to accomplish the same end-result, the difference being is that one has a time delay whereas the other is instantaneous. My reason for asking is that I drove my hacked Insight for almost ten years with a joystick whereby the amount of regen (or electric motor applied power) was proportional to how far I pushed or pulled the joystick.

 

[PV1]

I think the lack of fatigue is mostly due to low frequency rumble and vibration (I know, arguably the same thing) caused by the ICE. I'm not sure how much of a role stopping and charging plays. I drove straight home from the charger. In the Volt, I did the same drive but with a gas stop in the middle.

I really like how the car gives 3 values for range and shows a graphical bar that moves toward either extreme based on driving versus a single number that moves all over the place. It's much easier and quicker to judge any gains or loss in efficiency. As for the 60 to 65 difference, I thought it could be slope, but the timing was too convenient that range improved immediately after accelerating and stayed that way for the next 30-40 miles.

As for the regen paddle, I haven't noticed any time-dependency. It seems to engage the strongest regen available and hold it there. What might contribute to the time-dependent feel is the fact that a flat 70 kW of regen makes up more of the kinetic energy as you slow down, and thus causes harder deceleration as speed drops. Regen power actually decreases as speed decreases, but the strength gets stronger.

Holding the paddle and floating the throttle pedal will accomplish variable strength regen. In most situations, I think it's best for the paddle to immediately engage full-strength regen (yes, it eases into it over less than .5 seconds and doesn't slam you into the steering wheel :lol: ). There were several instances yesterday where I needed to slow down quickly and could do so without touching the brake pedal.

Yes, it has cruise control and I use it mostly on highways. Regardless of drive mode, cruise acts similar to L mode, where it will use as much regen as necessary to maintain speed (D mode is limited to 15 kW or so of regen unless you pull the paddle or push the brake pedal).

 

[JoeS]

Hi PV1, thank you for correcting my perception of the paddle. What you're saying is that it is an on/off switch, and the amount of braking effect (retardation using regeneration) is simply a function of vehicle speed and which mode is selected. I'd go to the Chevy dealer for another test drive to play with it some more, but don't want to raise the salesperson's hopes.

 

[PV1]

Yes, the paddle is on/off. With no pedal input and pulling the paddle, you're getting as much regen as the motor can generate, all the way to a stop, regardless of which drive mode you're in. If you want, you can modulate paddle regen strength with the throttle pedal if you need something in between L and full regen, but I tend to just pulse the paddle.

What's cool is that if you stop the car with the paddle in Drive, creep stays off until you tap the throttle pedal. However, Drive keeps creep engaged if you use the brake pedal to stop.

The annoying thing is that most of this is disabled unless the driver has their seatbelt fastened. If you're at a stop in L mode and unbuckle your seat belt, the car applies the parking brake. If you release the parking brake and continue to drive without a seatbelt, you lose one-pedal driving as creep mode is turned on in L. If you're creeping along in L and buckle your seat belt, creep turns off and one-pedal is restored. A few people on the Bolt forum (I've had mine do it once) report that creep in L without a seatbelt also causes the car to lug (it pulses power/regen back and forth) once it's rolling.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

We just got our Bolt EV about 2 weeks ago. In general, it is wonderful. Two EV-centric niggles: no light in the charging port, and no coasting in D.

We are a tall family, and we fit in the Bolt EV better than any other car (let alone any other EV!), so there's that. It is the longest range EV that we can afford - it is expensive, but with the incentives we get, we can do it.

It is practical - we require a hatchback. It is nimble. One general niggle: on some bumps cause a noticeable jounce, that may be a from a slight under-dampening in the rear suspension?

Having an EV with this much range - is a revelation! Even with the "hilltop reserve" setting, we see a range of ~290 miles. Which is amazing.