Bolt Range Issue

[Jian]

I got a new Bolt and was told it would go 259 miles on a full charge. But it's not even doing that. It keeps losing range, even after charging in a warm garage. The dealer says it's because of the cold weather and my driving, but I don't think that's right. I drive the same way every day, and it's still getting worse.

 

[Drey]

I remember when I first got my Bolt, the range didn’t quite match the advertised 259 miles either, and I was convinced something was wrong. I kept it charged in a warm garage and drove pretty consistently, yet the range kept dropping.

The dealer pointed to cold weather and my driving habits, too, and it felt like a brush-off at first. But after some digging, I found that colder temps really do impact range more than I'd thought. Heating the cabin alone uses a lot of energy, and even the battery itself doesn’t perform as efficiently in the cold. Over time, as I adjusted, it stabilized a bit more. It can be frustrating, but I did notice improvements with slightly warmer temps and small tweaks to cabin settings.

 

[tim-c]

Do you charge it to 100% every night? If so, that can reduce the capacity of the battery over time. I charge mine to 80% overnight and only do a full charge the night before a longer trip.

I'm not sure if older Bolts allow you to set max charge, but my 2022 does.

 

[BillM]

Weather impacts the range estimate quite a bit. My 2017 Bolt doesn’t allow picking a specific charge-end percent, but has a setting called Hilltop Reserve which equates to 90%. I use that in combination with the Location Based Charging setting to normally limit the charge when I am parked at home, Hopefully that will help the battery last longer.

Summer range estimates at 90% are often close to 300 miles. Most recently when I drove the Bolt, the estimate was 209 miles.

The range estimate seems to be a combination of outside temperature, the previous 50 miles of efficiency data and whether the HVAC is turned on. My experience has been that the estimate is usually pretty close to reality.

My efficiency since a firmware update reset the data about 20K miles ago is 4.5 miles/KWH. I feel like that is pretty good.

 

[Joe Cherra]

I remember when I first got my Bolt, the range didn’t quite match the advertised 259 miles either, and I was convinced something was wrong. I kept it charged in a warm garage and drove pretty consistently, yet the range kept dropping.

The dealer pointed to cold weather and my driving habits, too, and it felt like a brush-off at first. But after some digging, I found that colder temps really do impact range more than I'd thought. Heating the cabin alone uses a lot of energy, and even the battery itself doesn’t perform as efficiently in the cold. Over time, as I adjusted, it stabilized a bit more. It can be frustrating, but I did notice improvements with slightly warmer temps and small tweaks to cabin settings.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Another thing is cruising speed. I found that my range drops 5 miles for every 5 mph you drive above 55 mph. DOT was correct back in 1970 when they dropped the speed limit to 55 mph

 

[tim-c]

Another thing is cruising speed. I found that my range drops 5 miles for every 5 mph you drive above 55 mph. DOT was correct back in 1970 when they dropped the speed limit to 55 mph

YES! Wind resistance is the enemy! In windy Iowa, a tail wind helps me tremendously. I also take back roads (55mph speed limit) when I'm not in a hurry. On the interstate where I set my cruise to 72mph, I get about 3.5 miles per Kwh. If I'm going 60mph on 2 lane county roads, I get 4+ miles. As we all know, running the cabin heater sucks electrons! For me, it subtracts about 1 mile per Kwh in the bitter cold (below freezing).

The new Bolts are supposed to use a heat pump instead of resistive heating elements for cabin heat. That should help quite a bit. I'm thinking about a Equinox EV just for that improvement.

 

[Joe Cherra]

YES! Wind resistance is the enemy! In windy Iowa, a tail wind helps me tremendously. I also take back roads (55mph speed limit) when I'm not in a hurry. On the interstate where I set my cruise to 72mph, I get about 3.5 miles per Kwh. If I'm going 60mph on 2 lane county roads, I get 4+ miles. As we all know, running the cabin heater sucks electrons! For me, it subtracts about 1 mile per Kwh in the bitter cold (below freezing).

The new Bolts are supposed to use a heat pump instead of resistive heating elements for cabin heat. That should help quite a bit. I'm thinking about a Equinox EV just for that improvement.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Minnesota has the law slowpoke law and I am required to use the slow lane. I do 60 because I'm bad at calculating arrival times at 55 or 65. So I forgot 5 "MPH".
I'm thinking of putting an Amish triangle
on my trunk.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Don't forget Friction . Every car, truck and semi that passes,at 75 or 80 screams as the asphalt or concrete tips at their tires. The next time you travel put your hand on the tire and feel the warmth.

 

[CJIMI]

My range record on my 2020 Bolt Premier was 270 miles on a single charge. I drove from my home, west of Philadelphia, to Rhode Island. When I crossed over from Connecticut to Rhode Island on I-95, I pulled into a Park and Ride Station, operated by the Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation. They had 2 x 65 Kw free fast chargers. I plugged in for about a half hour, which gave me more than enough range to reach my final destination in Cape Cod, MA.
The weather was pretty warm, so I had the A/C on most of the time. Traffic, especially on I-95 between the New York state line and New Haven, CT was very slow.

Keep your tire pressure at 40 PSI, and keep your speed under 65 mph. That will maximize your range. Not much that you can do, however, in very cold temperatures. Cold weather really kills your range.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Do you charge it to 100% every night? If so, that can reduce the capacity of the battery over time. I charge mine to 80% overnight and only do a full charge the night before a longer trip.

I'm not sure if older Bolts allow you to set max charge, but my 2022 does.

It hasn't changed my battery on my 2017. In fact my battery's averaging 4.1 miles per KWH. I've been to Cape Canaveral, Glacier National Park, The Rockies and Mt Rushmore. Last check, I've got 10100 miles on the odometer

 

[ClarD]

YES! Wind resistance is the enemy!

Not only the road speed, but the wind speed.

We have an 800 mile round trip that we have done several times in our 2023 Bolt EUV LT.
We used ABRP the first few times. At first to find reasonable stops, and later to keep an eye on the actual battery SOC, and with the paid plan, we could use it for navigation as well, which we also didn't need, except for one place where I tend to miss my exit in each direction (I forget about freeways that didn't exist 30 years ago).

There is one stretch from Santa Maria, CA to Prunedale, CA, where we like to charge.
Prunedale on the north side, because we can get to and from home, and Santa Maria because we can get to Santa Barbara and back.

It's 169 miles between the charging locations. We've done that several times. We could charge at different locations, but these two work out.
Except for last weekend.
Coming north from Santa Maria, we left with an indicated 206 miles. Cool. Plenty of extra.
But then there was the steep climb, where the difference between Google Map miles to the destination, and the range estimate started to shrink.
No biggie, that happens, and then either a plateau, or maybe some downhill, this looks normal so far.
Somewhere after Paso Robles, I realized that I had less than 20 miles of extra range, and I wasn't recovering. I was down to 3.2 miles/kWh on the day's reset, instead of the 3.8 or 3.9 I expect. I had been driving at 68 MPH. I dropped to 65.
I passed King City without too much trepidation, with 10 miles to spare, and I maintained 65 MPH.
Only 56 miles to go to Prunedale. But, in the stretch between King City and Salinas, my range was dropping. Now I was down to 6 extra miles, and the Bolt starts nagging if you do that.
Plugshare app "Nearby", showing on Android Auto, shows no stations in a 10 mile radius.When the range bars turned orange at 30 miles, I dropped my speed to 60.
Out here in the agricultural valley, I could see the dust storms blowing around, but I really couldn't feel them. Maybe it was head on.
When "Charge soon" came on with a remaining range of 20 miles, I was 15 miles from Prunedale, and Plugshare still showed nothing nearby.
I knew there were stations in Salinas, so I got off at the first exit, and pulled up Plugshare on my phone. No Internet. I thought that was not too surprising out in the rural area, but I was probably mistaken. There should have been coverage.

We saw a Love's Travel Stop. My wife suggested that they would have WiFi.
As I pulled into the lot, I saw four Chargepoint Chargers!

Still no Internet... Airplane Mode on and off and I had 5G Internet, with Plugshare showing the Salinas stations that I expected, but the ones that I could see in this Love's parking lot showed unavailable. They are yellow tagged with wire seals, State of California, "Unapproved Device".

There was one Ioniq charging. He had planned to go another twenty miles to Gilroy, but said he was taking a 20% hit on range because of the wind. We were losing about 15%. I plugged in another charger and started the charge from the Chargepoint App. I noticed that someone had cut the seal wire.
We went inside to eat, and charged to 90%. The wind had subsided, and we had 50 mile range when we got home.

If I had been monitoring ABRP Live Data with the paid plan which I have, ABRP includes weather. The free plan includes elevation changes, so the uphill stretch wouldn't have been an excuse for the unexpectedly short range. I wonder if it would have made a prediction that accounted for the wind. I probably would have ignored it, since I knew where we were going.

After that trip, I started poking the Android Auto Plugshare app as I passed anything that looked like a small commercial interchange to check for nearby stations. There are a lot of stations spread along US 101. I used one recently and had lunch in a small town. Before we got the Bolt, we stopped at one off-ramp for gas and a meal. There was also a Chargepoint charger. That was about it on a 10 mile stretch of side road. A Chevron gas station, a charger and a restaurant.

ABRP has gotten much better about indicating stations on the Android Auto map, but I still don't trust them. They used to only show EA stations. The ABRP interface is also pretty difficult to manage. Detours are not easily accommodated.

 

[stamas]

I remember when I first got my Bolt, the range didn’t quite match the advertised 259 miles either, and I was convinced something was wrong. I kept it charged in a warm garage and drove pretty consistently, yet the range kept dropping.

The dealer pointed to cold weather and my driving habits, too, and it felt like a brush-off at first. But after some digging, I found that colder temps really do impact range more than I'd thought. Heating the cabin alone uses a lot of energy, and even the battery itself doesn’t perform as efficiently in the cold. Over time, as I adjusted, it stabilized a bit more. It can be frustrating, but I did notice improvements with slightly warmer temps and small tweaks to cabin settings.

I have never seen the Bolt advertised as having a range of 259 miles! Wow! Maybe you have an older model... mine is a 2023 Bolt EUV... with an advertised range of . I regularly charge to 92% and when charging is done... have a range of 270+ miles. However I am diving into what I think is the safety margin... theoretically the most conservative advice is to charge to 80%... as I am sure you are aware.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Not only the road speed, but the wind speed.

We have an 800 mile round trip that we have done several times in our 2023 Bolt EUV LT.
We used ABRP the first few times. At first to find reasonable stops, and later to keep an eye on the actual battery SOC, and with the paid plan, we could use it for navigation as well, which we also didn't need, except for one place where I tend to miss my exit in each direction (I forget about freeways that didn't exist 30 years ago).

There is one stretch from Santa Maria, CA to Prunedale, CA, where we like to charge.
Prunedale on the north side, because we can get to and from home, and Santa Maria because we can get to Santa Barbara and back.

It's 169 miles between the charging locations. We've done that several times. We could charge at different locations, but these two work out.
Except for last weekend.
Coming north from Santa Maria, we left with an indicated 206 miles. Cool. Plenty of extra.
But then there was the steep climb, where the difference between Google Map miles to the destination, and the range estimate started to shrink.
No biggie, that happens, and then either a plateau, or maybe some downhill, this looks normal so far.
Somewhere after Paso Robles, I realized that I had less than 20 miles of extra range, and I wasn't recovering. I was down to 3.2 miles/kWh on the day's reset, instead of the 3.8 or 3.9 I expect. I had been driving at 68 MPH. I dropped to 65.
I passed King City without too much trepidation, with 10 miles to spare, and I maintained 65 MPH.
Only 56 miles to go to Prunedale. But, in the stretch between King City and Salinas, my range was dropping. Now I was down to 6 extra miles, and the Bolt starts nagging if you do that.
Plugshare app "Nearby", showing on Android Auto, shows no stations in a 10 mile radius.When the range bars turned orange at 30 miles, I dropped my speed to 60.
Out here in the agricultural valley, I could see the dust storms blowing around, but I really couldn't feel them. Maybe it was head on.
When "Charge soon" came on with a remaining range of 20 miles, I was 15 miles from Prunedale, and Plugshare still showed nothing nearby.
I knew there were stations in Salinas, so I got off at the first exit, and pulled up Plugshare on my phone. No Internet. I thought that was not too surprising out in the rural area, but I was probably mistaken. There should have been coverage.

We saw a Love's Travel Stop. My wife suggested that they would have WiFi.
As I pulled into the lot, I saw four Chargepoint Chargers!

Still no Internet... Airplane Mode on and off and I had 5G Internet, with Plugshare showing the Salinas stations that I expected, but the ones that I could see in this Love's parking lot showed unavailable. They are yellow tagged with wire seals, State of California, "Unapproved Device".

There was one Ioniq charging. He had planned to go another twenty miles to Gilroy, but said he was taking a 20% hit on range because of the wind. We were losing about 15%. I plugged in another charger and started the charge from the Chargepoint App. I noticed that someone had cut the seal wire.
We went inside to eat, and charged to 90%. The wind had subsided, and we had 50 mile range when we got home.

If I had been monitoring ABRP Live Data with the paid plan which I have, ABRP includes weather. The free plan includes elevation changes, so the uphill stretch wouldn't have been an excuse for the unexpectedly short range. I wonder if it would have made a prediction that accounted for the wind. I probably would have ignored it, since I knew where we were going.

After that trip, I started poking the Android Auto Plugshare app as I passed anything that looked like a small commercial interchange to check for nearby stations. There are a lot of stations spread along US 101. I used one recently and had lunch in a small town. Before we got the Bolt, we stopped at one off-ramp for gas and a meal. There was also a Chargepoint charger. That was about it on a 10 mile stretch of side road. A Chevron gas station, a charger and a restaurant.

ABRP has gotten much better about indicating stations on the Android Auto map, but I still don't trust them. They used to only show EA stations. The ABRP interface is also pretty difficult to manage. Detours are not easily accommodated.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Sounds like a nail boter. Did you ever consider drafting a semi?

 

[Joe Cherra]

I ask this because, in the mountains, semis have to slow down. Usually they drop to 40 mph. I take this opportunity to get into the slowpoke lane and let gravity recharge my battery for me. Same story going up. Doing the interstate's minimum, even though it's legal, it pisses people off.

 

[Nils]

Speed and outdoor temp are the main factors
You can't do a whole lot about outdoor temp
But I estimate that range increases by up to 1/3 (that's a lot) by driving at 55 instead of 65
I try to get behind a slow truck and enjoy the scenery and podcasts

 

[Joe Cherra]

I cruise @ 60, looking for ANY slowpoke to lead me until they get off at the next exit. Unfortunately nobody wants to be the slowpoke

 

[ClarD]

Sounds like a nail boter. Did you ever consider drafting a semi?

In my LEAF, I would drive behind a semi. Not to get into the draft slipstream, because that's too close for my comfort, but to stabilize my speed. With a motorcycle and truck and camper, I know when I am in the sweet spot.
I did put up with in between Salt Lake City and Wendover because I was in fourth gear instead of fifth, battling to hold 60 MPH in the truck and camper. Too close, but I could do a little over 60 in 5th. I reluctantly pulled out to pass on an uphill grade when the truck slowed to 40. I asked the trucker on CB radio if he minded having me draft. He said it improved his mileage.

With the LEAF, following a semi stabilizes the speed. With the Bolt EUV, I've never felt the need to conserve until this one trip. I probably didn't pass any semis, but I don't recall staying behind one.
I was confident that we could stop to charge somewhere, just not according to plan.

106 miles between Paso Robles, where we have charged, but skip in mild weather, and Prunedale, where we always used to charge. Plenty at both ends, but what counts for "sparse" in California in between.