Capacity of 2020 Bolt with New Battery after 20,000 Miles

[paulgipe]

I’ve tracked battery degradation in the EVs we’ve driven during the past decade. The short answer is that our Nissan Leaf lost a lot, our Chevy Bolts not so much.

I keep detailed logs of our EVs. Beginning with a Nissan Leaf through two Chevy Bolts, I’ve recorded more than a dozen different parameters each time the car is charged. I do this so I can authoritatively answer questions from newbies to EVs and those considering an EV what kind of battery degradation they can expect.

Our 2015 Leaf suffered serious battery degradation in the heat of Bakersfield, California summers where temperatures above 110 F (44 C) are not uncommon. Consequently, the car’s limited range was reduced even further after three years. The Leaf lost 17% of its capacity in only 17,000 miles of travel, leaving us with a piddly 19 kWh when we returned the car to Nissan.

Since switching to the Bolts, we’ve traveled nearly 70,000 miles on three different batteries. Each battery has lost about 5% of its capacity over 20,000 to 30,000 miles. Importantly, this modest capacity loss hasn’t affected how we use the cars or how far we can drive them.

---

Disclosure: I worked for GM’s Delco-Remy Division 1968-1970 as a cooperative engineering student. I was a member of UAW Local 1981 until the National Writers Union left the UAW in May 2020. The Chevy Bolt is assembled by UAW Local 5960.

---

Nevertheless, I continue to track the Bolt’s performance. I enter the data on a paper record and then later enter the data into a spreadsheet.

90% of my charging is done at home, and I always charge to 100% when I am not on the road. My reasoning is that most EV drivers will do likewise. Most people will not make any effort to extend the battery’s life. Instead, they will treat the EV much the same as the gasser they replaced it with. They’ll simply “fill it up” and that’s what I am trying to replicate.

Here’s a list of the previous articles I’ve written on this topic.

• Slight Chevy Bolt Traction Battery Degradation after Nearly 30,000 Miles
• Battery Degradation 2020 Bolt Relative to 2017 Bolt EV
• Our Bolt is back with a New Pack—In Limbo No More
• Capacity of 2020 Chevy Bolt with New 2022 Battery after 6500 Miles
• Capacity of 2020 Chevy Bolt with New Battery after 11,500 Miles

After 20,000 miles on the new battery, Torque Pro is showing Bat Cap Est of 56.5 kWh and Bat Cap Raw Ah of 176.6 following the last charge. Since newly installed the battery’s Ah capacity has declined 9%. The calculated capacity has declined about 5%.

In this version of the chart, I’ve dropped the Bat Cap Est as it’s determined directly by the Raw Ah capacity. This has eliminated some of clutter in the chart making the trends easier to see.

What’s noteworthy is that the calculated capacity has only declined 5%. The calculated capacity is what we use to actually drive the car. That’s the number of kWh the car believes it has to work with.

Percent Used Method to Calculate Battery Capacity
We can infer battery capacity by knowing how much of the battery was used for so many kWh consumed between full charges. For example, if on a full charge, we consumed 31.2 kWh and arrived home with 45.9% State-of-Charge. The battery’s calculated capacity is 57.7 kWh.

31.2 kWh/(1-0.459) = 57.7 kWh

This is the battery’s calculated capacity remaining. It’s a good measure of how much battery capacity you have to work with. As noted above, the calculated battery capacity has declined about 5% over 20,000 miles.

After 20,000 miles, the new battery has approximately 60 kWh of usable capacity. The average efficiency of the Bolt during this period is 4.3 kWh/mile. The remaining usable capacity at the average efficiency I’ve measured provides an approximate range of 258 miles after 20,000 miles of use. This is roughly comparable to the EPA estimated range of 259 miles when the battery was new.

 

[Joe Cherra]

I’ve tracked battery degradation in the EVs we’ve driven during the past decade. The short answer is that our Nissan Leaf lost a lot, our Chevy Bolts not so much.

I keep detailed logs of our EVs. Beginning with a Nissan Leaf through two Chevy Bolts, I’ve recorded more than a dozen different parameters each time the car is charged. I do this so I can authoritatively answer questions from newbies to EVs and those considering an EV what kind of battery degradation they can expect.

Our 2015 Leaf suffered serious battery degradation in the heat of Bakersfield, California summers where temperatures above 110 F (44 C) are not uncommon. Consequently, the car’s limited range was reduced even further after three years. The Leaf lost 17% of its capacity in only 17,000 miles of travel, leaving us with a piddly 19 kWh when we returned the car to Nissan.

Since switching to the Bolts, we’ve traveled nearly 70,000 miles on three different batteries. Each battery has lost about 5% of its capacity over 20,000 to 30,000 miles. Importantly, this modest capacity loss hasn’t affected how we use the cars or how far we can drive them.

---

Disclosure: I worked for GM’s Delco-Remy Division 1968-1970 as a cooperative engineering student. I was a member of UAW Local 1981 until the National Writers Union left the UAW in May 2020. The Chevy Bolt is assembled by UAW Local 5960.

---

Nevertheless, I continue to track the Bolt’s performance. I enter the data on a paper record and then later enter the data into a spreadsheet.

90% of my charging is done at home, and I always charge to 100% when I am not on the road. My reasoning is that most EV drivers will do likewise. Most people will not make any effort to extend the battery’s life. Instead, they will treat the EV much the same as the gasser they replaced it with. They’ll simply “fill it up” and that’s what I am trying to replicate.

Here’s a list of the previous articles I’ve written on this topic.

• Slight Chevy Bolt Traction Battery Degradation after Nearly 30,000 Miles
• Battery Degradation 2020 Bolt Relative to 2017 Bolt EV
• Our Bolt is back with a New Pack—In Limbo No More
• Capacity of 2020 Chevy Bolt with New 2022 Battery after 6500 Miles
• Capacity of 2020 Chevy Bolt with New Battery after 11,500 Miles

After 20,000 miles on the new battery, Torque Pro is showing Bat Cap Est of 56.5 kWh and Bat Cap Raw Ah of 176.6 following the last charge. Since newly installed the battery’s Ah capacity has declined 9%. The calculated capacity has declined about 5%.

In this version of the chart, I’ve dropped the Bat Cap Est as it’s determined directly by the Raw Ah capacity. This has eliminated some of clutter in the chart making the trends easier to see.

What’s noteworthy is that the calculated capacity has only declined 5%. The calculated capacity is what we use to actually drive the car. That’s the number of kWh the car believes it has to work with.

Percent Used Method to Calculate Battery Capacity
We can infer battery capacity by knowing how much of the battery was used for so many kWh consumed between full charges. For example, if on a full charge, we consumed 31.2 kWh and arrived home with 45.9% State-of-Charge. The battery’s calculated capacity is 57.7 kWh.

31.2 kWh/(1-0.459) = 57.7 kWh

This is the battery’s calculated capacity remaining. It’s a good measure of how much battery capacity you have to work with. As noted above, the calculated battery capacity has declined about 5% over 20,000 miles.

After 20,000 miles, the new battery has approximately 60 kWh of usable capacity. The average efficiency of the Bolt during this period is 4.3 kWh/mile. The remaining usable capacity at the average efficiency I’ve measured provides an approximate range of 258 miles after 20,000 miles of use. This is roughly comparable to the EPA estimated range of 259 miles when the battery was new.

Boy, I've never had that degradation in my 2017 Bolt. My 2014 Spark lost 10% over 10 years. I guess I've been lucky. I've used Hilltop Reserve for most of the Bolt 100,000 miles. I'm in Minnesota. I'm a flatlander

 

[summit]

Boy, I've never had that degradation in my 2017 Bolt. My 2014 Spark lost 10% over 10 years. I guess I've been lucky. I've used Hilltop Reserve for most of the Bolt 100,000 miles. I'm in Minnesota. I'm a flatlander

would be nice to find out Paul's plot with Hilltop and 80% stop settings rather than 100% daily top-off. Given his rather hot environment, the 100% charge may be the cause of the observed degradation.

 

[BillM]

I don’t keep such detailed records as above, however: The daily driving pattern of my 2017 Bolt is fairly constant and I have seen essentially no change in the estimated available range. The high voltage battery was replaced in the recall about a year ago, so that reset everything and predicted range increased by about 20 miles. I charge to ~80% by selecting hilltop reserve unless I anticipate a long weekend drive. Perhaps hidden reserve capacity being brought into active use is covering up gradual capacity deterioration. I am going by the indicator on the driver display, not diagnostic link data. From a user perspective the car is functioning like new.

I am very impressed with how well the Bolt battery appears to hold up over time. The first EV I had was a used 2011 LEAF that I bought from a Nissan dealer, and it lost close to 30% of its usable capacity in under 25K miles. After I sold the LEAF other owners commented that I should have allowed the HV battery run to zero a couple of times to supposedly reset the control electronics and I may have seen less apparent deterioration - not sure I buy that. I’m glad the Bolt doesn’t need any silliness like that, the Bolt just works.

 

[ClarD]

I have tracked the Battery Capacity of my 2013 LEAF for over eight years.
It has gone from 82% to 66% in the 80,000 miles over that time.

The LEAF forums and Facebook Groups are obsessed with battery degradation.
Older model LEAFs are nearly unusable, but there aren't any Bolts that old.

ABRP, which I use as A Better Route Planner, offers Battery Capacity on the Live Data page if you have an OBD reader. I have the OBDLink CX, and OBDLink offers the same value.

When I charge my 2023 Bolt EUV, I usually take a screenshot of that page. I had not logged the information until today, and I don't think I caught them all when I finally gathered them into a sheet today.

I don't see anything resembling linear progression. If I were to declare that the reading has variability of +/-2%, there has been no loss in 22 months and 30,000 miles.
I see readings from 57.1 to 59.8 kWh.
The readings are lower than expected. Sean Graham says he never got the calculations right for the recent batteries, and it seems like all of the tools use his calculation.

 

[BillM]

I don’t recall when Nissan changed the battery chemistry to the so-called lizard battery, but the first few years of production were much worse for deterioration. When I first got the 2011 LEAF as a used car, I could expect just under 100 estimated miles from an 80% charge and by the time I sold the LEAF three years later it was under 70 estimated miles. The LEAF appeared to reset its range estimate every time it was charged, instead of looking back at recent history as the Bolt does, so one has to learn to mentally adjust the estimated range down if a daily commute involves highway speed driving. The Bolt takes typical behavior into account automatically. The LEAF has so much bless battery capacity that the driver needs to be quite mindful of how much charge is left. The Bolt was a game changer for me because most of the time I don’t need to think about range, I just get in and drive.