Charging for long distance travel

[Anonymous]

Hey, fellow Bolt drivers
My Bolt with a full charge will take me 240 miles in highway driving, 60-70 miles per hour.
I was traveling in an area that had no fast chargers, so I called a Chevy dealer that was located half way to my destination. They had a fast charger and invited me to use it going and coming back.
They were an outstanding group of employees and made my trip less anxious. The dealership is Romeo Chevrolet and Buick, Lake Katrine,NY
The only problem I encountered was that the fast charger took almost 2 hours to give me 8 bars If I had needed a full charge I would have been in their waiting room a couple of hours more

The literature for fast charging states that it should be no more than 30 minutes. Did I do something wrong?
One explanation I got was that the dealership was at peak energy usage, 2pm, weekday, and therefore the fast charger was not able to put out its full potential

One more comment: what if all of the Bolt drivers were to recommend to Corporate that they, at their cost, install at least one fast charger at every Chevy dealership in the USA. Then we would have a reliable network for long distance travel. We the users, with the help of Corporate, can produce an on-line map of all the national dealers and charging points, making our travels stress free and as enjoyable as driving this amazing car.
Let me know your thoughts. Tom

 

[redpoint5]

No fast charger exists that can bring the car from empty to full in 60 minutes, let alone 30. Not all fast chargers are the same, with some having higher charging limits, and others having a lower limit.

It appears that people are getting a 42 kW charge rate until hitting close to 70% state of charge, and then it tapers off from there.

I don't know what a "bar" is, because I don't own the car, so I cannot comment on what rate of charge that likely is.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't know what a "bar" is, because I don't own the car, so I cannot comment on what rate of charge that likely is.

A bar is where you go to have a drink while you wait for your Chevy Bolt EV to fully charge up! The OP was VERY thirsty!!! :lol:

NOTE the different shades of green bars between 128 and 192 on the left.

 

[LeftieBiker]

The advertising claims, as I recall, that 30 minutes fast charging 'adds 90 miles of range'.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah: He's made this erroneous claim in both of his two posts since he joined the forum and has been severely chastised for the error!

You know how unforgiving this forum can be!

 

[marshallinwa]

The local Chevy dealer probably has a 25KW charger installed and not one of the higher power ones. So your car will charge at the slower 25KWh rate.

 

[boltage]

The advertising claims, as I recall, that 30 minutes fast charging 'adds 90 miles of range'.

That would be if you used a 50+ kW charger and the initial level was on the low side (the charging speed reduces as it gets closer to full).

Many of the DC "fast" chargers are 24 kW chargers, so 30 minutes on one of those would add about 30-50 miles of range, depending on driving conditions.

Many of the 50 kW chargers are EVgo, whose pricing and policies some on these forums have complained about.