New Bolt Owner

[Bobg1726]

I bought a 2018 Bolt LT at the end of January. It's a Kinetic Blue, one owner with 25K. It's a base model and that's fine with me. I bought it to commute to work and it has been perfect. My commute is 90 miles/day, and I need to recharge when I get home. I live in Pennsylvania, and I think the cold temps are hurting the range.
I'm hoping with spring and summer coming soon it will be better. Nevertheless, I love the car.
Looking forward to learning all I can about the Chevy Bolts and anticipating the coming of the 2026 model.
Thanks,
Bobg1726.

 

[Tech Admin]

Welcome to the community!

 

[Nate Tinlin]

I bought a 2018 Bolt LT at the end of January. It's a Kinetic Blue, one owner with 25K. It's a base model and that's fine with me. I bought it to commute to work and it has been perfect. My commute is 90 miles/day, and I need to recharge when I get home. I live in Pennsylvania, and I think the cold temps are hurting the range.
I'm hoping with spring and summer coming soon it will be better. Nevertheless, I love the car.
Looking forward to learning all I can about the Chevy Bolts and anticipating the coming of the 2026 model.
Thanks,
Bobg1726.

Not sure about the cold weather hurting your range, but I do know that running the heater reduces the range by almost 20%. I have a 2020 Bolt and I lose significant range while running the heater and the AC.

 

[voodoomaster]

The cold environment does impact the charging and the available stored battery level.

 

[Joe Cherra]

Not sure about the cold weather hurting your range, but I do know that running the heater reduces the range by almost 20%. I have a 2020 Bolt and I lose significant range while running the heater and the AC.

Just a suggestion, use your fob to first lock the doors second use the bottom button to start the battery conditioner. If you left your heater on when you shut down the last time the heater will heat up your car using electricity from the charging station to defrost your windows and warm up the cabin.

When you are ready to go you can turn off the heater leave the cabin ventilation on and you should be able to travel unmeted comfortably to your destination.

 

[BillM]

If the Bolt is plugged into a charger outlet with sufficient power, you can use the MyChevrolet mobile app to lock and start the car so that it can warm up inside using external power without using up driving range. If you use the cord supplied with the car plugged into 120 volts, that will only supply about one half as much power as the heater can use. The MyChevrolet app is not very flexible. The app will just use whatever the climate setting was when the car last shut off. If you didn’t leave the heat on, you have to go out to the car to switch it on.

The heater appears to warm liquid, so once the cabin is warm, the liquid helps hold the temperature and not as much power is required.

If you look as your energy consumption graph, you can see that in very cold conditions that the heater initially uses as much energy as it takes to drive the car.

The heat is one of those paradoxes of electric cars. The electric drive is so crazy efficient that running the heater really kills driving rang, by up to one half. In a gasoline powered car, there is so much waste heat from the engine’s inefficiency that a large radiator is required. The heat for the cabin is pretty much a free byproduct which would normally go out the radiator. Gasoline cars lose range in the winder but it it is not nearly as dramatic as electric cars

 

[Bobg1726]

Great tips. Thanks to all of you.
I do use the heater, but I try and keep the fan speed on the lowest or 2nd lowest speed setting.
Does increasing the temperature setting to a higher temperature, while keeping the fan speed setting constant, have any effect on battery energy usage.
Thanks again everyone.
Bobg1726