This car is amazing!

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Joined
Nov 2, 2017
Messages
6
New Bolt guy here!

Pretty excited about my new Bolt. Thought I would share this with others...

My home is 12 miles away from work. I work in downtown Denver but live in the suburbs. My commute must be mostly downhill because when I leave for work I am gaining 5-6 miles in range by the time I arrive at work. I do drive in the "L" mode and I do not speed or accelerate fast. I certainly do not "hyper mile" drive.

My commute home shows consistently that I have used about 15 total miles. So minus the 5 or 6 I gain I am only using about 10 total for my daily commute!

So I won't need to charge much during the week and can probably get away with charging on the weekends. Which is a good thing because my house needs an upgraded electrical box in order to install a Level 2 charger. Which was a bit of a bummer for me.

Of course in the very cold winter days it will be different as I will need to use the heater a lot. But even then it will be no more than 30 or 40 miles total.

Very happy so far.
 
Concerning cold weather driving range (specifically, heater) :

- plug your vehicle in every morning, THEN :

- use "remote start" (pg 39 of the Bolt manual) 10 minutes before you leave to use wall electricity to heat the air in the car ("Use remote start to heat or cool the interior when the vehicle is plugged in to maximize electric range by utilizing electricity from the electrical outlet").

- Use the "seat warmers" to keep you warm until you get to work
 
I presume that you haven't had the car long? The computer is probably just adjusting to your driving pattern. I suspect that before long, you will be using 24 miles of range for your 24 mile commute. But the total range will likely be greater than 238 miles!

Regarding only charging on weekends - could you charge at 120V overnight? This might make more sense than paying a lot of money to put in a 240V EVSE. at 120V, you should be able to recoup 3-4 miles/hour. So your 24 mile trip would need 6-8 hours each night. Sounds like you could get away without 240V at home, especially if there are 240V or CCS (DC Fast Charge) chargers near by.

Welcome to the club. I agree, this car is amazing. I like it more and more each day that I drive it.
 
SparkE said:
Concerning cold weather driving range (specifically, heater) :

- plug your vehicle in every morning, THEN :

- use "remote start" (pg 39 of the Bolt manual) 10 minutes before you leave to use wall electricity to heat the air in the car ("Use remote start to heat or cool the interior when the vehicle is plugged in to maximize electric range by utilizing electricity from the electrical outlet").

- Use the "seat warmers" to keep you warm until you get to work

OK I will do this! Thank you.
 
GetOffYourGas said:
I presume that you haven't had the car long? The computer is probably just adjusting to your driving pattern. I suspect that before long, you will be using 24 miles of range for your 24 mile commute. But the total range will likely be greater than 238 miles!

Regarding only charging on weekends - could you charge at 120V overnight? This might make more sense than paying a lot of money to put in a 240V EVSE. at 120V, you should be able to recoup 3-4 miles/hour. So your 24 mile trip would need 6-8 hours each night. Sounds like you could get away without 240V at home, especially if there are 240V or CCS (DC Fast Charge) chargers near by.

Welcome to the club. I agree, this car is amazing. I like it more and more each day that I drive it.

I've wondered if I should just top off each night. Probably a better idea actually right? This way I won't end up with really low range on the weekends and if we need to drive somewhere far on a Saturday or Sunday then we would be good to go.

The electrician said I need to upgrade my service to 200AMPS at my box because mine is only 125. It won't support another 40-50 AMP run. It would cost $3250 for a new box and to run conduit and wires to the garage. I was quite disappointed about that but I seem to get by OK with the charger that came with the car. We don't drive around very much so that is a plus.

I did sign up for the EvGo $5.00 non subscription account in case I need a boost I can hit the fast charger at the Walmart, Nissan Dealer or the one at the REI store here downtown. I should be good to go I an emergency.

Thanks so much for your contribution to my thread and the nice welcome! :)
 
You should also talk to your local (Bolt EV) dealer about DCFC (quick charge). Many will allow Bolt drivers to use their DCFC - 30 mins plugged in (for free) will add maybe 40-50 miles (most Chevy dealers have installed the much-lower-cost 24 kW DCFCs, and not a full-blown 50 kW charger).

You should also get the PlugShare app and the ChargePoint app for your smartphone (if you don't already have them). PlugShare is great for showing where charging stations exist (all networks) but don't always show availability info - ChargePoint shows real-time availability info for any L2 on *their* network. A quick look shows quite a few DCFCs available in the Denver area - some are even free! You can set the options for PlugShare to only show one network at a time in your area - so you can see which network(s) it would be best to join. You can also set the options to only show you FREE charging ...
 
SparkE said:
You should also talk to your local (Bolt EV) dealer about DCFC (quick charge). Many will allow Bolt drivers to use their DCFC - 30 mins plugged in (for free) will add maybe 40-50 miles (most Chevy dealers have installed the much-lower-cost 24 kW DCFCs, and not a full-blown 50 kW charger).

You should also get the PlugShare app and the ChargePoint app for your smartphone (if you don't already have them). PlugShare is great for showing where charging stations exist (all networks) but don't always show availability info - ChargePoint shows real-time availability info for any L2 on *their* network. A quick look shows quite a few DCFCs available in the Denver area - some are even free! You can set the options for PlugShare to only show one network at a time in your area - so you can see which network(s) it would be best to join. You can also set the options to only show you FREE charging ...

Thanks SparkE! I'll check out the apps you recommend. Thank you!
 
Your experience with the Bolt sounds like my experience when I had the Volt. They wanted $1,400 to bring 240v into my garage and it just did not make economic sense for a car with a 16KWh battery, so I continued charging at 120v 12 amps.

It sounds like you will ALWAYS leave home with a full charge, given your commute and driving habits and ability to charge at 120v at home. Why spend thousands to upgrade to 240v if you really will not use it?

When will you need it? When you make long trips away from home and the other posts here have given you excellent advice on how to deal with those situations.
 
I drive 50 miles a day and only have 120 volt outlets at home and work. 12 hours will put in 50 miles so it’s easy to break even.

Talk to your employer about using a regular outlet to charge. Tell them it requires no special equipment or capital investment on their part. Tell them the power (at thier business rate, lower than home use rate) means you will use $1 of power per day.

Between home and work you could be plugged in 22 hours a day. That’s near 90 miles of charge-up per day with no expensive equipment to buy.

I have also located many, many L2 and L3 chargers in my community. And they are dirt cheap. Many times free. I always opportunity charge at those to “make up ground” for days I use heat or drive a little over 50 miles.

A powerful charger at home sounds so cool.
But it makes no sense for a large percentage of people like you and me.

Welcome. I love the car too!
 
GetOffYourGas said:
I presume that you haven't had the car long? The computer is probably just adjusting to your driving pattern. I suspect that before long, you will be using 24 miles of range for your 24 mile commute. But the total range will likely be greater than 238 miles!

Regarding only charging on weekends - could you charge at 120V overnight? This might make more sense than paying a lot of money to put in a 240V EVSE. at 120V, you should be able to recoup 3-4 miles/hour. So your 24 mile trip would need 6-8 hours each night. Sounds like you could get away without 240V at home, especially if there are 240V or CCS (DC Fast Charge) chargers near by.

Welcome to the club. I agree, this car is amazing. I like it more and more each day that I drive it.

So when I arrived home yesterday from work at 6:30 and plugged my car in to the 120 outlet. It was fully charged by 8:30PM. So I am not using much energy during my work commute. If this stays the same then your right, I won't be needing the faster charger anyway.

Can't believe it would fully top off in only 2 hours after driving 24 miles!
 
Wow, that is surprising! What is your dash efficiency? I mean, I suppose if you are getting 6+ miles/kWh, then this could be true. And I think you can get those numbers at low speeds (i.e. <50MPH).
 
milehighboltguy said:
Can't believe it would fully top off in only 2 hours after driving 24 miles!

I can't as well. Two hours on 120V is 2kW, and no one ever gets 13 miles per kWh. Maybe if doing crazy hypermiling on a closed road at 12 mph.
Even getting 6 miles per kWh is impressive.

http://www.hybridcars.com/hypermiler-records-111-9-mile-all-electric-drive-in-2016-chevy-volt/

I'd expect closer to 3 miles per kWh, which would imply more like 8 hours per night to charge. Of course, if you sleep normal hours you probably will never notice the difference.

What I speculate happened is that the car's battery management decided to put a little less into the battery that charge than it did the previous charge. Maybe due to temperature?
 
WetEV said:
milehighboltguy said:
Can't believe it would fully top off in only 2 hours after driving 24 miles!

I can't as well. Two hours on 120V is 2kW, and no one ever gets 13 miles per kWh. Maybe if doing crazy hypermiling on a closed road at 12 mph.
Even getting 6 miles per kWh is impressive.

http://www.hybridcars.com/hypermiler-records-111-9-mile-all-electric-drive-in-2016-chevy-volt/

I'd expect closer to 3 miles per kWh, which would imply more like 8 hours per night to charge. Of course, if you sleep normal hours you probably will never notice the difference.

What I speculate happened is that the car's battery management decided to put a little less into the battery that charge than it did the previous charge. Maybe due to temperature?

Technically two hours on 120V at 12A is 2.88kWh. Of course, after charging losses it may be about 2. My math was way off, I don't know how I got to 4kWh! Anyway, your speculation is probably right.

To the OP - do you have Hilltop Reserve enabled? There is another thread that indicates the final charge level can vary a little with this mode. You have a single data point. Try a few more days, and look at the average time to recharge. I suspect it may be 2 hours one day and then 6 hours the next, with some variation in between.
 
Yes I do have the Hilltop Reserve enabled. I figured this was a good idea as I will always be fully charging at night.


The dash average shows 4.6kwh.
 
milehighboltguy said:
Yes I do have the Hilltop Reserve enabled. I figured this was a good idea as I will always be fully charging at night.


The dash average shows 4.6kwh.

Then with 100% efficiency it would take 3.2 hours to charge. Add time for losses, thermal conditioning the battery, and such.
 
Do you have a dryer outlet near your garage? May be worth a shot but as others have suggested, with your usage, 110v should be plenty. I also question how valuable your workplace charging would be since you claim to gain range getting there. You would be charging from 90% - 95% when leaving your home in hilltop mode. Hardly worth the effort.
 
I would get another electrician to give you a second opinion. And have him give you a electrical survey (as in, use an amp probe to gather info on actual usage per appliance).
A 125 amp service should be more than enough to handle a 40amp circuit that will normally only be used after hours when all is quiet and appliances are not being used.
There is no way you would draw more than 125 amps even after a power outage and everything came on at once. unless you have a very large home with a boatload of over the top heavy drawing appliances.
I think that electrician just wanted to sell you a 4k job.
 
One difference with a 220v L2 vs. 110v is that preheating while plugged in to L1 can draw down battery power, since the heater can take up to ~7kW, while the L1 EVSE can only supply 1-1.5kW to the car. For those in cold climates, this could be significant.
 
I bought a Level 2 charger with a 28 ft cord from Amazon for about $260 that had a NEMA 10-30 plug that fit the electric dryer outlet in my basement. As it happens, I have a gas dryer, so the 240V outlet has been unused until now. The 240V outlet is in the unfinished laundry room in the basement, adjacent to the garage. I was able to move the outlet box from behind the dryer to the ceiling joists, then plug in the Level 2 charger.
I had to make a pretty big hole 3 x 1.5 in the lower wall between the garage and the basement. Ran the charger cable thru the hole, plugged it in and WOW. Level 2 charging at just the cost of the cable! ($260).
SO, if you have an electric dryer in an unfinished basement area adjacent to the garage, it might be cheaper to hire a plumber to run a gas pipe supply to the back of the dryer, buy a gas dryer and use the 240V outlet for the charger. This might be MUCH cheaper than having 240V run from the service panel to the garage, especially if it required an upgraded service panel. It worked out well for me.
 
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