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TonyWilliams said:
30kWh, CHAdeMO fast charge, 6.6kW, glacier white (to be wrapped with company logo), black cloth interior (only choice with the S model):

$33k sticker price
$14k discounts
$9k residual (27%)
$10k total payment for 3yr/36,000 at $279 per month with California "use" tax
$0 down
Welcome back to the family! And Wow - the deals on the Leaf right now are incredible!

Isn't it amazing that the Leaf is a viable 'shop' car? Almost like it was made for it.
 
TonyWilliams said:
the 2017 LEAF-S that I just picked up yesterday on lease:

30kWh, CHAdeMO fast charge, 6.6kW, glacier white (to be wrapped with company logo), black cloth interior (only choice with the S model):

$33k sticker price
$14k discounts
$9k residual (27%)
$10k total payment for 3yr/36,000 at $279 per month with California "use" tax
$0 down.....

....It comes with XM radio on the latest 3G Telematics. The seats are comfy, which I did not find to be the case with the leather seat in the Bolt EV, but the cloth seat in Boomer's car seemed OK. The LEAF appears to have more headroom front and rear and more storage room in the back (Important for our mission with this car).

Slight correction, Tony. My car has the leather seats.

Congrats on your new company Leaf. That'll work well.
 
Boomer23 said:
GRA said:
Yes, nice trip. I've always wanted to see one of the 'once every twenty years' desert flower blooms, but have managed to miss them so far. What kind of extra time (including planning) would you say your trip took vs. an ICE?
Good question.
Maybe three hours extra planning time, plus two hours of lost sleep. I'm being completely honest and serious here.

Almost all of that was because it was our first long trip in this car, our first DCFC with it, and because of the challenging terrain.

Wife and I had a one hour sit-down-with-paper-maps and PlugShare planning session. She's a math teacher, a born navigator and wanted to ensure a fun day including all points of interest without skipping any because of energy concerns, but also without needless charging stops.

I spent a couple hours driving to and from a local DCFC charger and charging the car to verify that DC charging works, and that EVgo stations work with the car, and the checking the charging speed.

I spent time on PlugShare and Google Maps mapping the distances and guessing at the impact of elevation changes, and selecting likely DCFC charging spots.

And I actually found it hard to sleep the night before. I found myself thinking about the various decision points on the trip where we could opt for a Plan B route that would be more energy efficient, but those options would cut out some destinations that we wanted to hit. So just a swirl of thoughts that kept my mind active and not ready to sleep,
Thanks. Yeah, until you know a car's real capabilities it pays to be conservative and give yourself as many options as possible. Personally, I find that before a trip, especially a new one or a familiar one done in a different way, I'm typically not so much worried as excited, so rarely get much (if any) sleep. Lindbergh didn't get any sleep the night before he took off for Paris, either, but he had just a bit more to worry about! :lol:
 
Thanks for the comparison to Lindbergh. Now I've really got a swelled head. :roll:

Oh, and as far as extra trip time versus an ICE, here's the beauty part, ZERO. We left the house before breakfast intentionally so that we could eat that meal while we did our one and only DCFC stop. We chose to get the food take-out and eat it in the car so that we could monitor the charging and be good citizens (I.e. Unplug and leave once we were finished), but there was no extra time spent on the trip as compared with a similar trip in an ICE that has a breakfast stop included.
 
Boomer23 said:
Oh, and as far as extra trip time versus an ICE, here's the beauty part, ZERO. We left the house before breakfast intentionally so that we could eat that meal while we did our one and only DCFC stop. We chose to get the food take-out and eat it in the car so that we could monitor the charging and be good citizens (I.e. Unplug and leave once we were finished), but there was no extra time spent on the trip as compared with a similar trip in an ICE that has a breakfast stop included.
Thus demonstrating that you are an experienced BEV owner, unlike the Bolt owner in the GCR article, which is why I wanted to get your times as well as hers. You weren't going to make all the beginner mistakes she did.

BTW, I was looking at "http://drivingelectric.blogspot.com/2015/04/is-there-perfect-ev-for-me.html", and it seems like the Bolt checks off most of the items on your list, possibly excluding steering feel and looks. Care to post that list here item by item and rate the Bolt against them all? We've all got our personal needs vs. wants lists, but I'd like to see how close the Bolt matches yours.
 
GRA said:
Boomer23 said:
Oh, and as far as extra trip time versus an ICE, here's the beauty part, ZERO. We left the house before breakfast intentionally so that we could eat that meal while we did our one and only DCFC stop. We chose to get the food take-out and eat it in the car so that we could monitor the charging and be good citizens (I.e. Unplug and leave once we were finished), but there was no extra time spent on the trip as compared with a similar trip in an ICE that has a breakfast stop included.
Thus demonstrating that you are an experienced BEV owner, unlike the Bolt owner in the GCR article, which is why I wanted to get your times as well as hers. You weren't going to make all the beginner mistakes she did.

BTW, I was looking at "http://drivingelectric.blogspot.com/2015/04/is-there-perfect-ev-for-me.html", and it seems like the Bolt checks off most of the items on your list, possibly excluding steering feel and looks. Care to post that list here item by item and rate the Bolt against them all? We've all got our personal needs vs. wants lists, but I'd like to see how close the Bolt matches yours.
.

Good idea. I'll do that as time permits. I also need to start up my blog again. Thanks for the extra motivation! :D
 
So per GRA's suggestion, here is my EV wish list from my blog from my post two years ago, Does the Bolt EV fill many of my criteria from back then?

First a caveat. The Bolt EV that we bought is my wife's car. It replaces her ten year-old Prius that was starting to be unreliable. So the Bolt does not need to meet all of MY criteria. It just needs to meet hers. Which it does. Completely, and exceeds them in the many safety and convenience features on the Premier model with the Driver Confidence Package II that we chose.

Here is my list from 2015:


A - Quick acceleration, preferably 0-60 mph in 7 seconds or less
YES
B - Good steering feel and great handling around corners and on fast highway ramps
YES
C - Durable battery pack, preferably temperature controlled, for long lasting capacity
YES
D - Four doors and room for two child safety seats in the rear
YES
E - Hatchback and fold down seats for good cargo capacity, including a bike
YES
F - Great, sports car looks
Yes and No, I happen to really like the Bolt's looks. Not "Great" but certainly "Good" to my eyes.
G - Adjustable regen strength including a strong regen setting
YES, YES, YES. Bravo GM!
H - Comprehensive EV instrumentation including state of charge, power consumption rate miles to empty based on elevation and speed, consumption rate of ancillary systems such as heating
Mostly YES. State of Charge is displayed as a rough bar graph, but numerical SOC% is available on the app. I've suggested SOC% on dash to GM staff.
I - Heated seats and efficient, low power consumption heating and A/C
Heated Seats: YES. A/C: Yes. Heating: No
J - Driving range of 150 miles before recharge or range extender gas tank refill
YES, YES, YES. Way to go GM! About 272 miles autonomy on my road trip recently, with mountain driving. I hardly dared hope for this range in 2015.
K - Range extender acceptable as long as performance is always primarily electric for instant and strong torque
N/A
L - Onboard charger at least as powerful and fast as 6 kW
YES. 7.2 kW
M - Programmable delayed charging for low cost off-peak power periods
YES
N - DC fast charging capability
YES
O - Power seats and fully adjustable steering wheel
Seats: NO, Wheel: Yes
P - Leather steering wheel and seats
YES
Q - Comprehensive navigation system with charging station locations and traffic congestion display
NO. Apple Car Play is a great implementation, though. But I'd say that this is a NO, since I think an EV requires a well integrated Nav with EV features that tie into the car's range estimation computer.
R - Driver assist systems including blind spot monitoring, collision prevention assist, parking sensors and rear camera
YES
S - Pedestrian alert sounds for pedestrian safety
YES
T - The emotional "Gotta Have It" factor
Not really. But I do really like the car a lot. I love small cars and the Bolt EV, fully loaded, has a certain quality that pleases me immensely.

So I would say that the Bolt EV meets my list of requirements from 2015 very, very well. Would I have chosen it over the BMW i3 that I did choose in 2015. I probably would have chosen the Bolt. The huge driving range of the Bolt and the price savings of about $10k, fully loaded between the two cars, would have pushed me toward the Bolt EV.
 
Sat in my first Bolt today, and while I had almost zero expectations of the seats from reading reviews, for the short time I sat in it I thought it was fine. I think I felt what others feel is the pinching part but it didn't bother this 250lb 6'2 person, maybe my larger butt spanned the bad part?? :lol:
Overall I was pretty impressed with the passenger room, decent head room and adequate rear seat room even with the front seat almost all the way back. Like the Volt(which I also sat in and like 3 years ago HATED!! zero head room, near zero rear seat room, - zero rear seat room and the '17 was no different) the Bolt seats went back even further than I like. 99% of the cars I drive I move the drivers seat back as far as it goes, doing this with either the Bolt or Volt resulted in me barely able to reach the pedals, must be designed for someone with a 38" inseam and no one in the back seat :lol:
I agree with others who feel the Bolt interior is on the cheapish side, plastic wise, but it was certainly adequate, not as nice as the Leaf though.
Didn't care that to get a heated rear seats one had to jump to the top trim and therefore be forced to get leather. I for one get lots of use with the rear seat heaters on my Leaf.
While the range would be nice and basically eliminate range anxiety in town, we still need a car we could drive several times/year for 800-1500 miles a crack and the Bolt still wouldn't help with that. Now if I didn't have my Leafs I'd seriously consider one but with 2 Leafs that can do between 60 and 80 miles, I'm probably just fine for now. Now if the Bolt had been a larger vehicle, both more cargo and passenger room(even if half the range) it may have been my ideal vehicle, until then I'm going to stick with the Leaf for town and maybe get something like the Prius Prime to replace our current 10 year old regular Prius for our 50+ MPG road trips.

updated:
corrected info about heated rear seats and heated steering wheel.
 
Didn't care that to get a heated steering wheel one had to jump to the top trim and therefore be forced to get leather and also didn't care for no rear seat heater option but I guess for more moderate climates it isn't such a big deal. I for one get lots of use with both these features in my Leaf, heck my heated steering wheel is basically ON 6 months of the year ;)

The heated seats and wheel don't require that you get a Premiere. They are an option (Comfort & Convenience Package, IIRC) on the LT and standard on the Premiere.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Didn't care that to get a heated steering wheel one had to jump to the top trim and therefore be forced to get leather and also didn't care for no rear seat heater option but I guess for more moderate climates it isn't such a big deal. I for one get lots of use with both these features in my Leaf, heck my heated steering wheel is basically ON 6 months of the year ;)

The heated seats and wheel don't require that you get a Premiere. They are an option (Comfort & Convenience Package, IIRC) on the LT and standard on the Premiere.
Maybe it was to get the heated rear seats one needed to get the Premiere?? and therefore leather seating....
 
LeftieBiker said:
I'm not sure.
Yes for sure, I just looked it up on Chevy's website.
To get heated rear seats outboard you must get the Premiere(and therefor leather seats)
 
jjeff said:
LeftieBiker said:
I'm not sure.
Yes for sure, I just looked it up on Chevy's website.
To get heated rear seats outboard you must get the Premiere(and therefor leather seats)
This sort of bundling always pisses me off, although I realize that margins are so low on compact and smaller cars in the U.S. that it's the only way for the automakers to hope to turn a profit on them. I''m a devotee of cloth seats, as I normally am in shorts and in hot weather, often shirtless while driving, and leather or vinyl seats suck on bare skin when it's either hot or cold. I've never understood the attraction of leather seats, beyond the image thing ("soft Corinthian Leather"). Vinyl/leatherette I can see, if you've got young children and allow them to eat/drink in the car.
 
Boomer23 said:
So per GRA's suggestion, here is my EV wish list from my blog from my post two years ago, Does the Bolt EV fill many of my criteria from back then?

First a caveat. The Bolt EV that we bought is my wife's car. It replaces her ten year-old Prius that was starting to be unreliable. So the Bolt does not need to meet all of MY criteria. It just needs to meet hers. Which it does. Completely, and exceeds them in the many safety and convenience features on the Premier model with the Driver Confidence Package II that we chose.

Here is my list from 2015: <snip>
Many thanks.
 
GRA said:
... unlike the Bolt owner in the GCR article, which is why I wanted to get your times as well as hers. You weren't going to make all the beginner mistakes she did.

To cover the 400 miles while using 125 amp "50kW" charge stations at 40kW average rate (charging the Bolt EV battery ONLY between 0%-65% SOC only) every 75-125 miles requires this much time:

50mph = 8.0 driving + 1.4 charging = 9.4 hours
55mph = 7.3 driving + 1.6 charging = 8.9 hours
60mph = 6.7 driving + 1.7 charging = 8.4 hours
65mph = 6.2 driving + 1.9 charging = 8.1 hours
70mph = 5.7 driving + 2.0 charging = 7.7 hours
75mph = 5.3 driving + 2.4 charging = 7.6 hours
80mph = 5.0 driving + 2.8 charging = 7.8 hours

I'd throw in an arbitrary 30-60 minutes for fumbling with chargers, key fobs, getting lost, etc.

Notice that the "sweet spot" for time is 70-80 mph to drive that trip, just like the typical freeway speed of any car in California.

The longest gap that she had between 125 amp chargers was 127 miles from Salinas to San Luis Obispo. All the rest was easy.

For you "cheapskates", driving slow will save you money, but not time:

At ten cents per minute on the EVgo $14.95 monthly plan:

50mph - 83 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $8.30
55mph - 97 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $9.70
60mph - 104 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $10.44
65mph- 111 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $11.11
70mph - 125 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $12.50
75mph - 143 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $14.30
80mph - 167min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $16.70


Charging time is dependent on both charger speed and vehicle consumption rate. Since she drove by many perfectly good 125 amp "50kW" chargers while using 60 amps chargers, just a little education and a little planning can fix that.

But, assuming good planning and an average charge rate of 40kW (0.666 kWh per min) between 0% and 65% State Of Charge (SOC), then she could VERY easily drive 75-125 miles between charging locations.

Bolt EV Energy Consumption Rate
Flat, dry, hard surface roadway
Warm ambient temperature (above 60F / 15C)
No cabin heater use
Windows Up

50mph - 4.9 miles/kWh (204 wattHours per mile)
55mph - 4.6 miles/kWh (217 wattHours per mile)
60mph - 4.3 miles/kWh (233 wattHours per mile)
65mph - 4.0 miles/kWh (250 wattHours per mile)
70mph - 3.6 miles/kWh (278 wattHours per mile)
75mph - 3.2 miles/kWh (313 wattHours per mile)
80mph - 2.7 miles/kWh (370 wattHours per mile)
 
^^^ very nice comparison. I agree, the sweet spot seems to be 70mph where electricity at your rate would be 3.125 cents/mile(not figuring in your $15/month EVgo fee) or if I'm doing my math correct and comparing it to a 50mpg ICE Prius it would be like getting gas for $1.56/gallon( and not figuring in the cost of oil changes for the Prius).
 
Course, if she'd driven 65 (say 230 max.) or 70 (210 max.) the whole way she could have easily made the trip from San Jose to Cal Poly (186 miles) non-stop with a reserve, and headed over to the eVgo QC (5 miles away) for an hour or so of charging/eating afterwards as per her original plan, while charging the phone at a jack in the restaurant (assuming that was critical - paper maps still work fine, don't rely on batteries, and give the passenger something useful to do), then back on the road with an 80% or so charge etc. Others have commented on staying at a hotel with L2 to get a full charge overnight, and so on.
 
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1109117_chevy-bolt-ev-800-mile-trip-in-238-mile-electric-car-shows-challenges-remain
Page 1 :)
 
TonyWilliams said:
GRA said:
... unlike the Bolt owner in the GCR article, which is why I wanted to get your times as well as hers. You weren't going to make all the beginner mistakes she did.

To cover the 400 miles while using 125 amp "50kW" charge stations at 40kW average rate (charging the Bolt EV battery ONLY between 0%-65% SOC only) every 75-125 miles requires this much time:

50mph = 8.0 driving + 1.4 charging = 9.4 hours
55mph = 7.3 driving + 1.6 charging = 8.9 hours
60mph = 6.7 driving + 1.7 charging = 8.4 hours
65mph = 6.2 driving + 1.9 charging = 8.1 hours
70mph = 5.7 driving + 2.0 charging = 7.7 hours
75mph = 5.3 driving + 2.4 charging = 7.6 hours
80mph = 5.0 driving + 2.8 charging = 7.8 hours

I'd throw in an arbitrary 30-60 minutes for fumbling with chargers, key fobs, getting lost, etc.

Notice that the "sweet spot" for time is 70-80 mph to drive that trip, just like the typical freeway speed of any car in California.

The longest gap that she had between 125 amp chargers was 127 miles from Salinas to San Luis Obispo. All the rest was easy.

For you "cheapskates", driving slow will save you money, but not time:

At ten cents per minute on the EVgo $14.95 monthly plan:

50mph - 83 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $8.30
55mph - 97 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $9.70
60mph - 104 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $10.44
65mph- 111 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $11.11
70mph - 125 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $12.50
75mph - 143 min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $14.30
80mph - 167min charging @ 10 cents per minute = $16.70


Charging time is dependent on both charger speed and vehicle consumption rate. Since she drove by many perfectly good 125 amp "50kW" chargers while using 60 amps chargers, just a little education and a little planning can fix that.

But, assuming good planning and an average charge rate of 40kW (0.666 kWh per min) between 0% and 65% State Of Charge (SOC), then she could VERY easily drive 75-125 miles between charging locations.

Bolt EV Energy Consumption Rate
Flat, dry, hard surface roadway
Warm ambient temperature (above 60F / 15C)
No cabin heater use
Windows Up

50mph - 4.9 miles/kWh (204 wattHours per mile)
55mph - 4.6 miles/kWh (217 wattHours per mile)
60mph - 4.3 miles/kWh (233 wattHours per mile)
65mph - 4.0 miles/kWh (250 wattHours per mile)
70mph - 3.6 miles/kWh (278 wattHours per mile)
75mph - 3.2 miles/kWh (313 wattHours per mile)
80mph - 2.7 miles/kWh (370 wattHours per mile)

The above example hardly requires much analysis:

Given the leg 1 distance of 127 miles to the 1st QC, the Bolt's 200 mile range, and the speed limit, most
would drive at a speed of greater 65 but less than 80. Besides, 80 MPH on 101 is overly optimistic; traffic,
CHP, slow areas near King City/Paso Robles.

A simple rule is to drive at a max legal speed for traffic, road conditions/terrain changes using 75-80% of the
BEV's battery capacity to reach a known reliable/open QC station, i.e. ideally one that you've used before.
Each successive leg would use the same approach. The final leg should only require enough energy to reach
the final destination, assuming a layover greater than a full charge time.
 
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