Chevrolet Bolt & Bolt EUV

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GRA said:
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.

Yes, you could do that. With a full charge at the start, then sure, drive the 186 miles at 65-70mph (to make sure you get there) all the way to SLO.

Without starting with a full charge, the fastest way is still driving 100 miles (plus or minus 25 miles) and charging from 0% to 65% at only 125 amp or greater charge stations.

Others have commented on staying at a hotel with L2 to get a full charge overnight, and so on.

That's available to every EV. Even some homebuilt with 30 miles of range.
 
No surprise, IMO, that more reports indicate the market for ~$40k econoboxes is pretty thin, and Bolt sales price discounts are increasing:

For Chevy Bolt, discounts here, markups there
Price gap opens up as dealers try to read the EV market


Just seven states into Chevrolet's gradual rollout of the Bolt EV, some dealerships already are discounting the car by several thousand dollars, even as others demand a markup above sticker price to take advantage of early demand.

The pricing disparity -- one dealer in Southern California was advertising a Bolt last week for $4,439 less than an identically equipped car at a store 5 miles away -- shows what happens when a new kind of vehicle meets a sprawling, old-line retail network that's only beginning to feel out the market for it.

The Bolt, with a 238-mile battery range, has no direct competition in its price range at the moment, but its novelty has a flip side for Chevy dealers who have to battle one another for a pool of customers that's still relatively small...

California dealerships, which got the Bolt first, have been the quickest to mark it down...
http://www.autonews.com/article/20170320/OEM05/303209973/for-chevy-bolt-discounts-here-markups-there

BEV sales price offers by dealerships, available here:

http://ev-vin.blogspot.com/2017/02/current-discounts-on-selected-evs.html
 
Articles like this make me sic.

http://www.tech2.org/chevy-bolt-ev-is-already-being-discounted-by-5000-as-deliveries-are-stalling/

There’s news-bad information scenario occurring with GM’s Chevy Bolt EV proper now.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Articles like this make me sic.

http://www.tech2.org/chevy-bolt-ev-is-already-being-discounted-by-5000-as-deliveries-are-stalling/

There’s news-bad information scenario occurring with GM’s Chevy Bolt EV proper now.

So that article was clearly translated from another language to English which is sort of weird as it is US based article. Anybody have any idea what is going on there?

Strange.
 
Stopped by the local dealer today. Liked the car at first. Seats and design seemed fine. But in the test drive, I came to realize the seats were poor design as my shoulder blades started hurting by end of test drive - clearly too narrow/not enough padding there. Salesman indicated the seats in the Premier are better as they have more padding there with the leather seats. Of course, they didn't have any Premiers out of the 8 Bolts they had on the lot.

Other aspects seemed very competitive versus the Leaf except with much better range.

So unless the Premier seats are distinctly better, the Bolt will be a no go for me. With a minimum commute of 63 miles one way, I need comfortable seats. Fortunately, I can wait for Leaf 2 or for the e-golf, B or i3 to get upgraded to the range I want.
 
Via GCR:
Fast-charging a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1109627_fast-charging-a-2017-chevrolet-bolt-ev-electric-car

. . . The station, as EVgo stations do, shut down after precisely 30 minutes of fast charging. Our Bolt EV, which had arrived with 78 miles of range, now showed 131 miles—meaning a half-hour boost of 53 miles, or far from the 80 percent possible in a Tesla.

And that highlights the limitations of today's fast-charging infrastructure for any car other than a Tesla: the current 50-kilowatt maximum simply doesn't permit longer-range cars to recharge anywhere near fast enough to make road trips practical. We would have required a second 30-minute session, probably even a third, to get the battery back to more than 200 miles for any kind of road trip. The Bolt EV is capable of charge rates up to 80 kw, Chevrolet says, which provides some built-in futureproofing. Since there are no public CCS stations in the U.S. now capable of delivering that rate, we don't know yet how well that works in a Bolt EV. . . .

As our reader Dawn Hall discovered on an 800-mile California road trip in her new Bolt EV, the car leaves something to be desired as a long-distance traveler. Which is a shame, frankly, because the Bolt EV is otherwise quick, smooth, quiet, spacious for its size, and an enormously competent car.

For about 200 miles. After that, there's work to be done.
 
GRA said:
Via GCR:
Fast-charging a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1109627_fast-charging-a-2017-chevrolet-bolt-ev-electric-car

. . . The station, as EVgo stations do, shut down after precisely 30 minutes of fast charging. Our Bolt EV, which had arrived with 78 miles of range, now showed 131 miles—meaning a half-hour boost of 53 miles, or far from the 80 percent possible in a Tesla.

And that highlights the limitations of today's fast-charging infrastructure for any car other than a Tesla: the current 50-kilowatt maximum simply doesn't permit longer-range cars to recharge anywhere near fast enough to make road trips practical. We would have required a second 30-minute session, probably even a third, to get the battery back to more than 200 miles for any kind of road trip. The Bolt EV is capable of charge rates up to 80 kw, Chevrolet says, which provides some built-in futureproofing. Since there are no public CCS stations in the U.S. now capable of delivering that rate, we don't know yet how well that works in a Bolt EV. . . .

As our reader Dawn Hall discovered on an 800-mile California road trip in her new Bolt EV, the car leaves something to be desired as a long-distance traveler. Which is a shame, frankly, because the Bolt EV is otherwise quick, smooth, quiet, spacious for its size, and an enormously competent car.

For about 200 miles. After that, there's work to be done.

Very little of this has to do with the car. It can charge up to 80kW, but that requires a 200A charger. I'm not ready to shake my fist at GM for not building infrastructure. Tesla had to in order to survive as a company. But they made it proprietary so that no one else could benefit from it (at least not without working a deal with them).

I think that a 238-EPA-mile EV with a 200A charging network similar to the superchargers is "an enormously competent car" for far beyond 200 miles.

As far as Dawn's trip goes, that has been discusses already. She would have benefited from better planning. There are lots of 60A+ chargers along her route, and plenty of hotels that offer overnight L2 charging near her destination.
 
GetOffYourGas said:
<snip>
Very little of this has to do with the car. It can charge up to 80kW, but that requires a 200A charger. I'm not ready to shake my fist at GM for not building infrastructure. Tesla had to in order to survive as a company. But they made it proprietary so that no one else could benefit from it (at least not without working a deal with them).

I think that a 238-EPA-mile EV with a 200A charging network similar to the superchargers is "an enormously competent car" for far beyond 200 miles.

As far as Dawn's trip goes, that has been discusses already. She would have benefited from better planning. There are lots of 60A+ chargers along her route, and plenty of hotels that offer overnight L2 charging near her destination.
Yes, we've discussed much of this previously, especially her mistakes. However, I do think that if the Bolt is limited to a max. of 80kW charge rate (and we're as yet unsure of this, only that GM says it needs at least 80kW to gain 90 miles in 30 minutes), especially if combined with eVgo's 30 minute limit, its utility will be even more severely limited on road trips for mainstream users than it should be, and $37.5k for a regional car is asking a lot of the non-ideological public. eVgo will have to remove the 30 minute limit, because it's ridiculously inconvenient to have to return to the car one or more times to restart charging when you may be int he middel of a meal or, shopping or whatever, when you know that the car will be nowhere near full.

So there's two issues that need fixing/clarification: removing time limits on QCs, and allowing the Bolt to use faster than 80kW QCing. After all, the latter is a max. of just 40kWh in 1/2 hour, or say 120-160 miles of freeway driving. I think they'll need to be able to accept at least 100kW, and probably 120kW if not the full 150kW that the next gen of CCS will apparently allow. In the meantime, the Bolt remains a car best suited for commuting for a decade or more, and regional use for 5 years or so, and while it's well suited for those tasks, its pretty pricy, especially when the fed credit goes away.
 
I have a question for the few people that have driven or own a new Bolt....

That paddle/lever on the steering wheel that kicks in the strong regen and helps decelerate the car.... does it trigger the car's brake lights to come on? I've never seen this issue brought up in the various online reviews and I'm concerned about the safety aspect of dramatically slowing the car down without the brake lights illuminating.
 
vrwl said:
I have a question for the few people that have driven or own a new Bolt....

That paddle/lever on the steering wheel that kicks in the strong regen and helps decelerate the car.... does it trigger the car's brake lights to come on? I've never seen this issue brought up in the various online reviews and I'm concerned about the safety aspect of dramatically slowing the car down without the brake lights illuminating.
There's an international standard that requires the brake lights to come on when the decel exceeds a certain rate. Here's a discussion on how the Volt2 handles it on the Volt forum, and the Bolt's unlikely to be different: http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?211546-Brake-Lights-in-L-and-the-Regen-Paddle
 
GetOffYourGas said:
Very little of this has to do with the car. It can charge up to 80kW, but that requires a 200A charger. I'm not ready to shake my fist at GM for not building infrastructure. Tesla had to in order to survive as a company. But they made it proprietary so that no one else could benefit from it (at least not without working a deal with them).

I think that a 238-EPA-mile EV with a 200A charging network similar to the superchargers is "an enormously competent car" for far beyond 200 miles.

As far as Dawn's trip goes, that has been discusses already. She would have benefited from better planning. There are lots of 60A+ chargers along her route, and plenty of hotels that offer overnight L2 charging near her destination.

Ok, if you know better, correct me its been widely reported and repeated that the Bolt cuts power at 65% SOC to "preserve battery" and it doesn't matter what the current started at so if on a 40 KW (100 amp) NRG for example (since this was the type of station) you are charging most of the top 3rd of the pack at half speed.

Now, the LEAF seems to react differently (30 kwh that is) in that I have charged at 40 KW past 80% SOC including several instances charging 25+ KW past 90% but only if its on a 50 KW charger (125 amps)

so have to think that the car has more control than you think. As far as building a network, I think the VW scandal has muddied the waters here. Kinda looking like Ameripeans are sitting back playing a "lets see what they do first" game.

Now we also have to remember that the Asians didn't start with fast charging either so it was at least a year wait for the earlier areas and well over 2 years for the later areas.

I wonder about Nissan especially when they blanketed Japan with chargers but didn't seem to think it was nearly as critical here. Oh course, there is a lot of options here and little but Nissan in Japan. there are others, if you look hard enough...
 
I finally had a chance to see and drive a Bolt last week.

Like others have said, I consider it a step down in comfort (I now understand the seat problem) and capacity from a LEAF.

On the positive side, it looks less awkward than I expected from seeing photos.

But I think you'd have to have have a serious case of range anxiety to consider buying one, at current prices.

GRA said:
Per IEVS, only 978 Bolts sold in March (962 in Feb.), vs. 1,478 LEAFs!
You can buy either a new LEAF or a Volt for ~$10 k less than a Bolt in CA.

So we might see the Bolt discounts increase fairly soon.

edatoakrun said:
No surprise, IMO, that more reports indicate the market for ~$40k econoboxes is pretty thin, and Bolt sales price discounts are increasing:

For Chevy Bolt, discounts here, markups there

...California dealerships, which got the Bolt first, have been the quickest to mark it down...
http://www.autonews.com/article/20170320/OEM05/303209973/for-chevy-bolt-discounts-here-markups-there

BEV sales price offers by dealerships, available here:

http://ev-vin.blogspot.com/2017/02/current-discounts-on-selected-evs.html
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
GetOffYourGas said:
Very little of this has to do with the car. It can charge up to 80kW, but that requires a 200A charger. I'm not ready to shake my fist at GM for not building infrastructure. Tesla had to in order to survive as a company. But they made it proprietary so that no one else could benefit from it (at least not without working a deal with them).

I think that a 238-EPA-mile EV with a 200A charging network similar to the superchargers is "an enormously competent car" for far beyond 200 miles.

As far as Dawn's trip goes, that has been discusses already. She would have benefited from better planning. There are lots of 60A+ chargers along her route, and plenty of hotels that offer overnight L2 charging near her destination.

Ok, if you know better, correct me its been widely reported and repeated that the Bolt cuts power at 65% SOC to "preserve battery" and it doesn't matter what the current started at so if on a 40 KW (100 amp) NRG for example (since this was the type of station) you are charging most of the top 3rd of the pack at half speed.

No, that's right. The Bolt ramps down the charge rate at around 50% from what I've heard. I did say " up to 80kW". That's the peak rate. There is a ramp up (at low voltage, limited to 200A), and then a somewhat quick ramp down from 200A at about 50%. Still, it is fast enough to go well beyond 84% of its nominal range (200 miles).

As for this:

DaveinOlyWA said:
so have to think that the car has more control than you think.

That seems a little arrogant. You presume what I think I know about the car. Well, you are wrong. The car has 100% control of the charge rate from a DCQC whether it is using CHAdeMO (e.g. Leaf) or CCS (e.g. Bolt).

DaveinOlyWA said:
As far as building a network, I think the VW scandal has muddied the waters here. Kinda looking like Ameripeans are sitting back playing a "lets see what they do first" game.

Very true. THe VW scandal may help or hurt the rollout of competitive charging infrastructure. We will see. Sales of cars like the Bolt will help create demand, though. People will realize that with a short QC stop or two, they could easily make a trip of 300+ miles with their 238-mile BEV.
 
edatoakrun said:
But I think you'd have to have have a serious case of range anxiety to consider buying one, at current prices.

Our feelings exactly. We bought the Leaf very soon after our Bolt test drive. Although I am sure it is a good car we don't think it is in the same class as the Leaf. If you need the range than the bolt is your solution but for those of us who don't the Leaf is just a nicer ride....and a lot cheaper. JMHO
 
GRA said:
Per IEVS, only 978 Bolts sold in March (962 in Feb.), vs. 1,478 LEAFs!

Given that GM allocated about a 30K production volume for the Bolt in 2017 and given its 2017 YTD sales volume,
GM may need to re-allocate some of that factory production by mid-year.
 
webeleafowners said:
edatoakrun said:
But I think you'd have to have have a serious case of range anxiety to consider buying one, at current prices.

Although I am sure it is a good car we don't think it is in the same class as the Leaf. If you need the range than the bolt is your solution but for those of us who don't the Leaf is just a nicer ride....and a lot cheaper. JMHO

Pretty much my conclusion too unless the Premium leather seats are much better than what I test drove. Range is the real advantage I would give to the Bolt. From a value perspective, Leaf trounces Bolt. The range is tempting as I would like to replace my ICE and the Bolt would allow me to do that. But with a commute of 60-80 miles one way, I need better seats.

And that is why I'm not willing to commit to a Model 3 until I can see it, sit in it and test drive it. The gen 1 Volt seats would be fine (haven't tested gen 2). But when companies try to go smaller or less expensive, compromises happen. I think a lot of people are expecting to get a smaller Model S for half price and will be disappointed with the result.

I'm hoping Leaf 2 maintains or improves on the Leaf as well as adds range. But we will have to wait and see.
 
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