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Bolt resistive heater, sucks in Winter; old news. But I have to think sucking at 150-170 miles of range might not be as bad as excelling with 100 miles of range :cool:
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Bolt resistive heater, sucks in Winter; old news. But I have to think sucking at 150-170 miles of range might not be as bad as excelling with 100 miles of range :cool:

For once Dave and I agree. The Leaf's range is so much lower that it would have to have almost double the Bolt's efficiency to beat it in Winter driving.
 
LeftieBiker said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Bolt resistive heater, sucks in Winter; old news. But I have to think sucking at 150-170 miles of range might not be as bad as excelling with 100 miles of range :cool:

For once Dave and I agree. The Leaf's range is so much lower that it would have to have almost double the Bolt's efficiency to beat it in Winter driving.

Actually I think this makes 3 times in 7 years... getting there! :)
 
LeftieBiker said:
For once Dave and I agree. The Leaf's range is so much lower that it would have to have almost double the Bolt's efficiency to beat it in Winter driving.

The LEAF's heat pump HVAC system is much more efficient than the old resistive heater, but that is old news since 2013. What sort of HVAC system does the Bolt use?
 
OrientExpress said:
LeftieBiker said:
For once Dave and I agree. The Leaf's range is so much lower that it would have to have almost double the Bolt's efficiency to beat it in Winter driving.

The LEAF's heat pump HVAC system is much more efficient than the old resistive heater, but that is old news since 2013. What sort of HVAC system does the Bolt use?
The Bolt has no heat pump, unlike LEAF and Ioniq.

And the Ioniq reportedly accepts charges at up to~80 kW.

So the question discussed previously on this thread of "at what distance will an Ioniq pass a Bolt on a long trip?" appears to be only about 300 miles, under the cold weather test conditions below:

edatoakrun said:
Autobild tested eight Euro-BEVs in a real-world winter range test, and the Bolt (Ampera) did quite poorly in terms of efficiency.

Suggests that A 2018 LEAF (not tested) as well as an Ioniq (as discussed previously) might well cover a long winter trip with recharges in less time than the Bolt, despite its much larger capacity pack.

...The German auto magazine Auto Bild decided to test the range of eight electric cars. With an outside temperature of just 5º C and the AC set to 21º C, all electric cars were submitted to the same 143 km route, which included a 43 km long highway ride at speeds up to 130 km/h...

Electric car

Range

Efficiency...

Hyundai IONIQ Electric (28 kWh usable)

192 km

14,6 kWh/100 km...

Opel Ampera-e (60 kWh)

273 km (170 miles)

22 kWh/100 km

http://pushevs.com/2017/12/09/auto-bild-tested-range-8-electric-cars/

http://www.autobild.de/artikel/acht-elektro-autos-im-reichweiten-check-13047587.html

A driver posted the following charging results for an Ampera using a ~100 kW charger, suggesting max rate is in fact, in the ~55 kW range:

The charger showed the following values:
7% SOC 52.6kW
11% SOC 53.7kW
21% SOC 53.8kW
33% SOC 54.6kW
44% SOC 55.2kW
49% SOC 55.5kW
https://translate.google.com/translate?act=url&depth=2&hl=en&ie=UTF8&nv=1&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://elbilforum.no/forum/index.php/topic,31392.msg600660.html%3FPHPSESSID%3Dafh05imvbl3olvts0tn3bo47c2

How many miles before the 2018 LEAF passes the Bolt on a long trip under the same test conditions, if ever?

Bonus question:

How many miles before the Ioniq passes the LEAF, under the same test conditions, if ever?
 
Via IEVS ex MT:
How Ultra-Performance Tires Affect The Chevrolet Bolt
https://insideevs.com/ultra-performance-tires-chevrolet-bolt/

. . . The differences were brought into sharp focus by MotorTrend recently when they exchanged the stock low rolling resistance (LRR) rubber on their long-term Chevy Bolt loaner with definitively more sticky hoops: a set of BFGoodrich G-Force Sport Comp-2 ultra-high-performance (UHP) tires. Lucky for us, they took detailed notes of the results. . . .

  • "Based on the EPA-rated 238-mile driving range, our driving range decreased by 10.2 percent.The average ideal range after charging dropped from 248 miles to 224 miles, and the average predicted range dropped from 206 miles to 186 miles."

After subjecting the Bolt to another, ahem, battery of tests involving their EQUA Real MPG team, MT determined the new efficiency rating of the Chevy while wearing UHP shoes to be 89.2 MPGe in combined driving, down from the stock 122.2 MPGe (note: this EQUA Real MPG stock result differs slightly from the official EPA number of 119 MPGe). . . .
Obviously, generally applicable to any LRR to performance tire swap. There were also changes in noise.
 
An acquaintance of mine recently acquired a Bolt, and my initial impressions were pretty good as a whole. The negatives that others have mentioned before where quite noticeable even during the short time I drove it, however, such as the horribly uncomfortable and hard seats, and the cheap hard plastic interior. Regarding the UI, I despised the animation of the car rotating every time I want to get to an option. It wastes time.

Very peppy, obviously faster than my 2012 Leaf, and of course the dramatically increased range is a good thing. Even so, holding out for the Model 3. The one I drove was a $42k trim, and it felt less comfortable and luxurious than my 2012 SL Leaf.
 
I've rented a bolt a few times. Was difficult to figure out how to turn off the radio, and every time restarted the car the radio would come back on. Drove short trips of less than 15 minutes. Didn't notice pain in my hip until after I started reading reviews of the Bolt. :p Overall I think it is a really nice car, but I value safety features like traffic aware cruise control which the Bolt doesn't have. Strongly prefer a larger car also, since I have 3 children in the house. Don't have an issue with hard plastics. Tried to lease one back in November, but dealers where low in inventory.

Currently planning on buying used Model S with rear facing child seats. Tesla told me they will have a ton of those available first few weeks of January due to strong lease sales 3 years ago.
 
Will GM never learn :roll:
They were the same company to make an HVAC system where you could not turn off the fan, if you have HVAC on the best you could do was turn the fan down to the lowest speed. I would NOT like a car where I could not turn OFF the damn radio! and I don't mean just turning down the volume, I want it OFF.
 
There was, IIRC, a Federal requirement, at least for a while, that the fan run whenever the engine was running, because of CO leaking into the cabin. So even with the fan set to Off it still ran slowly.
 
I'm only aware of GM vehicles that had the always on fan. Note if you turn OFF the HVAC the fan(and heat or any gravity air from driving) also turns off. None of the mostly import cars I've owned over the years have had the always on fan nor older(60s) American cars I've owned. Of course there could have been ones I didn't use or see :)
 
Fwiw, on my 1987 Porsche 944, the fan can never be turned all the way off. Guess Porsche will never "learn".
 
I think the radio is on all of the time in some newer cars to support non-stop audio requirements like the infotainment, GPS, and active noise cancellation. That said, I can't understand why radio audio could not be muted if the driver turns the radio off. I know the Volt suffers from this flaw, you turn the radio off and it pops on whenever the infotainment or GPS makes an announcement. Guess the Bolt does this as well.
 
LKK said:
I think the radio is on all of the time in some newer cars to support non-stop audio requirements like the infotainment, GPS, and active noise cancellation. That said, I can't understand why radio audio could not be muted if the driver turns the radio off. I know the Volt suffers from this flaw, you turn the radio off and it pops on whenever the infotainment or GPS makes an announcement. Guess the Bolt does this as well.

FYI; LEAF BT works just fine and radio status (on or off) does not matter.
 
Test drove a Bolt today, kind of spur of the moment thing as I got an email a couple days ago saying time was running out for my $50 gift card if I took a test drive in a Chevy product, before the end of the year......this was my first email :roll:
I called several local Chevy dealers looking for a Bolt, most didn't have one, several tried to talk me out of one over the phone, instead suggesting something like a Cruze :roll: others had a Volt and said this would be a better vehicle for me.......but I finally found one that had one Premiere, basically fully loaded($43k list).
Well we drove to the dealer this morning in my '13 Leaf, -12F and even though I charged to 100% my Leaf only showed 60 mile range :cry: which was just fine as the dealer was less than 20 miles RT. I was kind of hoping to plug in at the dealer while we test drove the Bolt but after a couple times around the dealer's lot, I didn't see any type of charging station :x strike one.
I asked the receptionist for the person who might be most knowledgeable in the Bolt and she said everyone should have been trained in it, so she called someone out for us. First thing I asked is if they had a charge station for customers use and got a blank stare :? He said they might have one in service but nothing for customer use, I told him the local Nissan dealer I got my Leaf from not only had several free L2 stations but also a free L3, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about.....

He was a nice enough guy but knew absolutely NOTHING about the Bolt, other than it was an EV :roll: As he really knew nothing about it he just made a photocopy of our driver's license and give us the FOB :) actually as I knew little of the Bolt I wouldn't have minded at least some tips getting it going but alas I had to figure it out myself. After pushing the power button the F*ukin' radio came on, blaring louder than I'd probably every play it. I pushed the "power" button and the display said MUTE. After figuring out how to turn on the heat, heated seats and steering wheel heater next I had to figure how to get the damn thing out of gear :D After figuring out I had to hold down the button on the left side of the shifting lever, we got going. Personally I like the Leaf mouse better, my favorite is our Prius's on the dash shifter but I could learn to live with the Bolt though.

Try as I could I couldn't find any sort of battery % meter(something I use 100% of the time on my Leaf) the best I could find was a visual picture of the battery under the car and the GOM. The GOM showed only 25 miles under normal conditions and the visual picture showed just one bank of green batteries :( Strike 2. A vehicle with a 238 mile range, probably the first one to drive it for the day and 25 miles!
The heater, seats and steering wheel seemed to heat up well enough and get up and go was fine, couldn't really gun it as the roads were somewhat snow covered but then I've never been wanting any more power than my Leaf had, so I'm not too power hungry. I was trying to find out how the paddle regen thing worked, I tried the buttons behind the left side of the steering wheel but they didn't seem to do anything so I tried the ones on the right......and the F*uckin' radio came on blaring again! I quickly tried turning down the knob but ended up turning down the climate control to LOW :x I then ended up pushing the power button again, which just muted the radio :roll: F*in' morons! My guess is the person driving the car around for us to test drive did the same thing and when I started it up it just returned back to it's blaring state :roll: I retried the left paddle and did find more regen this time, in fact so much that it locked the cars tires and put us into a slight spin before I let go of the paddle, wow! that's a lot of regen.

All in all I kind of liked it better than I thought I might, the seats were a bit tight on the sides but as it was so damn cold the cushions were quite stiff and it was tolerable, if I were to going to buy one though I'd want to retry it in the summer, I'm also not all that fond of leather but I'm guessing one might be forced to get it with the Premiere :roll: Fit and finish seemed OK, not as nice as my "S" model Leaf but acceptable enough. I'd really really miss the %SOC meter though, maybe like Nissan they'll add it in later models.
Price seemed quite good, before takes and maybe transportation it was marked down to $38k so after the $7.5k tax rebate I'd be able to get, it would be close to $30k, not bad for a vehicle with a 60Kwh battery!
As par for the course, none of the vehicles I'd really be interested in purchasing were on the large sales floor, which were all basically larger SUVs and pickups :roll: I did sit in an Equinox and really loved it, roomy front, back and rear and close to 40mpg hwy even with AWD, 40 with 2WD. I told the sales guy I'd buy one now if I could get it with the 60KWH battery and would be satisfied with even half the 238 mile range, nope just small vehicles for us EV'ers :(
Sat in a Traverse and while super roomy and 3 rows seating, it was just too large for my taste and no 40 mpg for it, I believe it topped out at mid 20s for hwy and upper teens?? for city, not for for this guy!

All in all it was a spotty experience, hard to find a Bolt, people telling me to not get it, the place that had one the people seemed to know little to nothing about it, not even how to plug it in :roll: oh and it was filthy dirty and black, I HATE black cars and for just that. The vehicle itself would suffice although I'd much prefer a larger more deluxe vehicle even at the expense of range. I kind of would have liked to see/test drive a Volt again(last time was back in '13) but as it was still bitter cold we passed.

Oh by the time we got back from our short test drive the range was <20 miles and the green batteries had turned to orange, when walking back to our Leaf the Bolt was still sitting where we left it, not plugged in and it looked like someone else was going to take it out for a spin.....
 
jjeff said:
As par for the course, none of the vehicles I'd really be interested in purchasing were on the large sales floor, which were all basically larger SUVs and pickups :roll:
Well, no surprise. From http://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/gmcom/investor/2017/dec/Deliveries-November-2017.pdf (linked to from http://www.gm.com/investors/sales/us-sales-production.html), US Bolt EV sales are a drop in the bucket vs. rest of vehicles, esp. their bread and butter vehicle types.

I added up all their battering ram of death class SUVs (e.g. Escalades, Suburban, Tahoe, Yukons, etc.) and found that those in total (for Nov 2017) outsell the Bolt about 9:1. The Silverado-C/K truck outsells the Bolt by about 15.5 to 1.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The Bolt I test drove had about 25 miles on the GOM, and ended with about 22. Dealers really hate to recharge the things, it seems.

I would have had someone follow me, run it dead and return to dealership to advise them where to find it. hand them key and walk out.
 
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