Chevrolet Bolt

[LeftieBiker]

That chart seems to be generic, and won't be directly, accurately applicable to any specific Lithium chemistry.

[cwerdna]

Misinformation on Facebook is rampant and imm does lead to reduced sales, unnecessary degradation and confusion. People here "Just plug it in" from Tesla (which has TMS, custom charge levels and EXTENSIVE warnings to not charge to 100% needlessly) and think that applies to the LEAF as well. Trying to explain the difference to them is like talking to...nothing.

Yeah. It's very annoying. Fortunately, in many cases, some folks with the right info does chime in but it's such a waste of time when bad info is interjected into a thread (sometimes numerous times) and folks keep having to step in. And, it's not clear if the right folks end up seeing the corrections.

I have to agree with Leftie. FWIW, this guy in the mild PNW w/an '11 at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.p ... 82#p537682 is down 7 capacity bars and the car's always been up in the PNW.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattle ... 620968334/ was his post from Dec 2017 showing he was down 7 bars. In his comments further down, he said:
"Since new (2011), plugged in to home L2 every night, charged to 100% every night. Never DCFC until the 3rd year and only occasionally. No long trips resulting in a hot battery. Just a really good, reliable, regular commuting and errands car."

[lorenfb]

That chart seems to be generic, and won't be directly, accurately applicable to any specific Lithium chemistry.

There's probably at most a very marginal difference. And your data for the Leaf battery chemistry are?

[lorenfb]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattle ... 620968334/ was his post from Dec 2017 showing he was down 7 bars. In his comments further down, he said:
"Since new (2011), plugged in to home L2 every night, charged to 100% every night. Never DCFC until the 3rd year and only occasionally. No long trips resulting in a hot battery. Just a really good, reliable, regular commuting and errands car."

And your conclusion from this anecdotal data is? Besides, Facebook is a very reliable source for data, right?

You want to use anecdotal data, then here's mine:

age - 5.5 yrs, mileage - 74K, charges to 100% using 220V/30amps - 1430 (5days/wk, 52wks, 5.5yrs), present Ahrs - 49
And here in SoCal, the weather does get HOT! Furthermore, I doubt that anyone really knows where Nissan set the
100% charge cutoff point based on the Leaf's cell voltages for the Leaf's chemistry.

And then you have those that charge to only 85%, but "drag" the battery often to VLBW in an attempt to maximize range.

[cwerdna]

I received a Chevrolet Quality survey (titled "About your new Chevrolet Bolt") in email and a reminder to answer on behalf of a guy who's VP for quality at GM North America. Was legit and was hosted on gm-quality.com: https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=gm-quality.com. As the email puts it

If you already received a request for feedback regarding your dealership experience, please know that this is a different survey, specifically related to your opinions and experience with your Chevrolet Bolt.

Please accept my assurance that information from this survey will be used for research and quality improvement purposes only....

At the end, it let me leave my contact info if I was willing receive a followup, if necessary.

To make a long story short, they did call (and I look up the number they called from to confirm it was legit) and after telephone tag I was able to speak to a human. They asked about some of my answers. Some of survey was a bit awkward to navigate or to describe the issue/correctly classify based upon hardcoded choices. They seemed to get the impression that I had a lot of infotainment system issues, which is unfortunately a quirk about how their survey was structured. I told them it's not as bad as you might think, mainly that it's a bit slow and has some usability issues (e.g. not enough memories, not so easy to switch between sources).

I did elaborate on some other things I forgot to mention like the want for a % SoC display or NOT shipping cars w/the stupid honk alarms enabled (cord theft and power loss alert). I mentioned to them things like the Tesla's Supercharger network, speeds, OTA updates, seat comfort, Surround Vision shortcoming vs. Nissan Around View Monitor and what I used on a recent and Rav4, not enough memories on the stereo, auto headlight switch behavior quirks, and charging inlet location. I spent almost 30 minutes on the phone with them.

I'm pleasantly surprised they at least cared enough to assign someone to follow up and listen. The woman said they were documenting everything I mentioned.

I did mention to them I've been a Leaf driver since end of July 2013 and to take my feedback for it is, from 1 EV driver and to prioritize as they find appropriate.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattle ... 620968334/ was his post from Dec 2017 showing he was down 7 bars. In his comments further down, he said:
"Since new (2011), plugged in to home L2 every night, charged to 100% every night. Never DCFC until the 3rd year and only occasionally. No long trips resulting in a hot battery. Just a really good, reliable, regular commuting and errands car."

And your conclusion from this anecdotal data is? Besides, Facebook is a very reliable source for data, right?

You want to use anecdotal data, then here's mine:

age - 5.5 yrs, mileage - 74K, charges to 100% using 220V/30amps - 1430 (5days/wk, 52wks, 5.5yrs), present Ahrs - 49
And here in SoCal, the weather does get HOT! Furthermore, I doubt that anyone really knows where Nissan set the
100% charge cutoff point based on the Leaf's cell voltages for the Leaf's chemistry.

And then you have those that charge to only 85%, but "drag" the battery often to VLBW in an attempt to maximize range.

LOL re: reliability of FB data. FWIW, I believe I have met that poster before when I lived in WA (for about 9 years in total).

I've seen some data/reports from folks in the PNW but usually those folks have better chemistries.

My part of the Bay Area is a lot warmer than up there and I know of folks w/'11 or '12 Leafs who aren't nearly that bad off in terms of capacity.

Your Leaf is 4 months newer than mine. As I've posted in other threads, ever since I took ownership of my used 5/2013 built '13 Leaf in July 2015, I've tried to baby the battery on weekdays. As of earlier tonight, its stats were:
AHr: 54.29
SOH: 83.02%
Hx: 77.26%
odo: 63,980 miles
QCs: 0 (has no CHAdeMO inlet)
L1/L2s: 4076 - I use the midnight to midnight 80% timer "trick" so likely my L1/L2 count is getting way inflated: incremented by at least 2 on days I charge. And, I sometimes use the remote climate control when plugged in, probably incrementing that count again.

Almost all the juice that goes into my Leaf during that time I've owned has been from 208 volt L2 EVSEs at work and a small % from L2 208 volt (in a tiny set of cases, 240 volt) public charging. A very tiny bit is from 120 volt charging at home.

[jjeff]

I did elaborate on some other things I forgot to mention like the want for a % SoC display or NOT shipping cars w/the stupid honk alarms enabled (cord theft and power loss alert). I mentioned to them things like the Tesla's Supercharger network, speeds, OTA updates, seat comfort, Surround Vision shortcoming vs. Nissan Around View Monitor and what I used on a recent and Rav4, not enough memories on the stereo, auto headlight switch behavior quirks, and charging inlet location. I spent almost 30 minutes on the phone with them.

Thanks for taking the time to post your opinions, as someone whos been driving EVs for several years I agree with pretty much all you said. In regards to the SOC% display, I just can't believe how rare it seems to be to find a EV or PHEV with that basic, IMO mandatory, gauge. I mean coming from a '12 Leaf which lacked a SOC% gauge I found it a must and even went to the bother to track down and install a used LeafDD for just that function, to display SOC%. I mean I can understand Nissan omitting on their first gen Leafs, after all it was one of the first EVs but they learned and by '13 they added SOC% and haven't looked back. I just can't understand how other mfgs. haven't learned from Nissan and include SOC% in all their battery-powered vehicles, front and center.
How many cell phones do you know of which lack SOC%, no modern ones that I know of. I know everytime I get a new Apple the first thing I do is to enable SOC%, I believe for whatever reason just the crude icon of a battery is the standard out of the box, how many people do you know of that just use that
Glad you mentioned seat comfort with the Bolt, that and if it were me I'd tell them I hated the cockpit type feel of the Bolt but maybe you like it, I'm sure some must or it would be different. I really looked at the Bolt long and hard and really really wanted it to work but in the end, like the Volt which I really really really(I would have loved one) I just couldn't live with some of it's shortcomings, some of them deal killers to me. I'm glad for the most part yours works well for you, I wish that had been the case for me
Oh I also totally agree with your default horn honk statement, make the default off and if someone wants for some reason to enable it, let them. Just like the lock on Nissan's J1772 port, make it something you have to do rather than a default.

[lorenfb]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattle ... 620968334/ was his post from Dec 2017 showing he was down 7 bars. In his comments further down, he said:
"Since new (2011), plugged in to home L2 every night, charged to 100% every night. Never DCFC until the 3rd year and only occasionally. No long trips resulting in a hot battery. Just a really good, reliable, regular commuting and errands car."

And your conclusion from this anecdotal data is? Besides, Facebook is a very reliable source for data, right?

You want to use anecdotal data, then here's mine:

age - 5.5 yrs, mileage - 74K, charges to 100% using 220V/30amps - 1430 (5days/wk, 52wks, 5.5yrs), present Ahrs - 49
And here in SoCal, the weather does get HOT! Furthermore, I doubt that anyone really knows where Nissan set the
100% charge cutoff point based on the Leaf's cell voltages for the Leaf's chemistry.

And then you have those that charge to only 85%, but "drag" the battery often to VLBW in an attempt to maximize range.

LOL re: reliability of FB data. FWIW, I believe I have met that poster before when I lived in WA (for about 9 years in total).

I've seen some data/reports from folks in the PNW but usually those folks have better chemistries.

My part of the Bay Area is a lot warmer than up there and I know of folks w/'11 or '12 Leafs who aren't nearly that bad off in terms of capacity.

Your Leaf is 4 months newer than mine. As I've posted in other threads, ever since I took ownership of my used 5/2013 built '13 Leaf in July 2015, I've tried to baby the battery on weekdays. As of earlier tonight, its stats were:
AHr: 54.29
SOH: 83.02%
Hx: 77.26%
odo: 63,980 miles
QCs: 0 (has no CHAdeMO inlet)
L1/L2s: 4076 - I use the midnight to midnight 80% timer "trick" so likely my L1/L2 count is getting way inflated: incremented by at least 2 on days I charge. And, I sometimes use the remote climate control when plugged in, probably incrementing that count again.

Almost all the juice that goes into my Leaf during that time I've owned has been from 208 volt L2 EVSEs at work and a small % from L2 208 volt (in a tiny set of cases, 240 volt) public charging. A very tiny bit is from 120 volt charging at home.

And your point is, without being verbose?

My point being made is not to refute the effect of charging to 100%, but to indicate that the following graphic is fairly
representative of most all BEV battery chemistries:



If you have data, other than anecdotal, then present it!

Some seem to ignore the fact a rigorous/scientific analysis of battery degradation requires a multivariate analysis,
given the fact that a number of variables have high correlation factors and covariance and NOT one variable dominates.

[LeftieBiker]

In regards to the SOC% display, I just can't believe how rare it seems to be to find a EV or PHEV with that basic, IMO mandatory, gauge. I mean coming from a '12 Leaf which lacked a SOC% gauge I found it a must and even went to the bother to track down and install a used LeafDD for just that function, to display SOC%. I mean I can understand Nissan omitting on their first gen Leafs, after all it was one of the first EVs but they learned and by '13 they added SOC% and haven't looked back. I just can't understand how other mfgs. haven't learned from Nissan and include SOC% in all their battery-powered vehicles, front and center.

FWIW, the Bolt's app has a SOC display.

[cwerdna]

FWIW, the Bolt's app has a SOC display.

It does. But similar to how the NissanConnect app is slow to update, so is the myChevrolet app.

Also, I'm still confused about whether I'll need to pay for any of OnStar (Moronstar called by some) to have it work once the 3 months trial of one my services is over. The trial for that service is normally only 1 month, but becomes 3 if you leave a credit card # with them.

It's unclear to me whether one of these will keep it going (from https://www.onstar.com/us/en/support/chevrolet/):

You will also receive 10 years of standard connectivity with Connected Access, which enables services such as Vehicle Diagnostics, Dealer Maintenance Notification, Smart Driver and Marketplace. Chevrolet Bolt and Chevrolet Volt owners will also receive 5 years of the Remote Key Fob add-on.

Remote Commands Key Fob is in a different section of the app and only has buttons to lock, unlock, start and stop precondition and horn & lights.

To see % SoC, I have to go to vehicle status which is a different section.

https://my.chevrolet.com/onstar/myservices for me shows

No additional charge
Chevrolet Connected Access
Active through: January 25, 2029

and

OnStar
OnStar Safety and Security Plan
Renews Monthly <-- this one is on the 3 month trial. They list a bunch of mostly worthless services to me (basically what's at https://www.onstar.com/ca/en/services/safety-security/). They offer it for $24.99/month and then yearly plans: all the way up to $1425 for 6 years. No thanks!

[LeftieBiker]

I THINK that you get the SOC% display and remote CC access for free for 10 years, but that like Nissan, they withdraw remote key commands when the trial ends.