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"Camping Mode" Test Results

48K views 47 replies 21 participants last post by  Juppers 
#1 · (Edited)
So this evening I've been doing a little test of something I'll call camping mode, an idea I got from Bjorn Hyland on YouTube with his Tesla Model S, and the procedure is identical to his early videos. Tesla recently added a user selectable 8 hour duration mode that has this functionality. perhaps inspired by Bjorn's use case. There have been several requests in regard to the Bolt for things like long term WiFi hotspot use, climate control, and also active 12V converter power to make use of various 12V accessories from the car without draining the low voltage battery - all features one might want to make use of while camping.

I've run the test for about 6 hours, and can report that the car ran this test with no indication of shutdown or other undesirable behavior. The one possible exception is the pedestrian warning alert is active and emitting its low volume noise, of course there are work-arounds for this if deemed necessary. The coolant pumps can also be heard circulating lightly in this state, even with cabin climate control turned off.

To initiate a untethered, long duration parking situation with 12V power, climate control, and WiFi available, place the vehicle in neutral, apply the parking brake, and do not exit the vehicle via the driver's door. If you will be taking a rest break in the rear of the vehicle while in uncomfortable hot or cold weather, this will keep you in a nice comfort range inside the vehicle while you rest. Of course, the Bolt only has approximately 68" of space from the back of the front seats (in the extreme forward position) to the rear hatch, so taller customers might not obtain optimal comfort results if reclined in the rear of the vehicle. A solution to bridge the gap between the front seats and the folded rear seat backs might be desirable, and could potentially be supported in part by the center console lid.

The 12V auxiliary system varies between 12.7V and 14.6V, and appears to be quite conservative with its voltage output, staying in the lower voltage area for longer periods of time than you might expect. This is probably to conserve energy losses that would normally occur in the 12V battery. It handled a moderate intermittent test load of 200 to 700 watts with ease.

Enjoy your Stay aboard the USS Bolt, and be sure to appreciate its many fine accommodations! Always be sure to account for expected energy use while planning your next road trip in the all new Chevy Bolt!
 
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#3 ·
If the car is plugged in, will it stay on or does the shutdown timer still activate after a time? I thought perhaps it might just keep running if it's plugged in and turned on, but I haven't tested that yet. If it stays on, no need to fiddle with the neutral/parking brake thing if you have a power source handy, it might just keep plugging away while in park.
 
#4 ·
So for WiFi hotspot mode, is this the procedure?


  1. Shift into neutral
  2. Shut off climate control
  3. Shut off infotainment
  4. Exit through a passenger door
Should you take the key fob with you our leave it in the car?
This gives 8 hours of internet service?

I'd love to have this feature. It would have been a life saver when tropical storm Irma came through Atlanta. I had power but no internet for two days.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Check out ProfessorBolta's adventure, with the California fires.
Yeah knowing this trick would have helped when I was powering my house.

I just tried it and it appears to work well. Getting out the passengers door isn't as hard as I thought either. Some observations ...

  • The engine compartment is making more noise than just the pumps, it sounds like a compressor. Interestingly when I eventually opened the driver door it stopped. I had the climate control and radio turned off.
  • I checked the drivers door for a 'closed' button (in the old days they had these) but now it appears to be integrated with the lock, so you can't fool it that way
  • Leaving the car with the remote seems to work fine, and the controls on the FOB still work, however you can't walk up and have the car auto-unlock anymore, you have to explicitly unlock the doors.
  • Make sure to turn off any running lights before you exit, maybe because it's morning the daylight running lights were on
  • If the weather is good and no bugs I'd probably leave the driver window open so I can access the controls
 
#7 ·
I just tried it in Park with the trickle charger cord plugged in, and it shut off at 2 hours on the nose. I even fiddled the dash controls occasionally to see if that impacts the timer, and it appears that it does not - still two hours from shifting into park to shutdown. I think someone else might have already tested this with the car on charge, but I couldn't find it so I just figured I'd give it a shot today and see what happened.

So a "RV park camping mode" still eludes us. I thought one option might be to take a programmable EVSE or a heavy duty wall timer with you that won't start up until 2 hours before you want to get up/leave/etc - but the car detects the insertion of the cord, not just the power and pilot signal from the EVSE. Once that cord goes in the port, it shifts to park and the countdown begins. :(
 
#8 ·
I just tried it in Park with the trickle charger cord plugged in, and it shut off at 2 hours on the nose. I even fiddled the dash controls occasionally to see if that impacts the timer, and it appears that it does not - still two hours from shifting into park to shutdown. I think someone else might have already tested this with the car on charge, but I couldn't find it so I just figured I'd give it a shot today and see what happened.
No the key is you have to put it into Neutral and you're using WIFI and accessory port in a non charge mode. Why would you need the accessory port when charging? You already have a plug, in that case maybe you'd want WIFI I guess, but a couple hours should be sufficient. So I'd say camping mode is available by this trick.
 
#9 ·
Yeah, I figured the camping mode in my first post is the "most useful" use-case, but if you are say, doing an overnight at an RV park on a leg of your journey, my thought was you have it plugged into the NEMA 14-50 with your EVSE, hop in, set up camp, you get a good nights rest with WiFi, climate control, and a full charge in the morning! If GM would just extend the shut-down timer to 8 hours, we'd basically have a camp mode available with no fuss, no matter if we were on-tether or not!
 
#10 ·
Need Camping Mode

Bought my Bolt to use as a Towd vehicle behind my Motorhome (front wheels on the dolly, of course). Would like to make use of the hotspot with ipad/iPhone devices inside the rig while the MH is plugged in to the 14-50 and the charger is plugged in to the 30A TT-30 socket. Discussions on this page will be very useful in finding a way to remain connected in parks with no service or $/line fees.

Mr Chevy: chime in with a software fix if you can!
 
#14 ·
I recall that Volt owners could set the EPB, shift to park, and rubberband the shifter button to keep the Volt on indefinitely.

I wonder if there's an equivalent Bolt owners can do. Maybe a combo of rubber bands to depress the thumb button and another bungee cord to pull the shifter knob towards Neutral or something so it appears a weightless driver is attempting to shift. Of course, have the EPB set.
 
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#15 ·
The wifi is nice....but I want those kWh in a multi-day power outage in 120V pure-sine form.

I will try and overnight test in 'N' with no load, and then a 300W load to see that the DC-DC inverter remains active indefinitely.

If all I have to do it use N instead of P and climb out the passenger door, I'll be a happy 'camper'.

I wonder if the car will mind having the hood open in N?
 
#17 · (Edited)
Did a quick standby consumption test tonight, running the car in 'N' with all accessories off, and the display on minimum brightness. The car reports using 0.4 kWh (±0.1 obviously) in 2.2 hours. This works out to 180W with a 25% uncertainty. I will do a longer run soon.

This is in a garage at 45°F. The car reports all this usage as 'climate settings' BTW and none as battery conditioning.

This is workable for my backup power application....costing about 5 kWh per day in vehicle standby use, acceptable for a few days of backup, but reducing overall efficiency when powering a 300W average house load....to probably about 50% or so.
 
#23 ·
Seems comparable to the power consumption of most cars that are in the run position with HVAC turned off. HVAC is one of the more demanding power draws, even if it's just a blower running.

Camping ability is one of my criteria for choosing the plug in Prius. I can sleep in the back, and the 3.3 kWh battery will give me stereo and a cooling if needed. It will give me heat if I allow the engine to run.
 
#19 ·
Yeah, I don't own an RV and will never need to tow my Bolt. Nonetheless, I've thrown a 10mm wrench into the lower cargo compartment so that if I ever need to have the vehicle hauled away by a tow truck I can remove the negative terminal from the battery to avoid this very issue.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Did an overnight test of 'camping mode' standby usage, that is in 'N'. As before, 45°F garage, all accessories turned off, radio in low power mode, display at min brightness, hood open.

I also pulled fuse 34 during the expt. Since replaced.

I used 1.8 kWh in 10.2 hours. This works out to 175W ±5%, as before.

This DOES show up as 'accessory usage' not climate settings (I misread the display before). No battery conditioning occurred at this temp.

No noise, no shutdowns, no error codes. Just a quiet 900 lb battery on wheels.

Next step: a 10 hour 800W load expt.

12V battery sat at 15.6V the entire time. This is a bit high for an AGM battery, but is appropriate for charging an AGM at ~5°F, according to p19 of this doc:

https://www.batterystuff.com/files/788-lifeline_tech_manual.pdf

Oddly, the car reported it was 14°F the entire time. Either the temp sensor was crashed, or it doesn't update in N or with fuse 34 removed (I started the test shortly after driving at 14°F). Perhaps the AGM charge controller uses that data??? Any wisdom from the AGM gurus?
 
#26 · (Edited)
If we take the 1600W_DC output figure from GM at face value, and we assume that the 175W standby is input (i.e. on a traction battery energy basis) and the DC-DC is 90% efficient (I have heard this elsewhere), then the excess 12V power available is:

1600 - (175W*0.9) = 1440W_DC

If we assume a cheap pure sine inverter like my tiger claw is 80% efficient (conservative, online figures are 82-85%), then the most we can get out is:

1440 * 0.8 = 1150 W_AC

on a long-term basis. That is about the limit that we have to play with....plenty to run a small space heater, a window AC unit or a fridge, etc.

Surges and short loads (like coffee pod machines) above this figure would be buffered by the AGM battery, and would be fine.

My current system is flawed in that it would allow loads up to about 1400W_AC (steady) that **could** drain the AGM, so I will need to be careful not to create that condition....I doubt I will ever use more than 1 kW sustained. On the plus side, it is over-built for my 300W typical load and accepts up to 3 kW brief surges (for starting motors) and 1.3 kW 60 second surges for making Nespresso for the spouse. :x

If you do set this up, I would put a dedicated 'kill-a-watt' or other AC power meter in place so you can monitor in use. I have.
 
#29 ·
BTW did a little test -- I was outside, my wife was in the car. She turned it on, put it into neutral with the parking brake on. I plugged in the L2 charger cable (so no doors were opened), and the car automatically switched to Park mode.

We didn't try this in Diagnostics mode -- does the charger even work in that case?
 
#30 · (Edited)
DrDiesel1: Thank you for the heads up. Just read your warning on removing the 12V ground wire while towing. There goes my possible use of the Bolt hotspot while the MotorHome and "Towd" are cruising down the highway. Think I'll look for the fuse to the parking brake actuator suggested in another post. Thanks again... our first trip is in 2 weeks and wouldn't I have been red faced?!!
 
#32 ·
So looks like the consensus is there is no way to put the Bolt in "camping mode" while charging? There's no way to shift to N with the car plugged in, and if you do the gymnastics of exiting through the passenger door, the Bolt will shift the Park automatically if plugged in. That's a bit of a bummer. I just moved to my new house, and was using my Bolt as a wifi hotspot, but couldn't figure out a way to keep it on for more than an hour while plugged in.
 
#33 ·
So, I've been following this for a few months, but just dropped my home WiFi. With the car on, it looks like it might cost me a dollar to use the hotspot to watch a streamed movie and then turn off the car? What would the KwH cost be to keep it running in N every evening, charge on 240 overnight. For decision making purposes, assume I don't use the car except for the battery.
 
#34 ·
@Mag, I'd be worried the AT&T service backing the OnStar WIFI Hotspot would have caps on cellular data. They'd probably throttle you at like cell phone user at some point. Given the death of Net Neutrality and AT&T's previous shenanigans and their aim to dominate an entertainment stream (Time Warner), I'd expect your plans would be dashed quickly by AT&T throttling.
 
#40 ·
From https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/em...saster/wildfires/psps-service-impact-map.page and https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/em...l-disaster/wildfires/public-safety-event.page, my power may be turned off Wednesday at 4 am so my Bolt may be my backup power source until I go to work.

My work is supposedly not in an affected area.

My car will be in a secure garage. I think I get what @BlackBolt's getting at. Climbing from the driver's seat to passenger's seat to climb out that side is real awkward. Instead, it seems I can from the passenger side use a broom stick to press on the brake so I can shift to neutral so I can enter and exit the car w/o climbing over anything (all on the passenger side).
 
#37 ·
I have what might be a variation on this theme. The power went out just now in rural NH, so I am using an inverter off the car. The car is turned OFF [radio is still on]. After turning the car off, the aux 12 v stays on until you open a door. But the back hatch doesn't count. So while I could climb out a window, it's easier to crawl out the back hatch, and closing that doesn't cut the 12v. Don't know yet if it will stay on forever.....
 
#38 ·
If the car's turned off (and not plugged in charging), the DC to DC converter is almost certainly not engaged and you're just running down the 12 volt until it's flat.

When the car's in READY mode, you can hear a pump and see turbulence in the driver's side front coolant reservoir (coolant coming in at the top and turbelence along the side) for the coolant loop that cools a bunch of the car's electronics, include the DC to DC converter.

Eventually w/a flat enough 12 volt, you may find your Bolt won't go into READY mode.
 
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