[jjasonf]

Hi Everyone,

Believe it or not, but I went on my first distance drive with my Bolt this weekend. It was very pleasant out (about 30 C). I didn't use the A/C and I drove around 171 km in L. I'm a careful driver, but I was still surprised to see that my battery/range decreased significantly less than expected. When I got home, I had a little under 3/4 of the battery remaining and 330 km of range left. According to the on-board system, I had used 19.4 kwh. I'm just curious if this is more or less expected or if the calculations were a bit off... or if this is another explanation.

Thanks in advance!

-Jason

 

[TimBolt]

Drive easy without any heat or A/C and the Bolt can easily outperform the rated range, often by a significant margin.

Keep in mind that the estimated range isn’t exact, and is based on recent driving experience. If your next outing includes any extended higher speed highway driving the estimated range will drop.

 

[stanwagon]

Your image works out to 5.7 mi/kwh. That is indeed excellent, but the hot weather definitely helps battery performance. Here at 9500 ft (low drag) with temps generally in the 70s-85 of late, I am getting 5.4 mi/kWh. In much colder temps I get only about 4.1 (the rating is 3.9)

 

[NewsCoulomb]

Most people won't see much better than 5 mi/kWh (124 Wh/km) in typical real-world driving, though the Bolt EV is definitely capable better than that.

I primarily drive highway/freeway, so my local efficiency is only ~4 mi/kWh (155 Wh/km). On my long-range, high-speed freeway trips, that efficiency drops to ~3.5 mi/kWh (177 Wh/km).

 

[Dimitrij]

The Bolt is not an aerodynamic role model, so the speed has a very strong bearing on the energy efficiency. If you drove in fine weather @ 80 km/hour or below on a relatively flat terrain w/o AC, w/o sudden acceleration and capturing all deceleration energy with your L-mode, you should be seeing 500 km/charge, or better.

 

[jjasonf]

Thanks!

The Bolt is not an aerodynamic role model, so the speed has a very strong bearing on the energy efficiency. If you drove in fine weather @ 80 km/hour or below on a relatively flat terrain w/o AC, w/o sudden acceleration and capturing all deceleration energy with your L-mode, you should be seeing 500 km/charge, or better.

Thanks Everyone! @Dimitrij, I would say that is more or less exactly how I drove. It's nice to know how efficient the Bolt can be.

 

[GJETSON]

Your image works out to 5.7 mi/kwh. That is indeed excellent, but the hot weather definitely helps battery performance. Here at 9500 ft (low drag) with temps generally in the 70s-85 of late, I am getting 5.4 mi/kWh. In much colder temps I get only about 4.1 (the rating is 3.9)

171.1km=106.31661mi

106.31661mi/19.4kWh=5.48mi/kWh

Totally doable without climate control, and at speeds that produced the industrial revolution. Here in the digital age, people expect to move at the speed of light.

 

[stanwagon]

I apologize for my bonehead conversion error. Pretty bad for a professor of mathematics. 5.48 is correct (not my 5.7 as posted).

 

[GJETSON]

I apologize for my bonehead conversion error. Pretty bad for a professor of mathematics. 5.48 is correct (not my 5.7 as posted).

That's OK. I'm feeling pretty good today. Yesterday it took two tries to tie my shoes.