[ai4px]

The Bolt was my first experience with an EV. I'd wanted one for years, but they all had a range of <85miles. For me that's not two trips to work and back, and since I'm on call, two trips per day is a must. The Bolt allows me 4-1/2 trips to work. Now that it is winter time, that range is down to 3-1/2 trips. This is making me so happy I didn't get a different EV such as a Leaf. As a noob, I didn't know the range would drop so much in winter and I'd be in a mell of a hess right now.

One more reason I love my little Bolt.

I had considered a Volt knowing it had a 18kwh battery, but had no bench mark as to just how far I could go on 18kwh... GM says 40 miles. Yet with my Bolt I make my 52 mile trip to work and back typically on 10-12kwh. The Volt might have been a good fit after all... dunno.

 

[Dimitrij]

I think in the Volt (R.I.P. to be) not all of the 18 kWh are useable, but if its EPA rating is 50-something miles, with careful driving you could probably do 60-ish miles with no problems. Also the Volt has what they call a "range extender"; it's mounted where one might think the gas engine should be

 

[ai4px]

I guess my point is that I could have used the Volt to get to work on battery and my 2nd trip if I got called in would have been gas... which would have been fine. But I had the impression that 40 miles would be electric and 12 miles each and every trip (52 mile round trip) would have been gas.... and the salesman didnt know a darn thing about the abilities of the car. He did jack up the AC on full to impress me during the test drive though. salesmen...... How the **** do you sell something you don't know anything about or take the time to become familiar????? smdh....

 

[shocker]

South Carolina has a winter?

I see a 40% range loss, Volt or Bolt. If I had to use the Bolt full time, I'd have to put winter tires on it and that would add to the loss.

 

[Dimitrij]

South Carolina has a winter?

Yes; they have for about 6 hours it in the second week of January.

I see a 40% range loss, Volt or Bolt. If I had to use the Bolt full time, I'd have to put winter tires on it and that would add to the loss.

I wonder if there is a way in the Volt to tell the engine when to run instead of waiting for it to kick in when the computer thinks the battery needs topping up. This way if you needed to go beyond the winter EV range you could force the engine on for a few minutes every now and then, extending the range and getting your prepaid heating as well.

 

[james1]

South Carolina has a winter?

I'm in Georgia (winter roughly the same as that in South Carolina) and I drive 126 miles to east Tennessee every weekend. Although the range-o-meter can show a significant loss in range during cold weather, it ain't really so.

The broad green vertical bar behind the range-o-meter, which functions essentially as a gas gauge does in a conventional internal combustion car (F, 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, E) , is far more accurate than the displayed number. That is, if the green bar is showing a "full tank" then I know that after I cruise about 120 miles I will be down to a "half tank." (Note that I use the seat and steering wheel heaters -- as opposed to the cabin heater -- almost exclusively.) I wish there were some software means for me to eliminate the numbers in the range-o-meter as I would strongly prefer to simply have the green bar telling me how much juice I have remaining in the "tank." Alternatively, if the number would show kiloWatt-hours remaining rather than miles, it would be much more useful.

 

[Tokodave]

Hi from Montana. If you hunt for them I'm sure you can find some of my previous posts regarding winter range. Also look for my "Update from Montana" post. I'm in Butte at the Continental Divide 1700M/5500Ft...My winter range typically runs in the 180-200 area. This charge I'm at 220. Temps in the 20s to 40ish, a mix of highway and in town driving. I rely almost exclusively on the heated seat/steering wheel and I put Blizzaks on for the winter. 2 weeks ago I drove up to Helena with temps as low as -20F and below zero the whole way. That does bite into your range. A trip to Helena, 65 miles away and 1500 feet lower normally costs me 40 miles of range...that trip...cost me 60 miles. Fortunately I'm not thermally challenged and even with those temps I didn't turn heat/defrost on. The Blizzaks probably cost some efficiency but I certainly can't document it. My impression is that it's surprisingly little. Whatever it is it's worth having the Blizzaks on.

 

[Like2bike]

I think most of the range can be restored by conditioning the battery. Starting the HVAC pre-conditioning while plugged in will start the battery conditioning. I found that it will keep heating the battery to 59 F. The HVAC can be turned off and the battery will keep heating. Unfortunately this takes awhile, maybe 30 minutes 40 F to 59 F. Battery conditioning will also run at the end of a departure scheduled charge, I been told.

 

[rscarce]

I'd like to largely second what Tokodave wrote, with a major caveat: I have owned my Bolt for all of 30 hours, so it's all new to me (though I owned a Prius before and was a lite hyper miler). But it looks like the range is the range if you drive intelligently.

After picking the Bolt up, I ran down the battery last night/this morning driving through snow on the interstate here in the Albany, NY, area, running errands, and going to work--I have a 50-mile commute each way. At work I juiced up for a couple of hours on an L2--others were hogging the chargers for much of the day--and it wasn't enough to get me home and back to work. So I DCFC'd for free at a highway rest stop (at least 20 miles out of my way, but it's Day 1 with the Bolt, so why not experiment?).

Out of the gate as I headed home, the maximum mileage range was 182. When I arrived home 75 minutes and 65 miles later, the combined remaining max mileage plus miles driven following the DCFCing was...181. Pretty cool stuff! More than 80 percent of the trip was on Interstates at 65 mph, the rest on local arteries at 50 or slower, and all of it was rolling hills and flats.

Like Toko, I had the heated seat and steering wheel going the whole time. It was 25 outside, and I ran the cabin heating system for less than 10 minutes out of the 75. It was a fun experiment. Was I comfortable? Oh, heck no! But it wasn't unbearable, either. In the future, I'll run the cabin heat off and on more often and for longer, but watching the max mileage swing by 10 or 20 miles each time I turned off the heater was a sobering lesson.

As for the car: first, it is an incredible feeling knowing I'll never put gas in a car again--not my commuter vehicle, at least. The Bolt is quiet, sturdy, responsive, and comfortable. What narrow seats? L-mode is a total kick. I already know I made a terrific choice.

 

[Sean Nelson]

...I had the heated seat and steering wheel going the whole time. It was 25 outside, and I ran the cabin heating system for less than 10 minutes out of the 75. It was a fun experiment. Was I comfortable? Oh, heck no! But it wasn't unbearable, either. In the future.

A warm hat makes a world of difference, as does a nice fleece blanket to go over your legs. I've been very cozy with those in sub-freezing weather on long drives of several hours with nothing more than steering wheel and seat heat.

 

[Dimitrij]

A warm hat makes a world of difference, as does a nice fleece blanket to go over your legs. I've been very cozy with those in sub-freezing weather on long drives of several hours with nothing more than steering wheel and seat heat.

As an owner-operator of a vintage 1964 prostate, I assert that seat heat is a special blessing in colder weather, regardless of the HVAC settings ")

 

[rscarce]

Like the carriage rides of old....