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Highway Driving

4759 Views 9 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  greendave
I got my 2022 EUV back in July. I absolutely love this car. Most of my driving is my commute, driving around town, etc. (We also own a 2021 Prius, which is my wife's and our longer journey car.)

This weekend was the first time I really had my Bolt on the highway. I had a 60+ mile trip that I usually stick to basic roads, but instead chose to take the PA turnpike to see how the Bolt felt on the highway.

The two things I noticed were:

1. I'm fairly certain that it drained my battery a lot faster than I expected. I used cruise control most of the way around 70-75mph. Sorry I don't have more solid numbers to share, but it seems like highway driving ate my battery quickly.

2. Cruise Control: My one pet peeve about the Bolt is that for optimum performance, you should stay in the "green" range on the Efficiency Gauge. I wish that Cruise Control was smart enough to keep this in mind when driving. It seems to not care one bit about Efficiency when it's in use. With all this technology, you would think this would be a feature?

Is it possible that using Cruise Control was a cause of my battery draining so quick? Or the constant acceleration?

On regular roads, I'm accelerating, slowing down, stopping at lights, regenerating, etc.

Anyway - any insight or help is appreciated!
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CC is a carryover from ICE days, and meant to reduce fatigue for drivers, not optimize efficiency. Over time, maybe engineers will devote more time to optimizing efficiency, but for now they use good enough routines and put products out for general use.
Can't agree with any of the above which suggests using CC results in less range than driver control.

I'm an old guy who grew up using last-century hypermiling techniques, but they were hard work for the reward. There were many times I tested CC against manual control and only when there was a true coast-in-neutral option did it pay off. In the late century, GM designed automatic transmissions with a freewheel coasting function. The downside was they ate brakes like popcorn. Then, with the advent of computer EFI which could shut off fuel on decel, coasting in neutral actually increased fuel use, as the engine stayed running at idle.

Bottom line - until someone can prove a negative to the Bolt CC via instrumented testing, I'm of the opinion it works well and efficiently.
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