My '21 Bolt is a year old this month. What's it been like? I love the car, but I hate public charging.
It's a pleasure to drive - it's quick, smooth and quiet. In winter the heat is good, in summer the AC is great. Its size is small but just right for my needs. Winter driving is good if not great; I do feel safe. For charging I had a home charger installed. Once a week I plug in the car overnight to recharge.
All good, but there's another side to owning an electric vehicle: if you go on a long trip, you have to rely on public charging stations. If I want to go much over 100 miles, I have to find a charging station. Well, here's the thing: when I bought an electric car I knew I'd have to rely on charging stations. But what I didn't understand was how lousy the public charging infrastructure is.
Note: I live in south coastal Maine, around 2 hours north of Boston.
For one thing, there aren't many charging stations, and most of them are old and ridiculously slow, requiring as much as 4-6 hours to "fill 'er up." Not practical! There are a few truly fast charging stations that take only 30-45 mins for a fill-up. But those fast chargers are rare. In the whole state of Maine, I believe there is only one truly fast charger (the Walmart in Scarborough).
So I rely on my home charger and keep trips to around 200-250 miles roundtrip. Beyond that, I use my wife's Camry.
Oh well, I do love the car. It's so quick, smooth and just plain handy. In the future (my guess, 4-5 years) there will be more truly fast charging stations and/or newer batteries with a longer range, maybe 600 or 750 miles.
