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Real-world range in 2020 Bolt?

26K views 69 replies 25 participants last post by  NewsCoulomb 
#1 ·
I’m curious, what kind of range are folks getting in their 2020 Bolts? We’ve had ours for a little less than a month now, and have put 750 miles on the odometer. The GOM is projecting around 238 miles of range on a full battery, which would be perfect for a 2019 Bolt but is 21 miles below the EPA range for the 2020 model.

A few notes on our driving and the ambient conditions:
  • Our driving has been about 80% highway and 20% city.
  • We have not been driving the car very hard — very little hard acceleration, driving no faster than 65 on the highway, etc. — but we’re not hypermiling either.
  • The tires are inflated to their recommended cold pressure of 38 psi.
  • The weather around here has been mostly sunny and between the low 60s and high 70s since we bought the car — not too cold, not too hot.
My 2017 Volt consistently exceeds its EPA rating this time of year (I usually get 55-60 miles per charge, when the car is rated for 53) so I’m definitely a little curious as to why our 2020 Bolt is falling 21 miles short of its rated range. What are other folks seeing on their 2020s?
 
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#2 ·
I’m curious, what kind of range are folks getting in their 2020 Bolts? We’ve had ours for a little less than a month now, and have put 750 miles on the odometer. The GOM is projecting around 238 miles of range on a full battery, which would be perfect for a 2019 Bolt but is 21 miles below the EPA range for the 2020 model.
I have one question. If you zero out the trip odo, and drive for over 100 miles, what is the mi/kWh showing?

238 mi ÷ 66 kWh = 3.6 mi/kWh
 
#3 ·
I have one question. If you zero out the trip odo, and drive for over 100 miles, what is the mi/kWh showing?

238 mi ÷ 66 kWh = 3.6 mi/kWh
Yup. Focus on the efficiency, and not the estimated range. The Chevy Bolt EV Range Estimator is extremely conservative, and I've found that it doesn't start providing realistic range numbers until you're down to under 25% battery. Essentially, if the Range Estimator says you'll barely make it to your destination when near a full battery, you're likely to arrive with between 10% and 20% left.

For a real-world example, over a >600 mile run, I maintained about 3.3 mi/kWh (about 220 miles of estimated range) in a 2020 Chevy Bolt EV when maintaining just under a 70 mph average driving speed, cresting several 4,000' to 6,000' summits, and driving in temperatures that dropped below freezing.
 
#7 ·
Slow down another 10 mph. The difference is huge. I started yesterday with a full charge and drove to Geneva on the Lake and back, plus some additional driving. Today was to Downtown Cleveland to the Science Center and back. I keep to a top speed of 55 mph, plus stay camped in the right lane to the maximum extent possible given some of the screwy alignments they have out here in spots. Below are the stats for our last two days. We're charging as we need more than 55 miles of range for tomorrow:

29943
29944


This is an almost total highway drive, maybe a grand total of 20 or so miles of surface streets.
 
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#8 ·
29945


This was our first leg heading from Boston to rural Pennsylvania for July 4th. Mostly 70mph, with a couple of 5 min slow downs for traffic around Hartford, CT. Arrived in Newburgh, NY at 23% SOC but had to stop as the next DCFC is 150 miles away.

This section is downhill a bit, so that helped, but our overall efficiency for the 1k mile round trip was 3.7 mi/kWh with light A/C, so not bad going for the 2020 overall. I'm confident we'd have achieved a solid 230 miles out of the first full charge if the charge station was ideally located.
 
#11 ·
Thank you all for sharing your ideas and experiences! Thus far we are averaging 3.7 mi/kWh. I know the Bolt doesn’t actually use the full 66kWh battery capacity so the ~238 mile range I’m seeing checks out. A little disappointing as I’ve never had any trouble exceeding the EPA range on my 2017 Volt in the four summers I’ve owned it, but it sounds like I would probably bump up the range on my Bolt with less highway driving. I’d prefer not to decrease my speed on the highway, as I hate the idea of playing into the (completely wrong) stereotype people have that EVs are slow eco-cars that hold up traffic. Being able to occasionally smoke someone who thinks their gas guzzling truck can outrun me is half the fun of owning an EV! :p
 
#13 ·
A little disappointing as I’ve never had any trouble exceeding the EPA range on my 2017 Volt in the four summers I’ve owned it,

but it sounds like I would probably bump up the range on my Bolt with less highway driving. I’d prefer not to decrease my speed on the highway, as I hate the idea of playing into the (completely wrong) stereotype people have that EVs are slow eco-cars that hold up traffic. Being able to occasionally smoke someone who thinks their gas guzzling truck can outrun me is half the fun of owning an EV! :p
The reason you are disappointed is because you are not looking at the same numbers for the Bolt and the Volt. Looking at the EPA numbers for the Bolt, you will see they show a city range, highway range, and their blended number. I don't see that for the Volt. They show only the blended range. The nature of an ICE drivetrain is such that they get bad efficiency at highway speeds, but horrible efficiency in the city. So if your typical driving includes more highway driving than their test cycle, you will see an improved blended range for an ICE, and lower blended range on an EV.

For a plugin hybrid, depending on your particular driving situation, this can be even worse. If you do all of your city driving on electric, and all of your highway driving on gas, you will exceed the EPA drive cycle range every time.


Unless you use a complete charge every day, you have no reason to slow down on the highway. No matter how fast you drive, you will be using less energy in an EV than in a comparable ICE vehicle.
 
#12 ·
What many people seem to forget is that the EPA rating is acquired under VERY specific conditions. They "drive" {on rollers} a very controlled time at various speeds which pattern is NEVER found in any normal trip. It's use is ONLY to compare one vehicle with another and NOT to indicate what ANYONE will get in their vehicle. The 238 mile EPA range in the 2017 Bolt EV is NOT our minimum, average, or maximum. (And the middle number on the GoM is NOT an average, but specific to how you have been driving in the last "x" miles or "X" period of time.) Stop expecting to get 259 miles on a full charge in the 2020 Bolt EV.
 
#16 ·
Keep in mind your tires will wear-in a bit and provide a small boost in range and driving 65mph is just at the cusp of high aerodynamic drag.
Look at the round ring around the speedometer at 60mph... it's green, increase to 70mph and it will turn yellow indicating less than optimal efficiency. Use that as a tool to maximize battery range if that's what you desire. I can tell you that after 3+yrs and 45K miles on my 2017 Bolt I no longer try to get max range out of the battery, I just assume about 3.8 mi/kWh and just drive the car. It's been so reliable I just trust it to get me from point A to point B with no drama whatsoever.

Enjoy your new car!!!
 
#17 ·
I have a 2020 Bolt as well. I hypermile most of the time. Here in Vegas in the summer, my energy consumption if driven to work and parked in the sun is half as much energy
used PARKED as I use to get to work. Just over 11 miles to work mostly level with a little uphill. 1.5~1.9 KW to get there, UP to 1.0 KW for battery conditioning. VERY HOT
sitting in the parking lot here in the summer. I use pretty much just the heated seat in winter, but, use A/C in the Summer.
I purchased the car in Phoenix in January and drove it home to Vegas. I took a trip to Mesquite a few months back for the ribbon cutting on a new DCFC there.
When on the freeway, I generally maintain 55 mph. I picked up a friend drove to Mesquite, took friend home, then home myself. Total trip was right at 200 miles. I used
around 50% battery. There were friends in a newer Nissan Leaf who laughed as they passed us on the way there. They had to charge, we had lunch. On the way back,
they laughed as they passed us again, until I had to point out another station for them to charge at. We got home LONG before they did. People say that it is dangerous
and angers people when you go 55. I stay in the right most lane and if I see that someone is behind me that doesn't change lanes, I move to the left to let them pass,
then back to the right. Never really had an issue with anyone having road rage. I haven't reset my dash since I picked up the car. Here is a photo of the dash today when
it was around 110 degrees out. I generally keep it between 60% and 75% charged. Plug it in at night with charge rate below what is needed so that it won't charge, but will
condition if needed. I plugged it in to charge at a ChargePoint Station and ran errands so it ended up full. I have air pressure set at 44 psi, which is what is on the tire as
maximum, not overinflated. If I come across a set of Cruise ECO (?) wheels like NewsColumb, maybe I can get even better.
 

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#62 ·
I have a 2020 Bolt as well. I hypermile most of the time. Here in Vegas in the summer, my energy consumption if driven to work and parked in the sun is half as much energy
used PARKED as I use to get to work. Just over 11 miles to work mostly level with a little uphill. 1.5~1.9 KW to get there, UP to 1.0 KW for battery conditioning. VERY HOT
sitting in the parking lot here in the summer. I use pretty much just the heated seat in winter, but, use A/C in the Summer.
I purchased the car in Phoenix in January and drove it home to Vegas. I took a trip to Mesquite a few months back for the ribbon cutting on a new DCFC there.
When on the freeway, I generally maintain 55 mph. I picked up a friend drove to Mesquite, took friend home, then home myself. Total trip was right at 200 miles. I used
around 50% battery. There were friends in a newer Nissan Leaf who laughed as they passed us on the way there. They had to charge, we had lunch. On the way back,
they laughed as they passed us again, until I had to point out another station for them to charge at. We got home LONG before they did. People say that it is dangerous
and angers people when you go 55. I stay in the right most lane and if I see that someone is behind me that doesn't change lanes, I move to the left to let them pass,
then back to the right. Never really had an issue with anyone having road rage. I haven't reset my dash since I picked up the car. Here is a photo of the dash today when
it was around 110 degrees out. I generally keep it between 60% and 75% charged. Plug it in at night with charge rate below what is needed so that it won't charge, but will
condition if needed. I plugged it in to charge at a ChargePoint Station and ran errands so it ended up full. I have air pressure set at 44 psi, which is what is on the tire as
maximum, not overinflated. If I come across a set of Cruise ECO (?) wheels like NewsColumb, maybe I can get even better.
My 2020 gets 214 miles of range on the GOM. I'm pissed off, but the dealer says, after two visits, it's fine. 4 mi/kWh pens out to 53kWh battery capacity, but "it's fine."

Despite that disappointment, I refuse to listen to country music to get your kind of range.
 
#19 ·
had my used 2017 bolt now for about 10 months and put a few thousand miles on it. Here's succinctly how it pans out from my perspective and I've done a bit of measurement. Drive like you have an egg under your foot and keep it under 45 mph and you'll get close to 5 miles per kwh or more. Drive like a teenager or do 75 - 80 on the freeway and you'll get in the low 3.x miles per kwh. I think you get the picture, the battery degradation has minimal effect compared to driving habits. btw I did some (rough) calculations as well as it seems that with 30K miles on the bolt the battery is at about 97.5% or about 58 kwh capacity. I've stopped caring how many miles I get on a charge. PS LOVE MY BOLT !
 
#21 ·
We will be embarking on a road trip to Hampton, VA, up through Wilmington, DE, and home this upcoming Saturday. I'll be vlogging the trip and will share the results with the group. Just a heads up, I'm NOT a fast driver, and keep to a max of 55 mph. We won't be pushing the limits of the battery, as were using ABRP to plan the stops, have a deep distrust of EA, and will be making sure we have backups to the backups on our inaugural long distance journey. Still, we should be able to report something useful.
 
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#22 ·
At 55 mph, you're likely to be able to make it all the way to Wilmington on a single charge. Depending on where home is, how long you're going to be in Wilmington, and whether you have access to convenient L2 AC, you might be able to bypass DC fast charging altogether for that trip.
 
#23 ·
Wolfy, I'll be interested in your real-world experiences on your trip. Disclaimer; based on quite a bit of reports I've seen on assorted trip videos, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the realiability of the EA chargers out there.

Rich
 
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#25 ·
Ironically, I just had a lenghty conversation with one of the support people with EA. Something was said was that according to GM, those of us with the 2020 Bolt no longer need to lift the connector when initiating a charge session. I told him that we will let them know if that's the case on our trip. With that, I did force ABRP to use charging stations with a score of 8 or better on plugshare, so we should in theory have mitigated infrastructure issues as much as possible. I did tell the guy that we're gonna have a mission for them if they're up for it - perfect charge sessions from Akron, OH, to Modesto, CA and back next spring. That's going to be a fun trip.
 
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#32 ·
"I looked up the plugshare scores of each charger that ABRP chose for me to stop at, and forced it to reroute to high scoring stations."

Wolfy, I suggest you need to read what is written for low scoring sites. Many are downgraded solely due to a lack of CHAdeMO chargers, which are not an issue for us.

Rich
 
#33 ·
"I looked up the plugshare scores of each charger that ABRP chose for me to stop at, and forced it to reroute to high scoring stations."

Wolfy, I suggest you need to read what is written for low scoring sites. Many are downgraded solely due to a lack of CHAdeMO chargers, which are not an issue for us.

Rich
I understand it. I've hammered EA because of their CHAdeMO issues. Still, on this trip, I'm wanting to minimize the chances for problems.
 
#34 ·
Does anyone know whether PlugShare's route planner lets you filter out charging sites with low scores from the trip plan? I don't recall, and I'm not familiar because I don't use their route planner. They are the source of the rating scores, so I'd think they'd have access and the ability to filter that data.
 
#38 ·
One thing that Plugshare does not take into account that I'm aware of like ABRP does, is weather and terrain.
 
#39 ·
Those have to be programmed into ABRP, correct?

The elevation could be on by default, I suppose, but I wonder whether that also contributes to ABRP's inaccuracy when estimating the Bolt EV's efficiency. It's quite hard to calculate regenerative braking efficiency, but the Bolt EV's appears to be at least 80% efficient.
 
#46 ·
The 29 kWh/100 mi is also accounting for charging losses. In the case of the 2020 Bolt EV, I believe that charging from empty to full on L2 AC requires ~75 kWh of energy (I'd have to double check the EPA filing document for the exact number). 75 kWh * 3.448 mi/kWh = 258.6 miles. So there's about 12% to 13% difference after charging losses. That means the EPA mixed driving efficiency for the 2020 Bolt EV is ~3.89 mi/kWh.
 
#49 ·
To me, it's interesting that they include the wall-to-wheel efficiency. From a cost perspective, it makes sense if the EV owner is paying per kWh; otherwise, it seems to be a bit of overreach on the part of the EPA. Most people are used to accounting for vehicle efficiency after the fuel is in the vehicle.
 
#52 · (Edited)
I have a Bolt EV 2019. I did a lot of long trips with it (meaning I needed to charge at least once to a DCFC to get back home) and it’s not only the speed that counts when it’s about the range. The terrain (net elevation differences between A and B) and the weather (temperature, rain, snow and wind) are really impacting the range.
In 2 days almost back to back, I did the same trip, once I got a 16.2 kWh/100 km (3.83 m/kWh) efficiency and the other I got 17.4 kWh/100 km (3.57 m/kWh). What was different ? The wind ! Temperatures and the road condition were the same... but the wind had a huge impact. On both I run 80% highway/20% city, 110 km/h (69 mph) cruise control on the highway.
So instead of looking at the range, better check the efficiency. And knowing what’s the capacity of the battery, do the math and you‘ll have the range.
After 2 years of ownership of my Bolt EV (had a Volt for 4 years before it), I no longer look at the range... it’s all about the efficiency. And I play with this number every time I go from point A to point B and so on...
 
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