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As we've now just passed the 2 year anniversary of Bolt ownership in Middle Tennessee (with one of the first Bolts here ever), I'm repeating the trip from our home in Nashville to the Pennyroyal Scuba Center (a training quarry) in Hopkinsville, KY. My daughter and I did the trip last year, not driving like a madman but not hypermiling either. Last year we took the scuba gear for 3 people but only two people in the car since my wife wasn't feeling well. This year we're taking all three of us which is obviously more weight on the trip.
I could take the ICE SUV we have (Caddy SRX) but the Bolt holds all the gear we need and is smaller and more maneuverable in the tight loading/unloading spaces near the quarry.
There are few charging stations on this route (I-24) but the one that is our backstop is one run by the city of Nashville at an extreme northside charging station next to a fire house. It's 28 miles from my front door which makes it a good safety spot in case I badly miscalculate the trip.
But last year we drove at 75 MPH with air conditioning in about the same weather (average mid 80s). We used the fire house charging station to top off before the main trip and I figured that if I didn't do it, we'd still have 28 calculated miles left when we reached home, or about a pace of 3.5 mi/kwH.
I took the fully loaded car and family (running the AC in 90 degree heat) out today before tomorrow's trip and discovered that 70 MPH got me an average of 4 mi/kwH while 75 dropped that down to 3.5. So we'll keep the speed lower this trip so we won't have to do the fire house stop on the way home.
Should be a fun day.
I could take the ICE SUV we have (Caddy SRX) but the Bolt holds all the gear we need and is smaller and more maneuverable in the tight loading/unloading spaces near the quarry.
There are few charging stations on this route (I-24) but the one that is our backstop is one run by the city of Nashville at an extreme northside charging station next to a fire house. It's 28 miles from my front door which makes it a good safety spot in case I badly miscalculate the trip.
But last year we drove at 75 MPH with air conditioning in about the same weather (average mid 80s). We used the fire house charging station to top off before the main trip and I figured that if I didn't do it, we'd still have 28 calculated miles left when we reached home, or about a pace of 3.5 mi/kwH.
I took the fully loaded car and family (running the AC in 90 degree heat) out today before tomorrow's trip and discovered that 70 MPH got me an average of 4 mi/kwH while 75 dropped that down to 3.5. So we'll keep the speed lower this trip so we won't have to do the fire house stop on the way home.
Should be a fun day.
