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The Fix is In!

5071 Views 29 Replies 13 Participants Last post by El Dobro, Aug 13, 2021

sasunde

Discussion Starter · Jun 5, 2021

BLUF: The final fix for the battery problem is that GM reduces your battery capacity to 90% and relabels it as 100%. Yesterday, I got the "final solution" for my 2018 Bolt. I immediately noticed that the GOM estimated range had dropped dramatically. Chalking this up to some sort of reset, I charged up to 90% with hilltop reserve last night and drove 83.0 miles and used 20.4 kWh, bringing me down to 51%. So, if 20.4 kWh is 90% - 51% = 39% then 100% is only 52 kWh or 87%. I've had no measureable degradation up to now, but GM is scamming us by claiming it's restored 100% while still limiting charge to 90% and just having the software report it as 100%. This is clearly a dieselgate-level fraud. I'll be contacting the Colorado Attorney General (whom I know personally) on Monday. I ask others who have had the "fix" to record your results.

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shocker

· #2 · Jun 5, 2021

Sorry, GOM was the same before and after. I didn't have recall one and continued to charge to 100%, so the comparison is apples to apples.

sasunde

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 6, 2021

shocker said:
Sorry, GOM was the same before and after. I didn't have recall one and continued to charge to 100%, so the comparison is apples to apples.

But, did you do the math and compute what your 100% battery capacity is? Is it still 60 kWh?

shocker

· #4 · Jun 6, 2021 (Edited)

It was never 60, well known that 17 and 18 bolts had 57 or so actual kwh, new.
I have access to the digital state of charge and kwh consumed so I have accurate numbers to crunch. Tomorrow I'll use a good chunk of the battery so I can get a decent total capacity.

Edit: it's now tomorrow. Hot day for Michigan 93-94F. Battery capacity worked out to 58 kwH. As high a number as I have seen. So, recall is "not guilty".

MichBolt

· #5 · Jun 6, 2021 (Edited)

It might be a different problem. Here's a thread about a similar observation, but this Bolt wasn't part of the recall.

2021 Bolt - HPCM2 replaced and only 52 kWh usable

Also, driving from 90% to 50% won't provide an accurate capacity calculation. You probably need to charge to 100% and drive down to 10-15%.

Edit:
Here's a thread of people with the opposite experience (more range after the recall):

www.chevybolt.org

More range with Bolt Software fix?

I have a 2019 Bolt that was part of the battery recall. Prior to having the update done, I was showing about 238 mile range after a full charge (prior to limiting the charge to 90%). After the update, I am seeing a 254 mile range after a full charge. Has anyone else noticed a change in full...

www.chevybolt.org

www.chevybolt.org

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that your specific dealership messed something up, but it doesn't appear to be a systematic issue with the recall itself.

El Dobro

· #6 · Jun 6, 2021

Had the recall done on my '17 this past Friday. I checked the battery capacity this morning with TorquePro and at 54,000 miles, it was 56.6, so I can't complain.

Tarrngtn

· #7 · Jun 6, 2021

The recall on our 2017 Bolt seems to have restored it to the original GOM readings at 100% charge that I typically had before if not better than average.

sasunde

Discussion Starter · #8 · Jun 6, 2021

MichBolt said:
It might be a different problem. Here's a thread about a similar observation, but this Bolt wasn't part of the recall.

2021 Bolt - HPCM2 replaced and only 52 kWh usable

Also, driving from 90% to 50% won't provide an accurate capacity calculation. You probably need to charge to 100% and drive down to 10-15%.

Edit:
Here's a thread of people with the opposite experience (more range after the recall):

More range with Bolt Software fix?

I have a 2019 Bolt that was part of the battery recall. Prior to having the update done, I was showing about 238 mile range after a full charge (prior to limiting the charge to 90%). After the update, I am seeing a 254 mile range after a full charge. Has anyone else noticed a change in full...

www.chevybolt.org

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that your specific dealership messed something up, but it doesn't appear to be a systematic issue with the recall itself.

I'm not ruling anything out, but after charging to "90%" again today, my GOM says I have 189 miles. 90% of 90% of 238 is 189. This, along with yesterday's calculus reinforces that they set the 90% level as 100%. I'll do more driving today, but so far, every calculation I do is consistent with the fix reducing my usable battery to 90% and calling it 100%.

I don't agree that I have to run 100% down to 15% to get a good measurement. 39% usage is a reasonable number, but I do agree that I need repeatability and I was looking to see if others were experiencing the same. I track my usage on every trip for the past 3 years and it has always been consistent with 58-60 kWh for a full charge. I'm in the recurrent trial program and I've been consistently in the very top of the usable battery range. This all literally changed as soon as the fix was loaded.

ARob

· #9 · Jun 6, 2021

sasunde said:
I'm not ruling anything out, but after charging to "90%" again today, my GOM says I have 189 miles. 90% of 90% of 238 is 189. This, along with yesterday's calculus reinforces that they set the 90% level as 100%. I'll do more driving today, but so far, every calculation I do is consistent with the fix reducing my usable battery to 90% and calling it 100%.

I don't agree that I have to run 100% down to 15% to get a good measurement. 39% usage is a reasonable number, but I do agree that I need repeatability and I was looking to see if others were experiencing the same. I track my usage on every trip for the past 3 years and it has always been consistent with 58-60 kWh for a full charge. I'm in the recurrent trial program and I've been consistently in the very top of the usable battery range. This all literally changed as soon as the fix was loaded.

What has your efficiency looked like? If you are doing a lot of freeway driving and getting low to mid 3s, then it might be spot on at 189.

The calculation you are using is subject to a lot of rounding, the more range you use, the less a rounding error will influence the calculations.

Not that we doubt your observations, but they appear inconsistent with what others are reporting.

I get mine done on Tuesday, and will report my findings.

M00s3

· #10 · Jun 6, 2021

Simultaneously referencing "GOM" and forgetting it contains "Guess" is priceless. Don't use the GOM to measure anything. Measure kwh usage in tandem with SOC in torque pro. Ffs

Reactions: 1

MichBolt

· #11 · Jun 6, 2021

sasunde said:
I'm not ruling anything out, but after charging to "90%" again today, my GOM says I have 189 miles. 90% of 90% of 238 is 189. This, along with yesterday's calculus reinforces that they set the 90% level as 100%....

Did you read the first thread I linked? In that thread, the owner determined that the state of charge displayed did not match the state of charge raw. Specifically, 99.2% state of charge displayed was actually only 90.75% state of charge raw, and 23.92% state of charge displayed was actually 44.27% state of charge raw. He, like you, was calculating about a 52 kWh pack based on the state of charge displayed, and he could actually show that his 100% state of charge displayed was only 90% state of charge raw. Except his Bolt didn't get the recall - something else was wrong.

I don't agree that I have to run 100% down to 15% to get a good measurement. 39% usage is a reasonable number...

There are 2 reasons to run a 100% to 10-15% test. First, there has been some discussion on this forum that the battery management system may recalibrate at 100%. If you never charge to 100%, your state of charge displayed may not be calibrated correctly.

Second, the state of charge curve is not necessarily linear. If you never drive ~80% of capacity, your calculation may be a linear extrapolation of a relatively small, non-linear section of the state of charge curve.

I track my usage on every trip for the past 3 years and it has always been consistent with 58-60 kWh for a full charge. I'm in the recurrent trial program and I've been consistently in the very top of the usable battery range. This all literally changed as soon as the fix was loaded.

What is your miles / kWh efficiency? At a minimum, reset your trip odometer and take a few 39% drives to measure your efficiency, not just the range estimate.

From the 2nd thread I linked, it doesn't appear that many others are experiencing what you're experiencing. Is it possible that the recall intentionally decreased your range? Sure, it might be possible. But if you're GM, and you wanted to cheat Bolt owners by reprogramming the Bolt's software, wouldn't you do something different besides showing an immediate and dramatic loss of range on the very visible display? I can think of at least 4 different software cheats that would have a similar effect but be harder to detect.

Having said all that, I do agree with you that something weird is going on with your Bolt. But if you really want to diagnose what it is, try being open to the suggestions of the people whom you've asked for help. Your Attorney General friend is going to need a lot more solid evidence than what you've told us so far, and we might actually be able to help you collect that evidence.

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sasunde

Discussion Starter · #12 · Jun 7, 2021

ARob said:
What has your efficiency looked like? If you are doing a lot of freeway driving and getting low to mid 3s, then it might be spot on at 189.

The calculation you are using is subject to a lot of rounding, the more range you use, the less a rounding error will influence the calculations.

Not that we doubt your observations, but they appear inconsistent with what others are reporting.

I get mine done on Tuesday, and will report my findings.

4.1 miles/kWh which is normal and irrelevant. What's relevant is the the percent of charge used compared to the kWh expended. When I spent 39% of my charge and used 20.4 kWh that works out to 100% charge = 52 kWh. I'm collecting more data, but it keeps looking like my max charge is now only 90% of what it was the day before I had the update.

sasunde

Discussion Starter · #13 · Jun 7, 2021

MichBolt said:
Did you read the first thread I linked? In that thread, the owner determined that the state of charge displayed did not match the state of charge raw. Specifically, 99.2% state of charge displayed was actually only 90.75% state of charge raw, and 23.92% state of charge displayed was actually 44.27% state of charge raw. He, like you, was calculating about a 52 kWh pack based on the state of charge displayed, and he could actually show that his 100% state of charge displayed was only 90% state of charge raw. Except his Bolt didn't get the recall - something else was wrong.

There are 2 reasons to run a 100% to 10-15% test. First, there has been some discussion on this forum that the battery management system may recalibrate at 100%. If you never charge to 100%, your state of charge displayed may not be calibrated correctly.

Second, the state of charge curve is not necessarily linear. If you never drive ~80% of capacity, your calculation may be a linear extrapolation of a relatively small, non-linear section of the state of charge curve.

What is your miles / kWh efficiency? At a minimum, reset your trip odometer and take a few 39% drives to measure your efficiency, not just the range estimate.

From the 2nd thread I linked, it doesn't appear that many others are experiencing what you're experiencing. Is it possible that the recall intentionally decreased your range? Sure, it might be possible. But if you're GM, and you wanted to cheat Bolt owners by reprogramming the Bolt's software, wouldn't you do something different besides showing an immediate and dramatic loss of range on the very visible display? I can think of at least 4 different software cheats that would have a similar effect but be harder to detect.

Having said all that, I do agree with you that something weird is going on with your Bolt. But if you really want to diagnose what it is, try being open to the suggestions of the people whom you've asked for help. Your Attorney General friend is going to need a lot more solid evidence than what you've told us so far, and we might actually be able to help you collect that evidence.

I certainly agree that the charge curve displayed could be non-linear and that doing a bigger range of charge to depletion would be useful. I did exactly that 15 times a few weeks ago (before the fix) and everything checked out to having 58-60 kWh usable. Obviously, I want to see if others have the same results or if something is wrong only with my Bolt.

I almost always reset my trip odometer after each charge. I didn't charge today after only 33 miles because I need to put more miles and drain more of the battery to have less relative uncertainty in the results. I did read some, but not all of the thread you sent me. Thanks. I didn't get to the part you mentioned yet.

I'm not going to the AG until I have a solid case. I'll try some things you suggest.

Reactions: 1

Nemy

· #14 · Jun 7, 2021

One thing I've also noticed after the "fix" is that my Bolt continues pulling electricity even after my departure time. I never noticed it before and even after I set it to 100% today, it was still "charging" 20 minutes after the departure time and when it said it was full. Not sure if this plays into your situation but I've also noticed reduced range and I was hoping 100% would recalibrate the GOM.

sasunde

Discussion Starter · #15 · Jun 10, 2021

Nemy said:
One thing I've also noticed after the "fix" is that my Bolt continues pulling electricity even after my departure time. I never noticed it before and even after I set it to 100% today, it was still "charging" 20 minutes after the departure time and when it said it was full. Not sure if this plays into your situation but I've also noticed reduced range and I was hoping 100% would recalibrate the GOM.

I've noticed that too.

Nemy

· #16 · Jun 10, 2021

So I've been setting it to fully charge earlier and earlier each day and it's still charging when I leave (up to an hour earlier now). This weekend I'm just going to fully charge it during the day and try to see when it actually stops charging.

MichBolt

· #17 · Jun 10, 2021

Nemy said:
So I've been setting it to fully charge earlier and earlier each day and it's still charging when I leave (up to an hour earlier now). This weekend I'm just going to fully charge it during the day and try to see when it actually stops charging.

I thought I read somewhere that the software update includes a battery monitoring procedure for up to 12 hours after charging is complete. Are you able to see how much power is being pulled after charging is complete? Are you using the OEM EVSE or did you install a Level 2 EVSE?

If it's pulling around 1 kW or less, that says "battery monitoring" to me, rather than charging. If it's pulling 2-3 kW, it might be battery thermal conditioning. If it's still pulling 4-7 kW (Level 2, without your cabin A/C or heat running), then it's still "charging."

Nemy

· #18 · Jun 10, 2021

MichBolt said:
I thought I read somewhere that the software update includes a battery monitoring procedure for up to 12 hours after charging is complete. Are you able to see how much power is being pulled after charging is complete? Are you using the OEM EVSE or did you install a Level 2 EVSE?

Interesting. Haven't heard about that. Seems silly if the "fix" is 12 hours of additional power usage. And how would it monitor if it was unplugged? Anyways, I'm on a juicebox 40. Here's what it was pulling.

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MichBolt

· #19 · Jun 10, 2021

Nemy said:
Interesting. Haven't heard about that. Seems silly if the "fix" is 12 hours of additional power usage. And how would it monitor if it was unplugged? Anyways, I'm on a juicebox 40. Here's what it was pulling.
View attachment 35603

Yeah, 0.12 kW is basically a light bulb (120 Watts). I think the trade-off is worthwhile, if it means increased safety from actively monitoring battery cell voltages, temperatures, etc. I imagine it only lasts while you are plugged in and the car is turned off. If the car is turned on, there's active monitoring anyway.

sasunde

Discussion Starter · #20 · Jul 21, 2021

I wanted to follow up with what has happened since I first posted this. Following the advice of one member, I charged the car up to 100% then drew it down to ~40%. I did this three times, after which everything went back to normal. I'm guessing that there was some battery memory issue, maybe resident in the software that caused the problem, but it all works fine now - except that the battery is still prone to fires!

I started the process of getting a buy back quote yesterday. I was told by the conciege that gm will issue a statement in about a week. I'm guessing it might be a mandatory recall. I mentioned that parking my car outside in my high-wind, high-wildfire-risk area could ignite a wildfire that would destroy $2-3 billion of homes in our little valley. GM's response: "ooh. Didn't think of that. We'll write that down."

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