My 2018 Bolt EV suffered a front-end collision and most of the front area, as well as the airbag system, were replaced to a hefty sum of nearly US$18,000. My insurance was able to fully cover for this, so I only paid a deductible of slightly less than US$400. It was all fixed up in just 18 days at a direct subsidiary of GM Korea, which seems to be a bit of a minor miracle considering that there are parts shortage going around. But the surprise did not end there and that's what I'm going to talk about.
Some of you may be familiar with getting the battery capacity data out of the OBD-II port. I have a dedicated monitor that displays this data on the dashboard, so I knew that the usable capacity was at 52.62kWh (164.6Ah) just before the crash. The battery has not received a replacement yet, and when I got the car four years ago the initial capacity was 58.63kWh (183.4Ah), so it's been degraded by roughly 10%, which isn't too surprising given the car's age and mileage (~65k miles).
When I got the car back from the service center, the monitor displayed a capacity of 61.89kWh (193.6Ah). I thought that was strange, since that's nearly 10kWh higher than what I expected. But I thought it was just the side effect of repair and possible BMS reset, although IIRC the system would err on the lower side to relearn quickly.
To see how things would go, I drove the car around for around 500 miles, hoping that the capacity would return to what I think was normal. However, it barely budged - now showing 61.60kWh (192.7Ah).
Now, the car's battery pack still has the old VISTA 2.0 sticker on it, and the software still limits the charge to 80%. So at least from the software and external hardware side, the battery's still supposedly the same.
The long distance drive data came out like this.
#1: 78.04% → 12.16% (65.88% delta), 41.9kWh consumed = 63.6kWh
#2: 74.12% → 12.16% (61.96% delta), 37.0kWh consumed = 59.7kWh
So empirically speaking, the capacity does apparently lie around 61.60kWh.
Another thing to consider is that, when the capacity was showing 52.62kWh back then, I did this trip:
80.00% → 2.75% (77.25% delta), 40.8kWh consumed = 52.8kWh
So I knew for sure, with the 80% charging limit I would drain the battery completely after about 42kWh spent (52.62 * 0.8 = 42.096). Therefore the trip #1 after the crash would not have that much battery left in the first place.
I searched around this forum to see what the usual Ah values are for the new battery packs, and apparently it's in the range of roughly 190 - 200Ah.
www.chevybolt.org
Since I'm getting numbers in the 193-194Ah range, this falls neatly in line.
One problem is that there is no service record of traction battery replacement for my vehicle. And as I mentioned up there, the car still has the 80% limit set. As far as GM Korea is concerned, that car still has the old battery, and new replacement battery is still pending, subject to availability in the 2nd half of 2022.
So what do you think about this situation? Did the crash magically give me a new battery pack? Is the system still wonky? Would it be possible to just ask for the service personnel to "remove" the 80% limit?
Some of you may be familiar with getting the battery capacity data out of the OBD-II port. I have a dedicated monitor that displays this data on the dashboard, so I knew that the usable capacity was at 52.62kWh (164.6Ah) just before the crash. The battery has not received a replacement yet, and when I got the car four years ago the initial capacity was 58.63kWh (183.4Ah), so it's been degraded by roughly 10%, which isn't too surprising given the car's age and mileage (~65k miles).
When I got the car back from the service center, the monitor displayed a capacity of 61.89kWh (193.6Ah). I thought that was strange, since that's nearly 10kWh higher than what I expected. But I thought it was just the side effect of repair and possible BMS reset, although IIRC the system would err on the lower side to relearn quickly.
To see how things would go, I drove the car around for around 500 miles, hoping that the capacity would return to what I think was normal. However, it barely budged - now showing 61.60kWh (192.7Ah).
Now, the car's battery pack still has the old VISTA 2.0 sticker on it, and the software still limits the charge to 80%. So at least from the software and external hardware side, the battery's still supposedly the same.
The long distance drive data came out like this.
#1: 78.04% → 12.16% (65.88% delta), 41.9kWh consumed = 63.6kWh
#2: 74.12% → 12.16% (61.96% delta), 37.0kWh consumed = 59.7kWh
So empirically speaking, the capacity does apparently lie around 61.60kWh.
Another thing to consider is that, when the capacity was showing 52.62kWh back then, I did this trip:
80.00% → 2.75% (77.25% delta), 40.8kWh consumed = 52.8kWh
So I knew for sure, with the 80% charging limit I would drain the battery completely after about 42kWh spent (52.62 * 0.8 = 42.096). Therefore the trip #1 after the crash would not have that much battery left in the first place.
I searched around this forum to see what the usual Ah values are for the new battery packs, and apparently it's in the range of roughly 190 - 200Ah.
New Battery capacity check using OBD-2
I got a new battery in my 2017 Bolt 4 days ago and did my first capacity check using OBD-2 codes from Sean Graham (thank you Sean). I'm wondering if this looks reasonable and whether I did the test correctly. Here are what I think the critical codes are at 100%, 50%, and 10% SoC: The kWh...
www.chevybolt.org
Since I'm getting numbers in the 193-194Ah range, this falls neatly in line.
One problem is that there is no service record of traction battery replacement for my vehicle. And as I mentioned up there, the car still has the 80% limit set. As far as GM Korea is concerned, that car still has the old battery, and new replacement battery is still pending, subject to availability in the 2nd half of 2022.
So what do you think about this situation? Did the crash magically give me a new battery pack? Is the system still wonky? Would it be possible to just ask for the service personnel to "remove" the 80% limit?
