Chevy Bolt
Published 3/3/2018: Updated 3/28/2018
The Chevy Bolt
In the past I struggled with maintaining my sanity on long road trips. I would get annoyed by other drivers, traffic congestion and would lose my cool on road trips when young kids were screaming in the back seat. It didn’t take much before I would go all Clark Grizzwold and freak out. Because of this, we would avoid vacations that involved me driving long distances.
Our big vacations were few and far between and when we did travel far, it involved flying somewhere and doing minimal driving in a rental vehicle or being shuttled from the airport to the hotel. That was fine by everyone and it worked for our family.
Because of my impatient automotive operator shortcomings, I was perfectly happy owning only electric vehicles that by design only had a 40-100 range.
Electric Vehicles I have owned over the years
117,867 total all-electric miles (as of 3/3/2018)
2011-2012 Toyota Pickup Truck
2012-2015 Geo EV
Nissan Leaf 2012
Nissan Leaf 2013
Chevy Bolt 2017
38 miles of range
60 miles of range
76 miles of range
84 miles of range
238 miles of range
12,482 miles (retired)
17,487 miles (retired)
45,972 miles (leased new then bought)
39,109 - 8841 miles at purchase
11,658 miles (bought new)
Short range electric vehicles make perfect commuter cars. I didn’t miss having more range because my lifestyle did not required any longer distance, nor did I desire to go any further.
Then one day a switch flipped in my brain. Something changed inside my core. In April 2017, we decided to push the envelope, rent an RV and go on a southern Utah RV road trip. It involved driving 1200 miles and visiting several State and National parks. To everyone’s surprise, I didn’t freak out. In fact, I absolutely loved it.
Weeks after that RV road trip, I kept thinking back to how I felt seeing those beautiful landscapes and being in and experiencing those desolate and ancient places. I longed to get back there and experience nature in it’s remote and primordial beauty.
But a short range EV can’t go that far and even with a rapid charging infrastructure it would take far to long having to stop and charge every 50-60 miles.
The long range Tesla vehicles were still out of my budget and the affordable Model 3 was still years away from being available.
Enter the Bolt
The Chevy Bolt was available in some markets but not in Utah. But somehow, Jerry Seiner Chevrolet in Salt Lake City got ahold of 5 Bolts a couple of months before they were to be released in Utah. I test drove one and immediately fell in love.
It was so fast and powerful. It was very Tesla like in its acceleration. It had amazing regenerative braking, great looks, a 60kWh battery which yielded and an amazing 238 miles of range.
When I traded in my home-converted Geo Metro EV for a Nissan Leaf, the instant upgrade in convenience and comfort made me feel like royalty. Well take that upgrade and double it because it is the same amount of upgrade in convenience and comfort going from the Leaf to the Bolt.
After 114 days of non-stop thinking about this wonderful engineering marvel, I finally pulled the trigger and took ownership of my own Bolt on August 31, 2017.
Never in my life have I have ever loved a car more. I love taking it on long road trips.
Taking a detour up Kolob Canyon at Zion National Park in Southern Utah.
In order to travel from Kaysville, UT (North of Salt Lake) to Zion's National Park in a Chevy Bolt, (going 75-80 mph the whole way), the Filmore, UT station is really the only one you will need to stop at. The Bolt charges a lot slower than a Tesla so it ends up taking about an hour to charge back up. But combined with stopping for a bathroom break and lunch, it’s not that big of a hassle.
The Bolt has a screen where it keeps track of the energy you consume (in kWh).
Whenever I take long road trips in the Bolt, I love watching this screen and imagine when I would run out of charge if I were driving a shorter range electric car.
18 kWh consumed: If I was driving my daughter’s 2012 leaf, I would have ran out of charge by now.
20 kWh consumed: If I was driving my wife’s 2013 leaf, I would have ran out of charge by now.
29 kWh consumed: If I was driving a 2016 leaf, I would have ran out of charge by now.
39 kWh consumed: If I was driving a new 2018 leaf, I would have ran out of charge by now.
95 kWh consumed: If I was driving a P100 Tesla, I would not have ran out of charge back there.
I used to only drive 10,000 miles a year. Now I drive 10,000 miles in 5 months. Oops! Well at least most of those miles are solar powered. Admittedly this bumper sticker (below), is not as applicable as it once was.
The Bolt is so peppy it’s almost a quantum car in that it doesn’t travel from point A to point B. It disappears from point A and reappears at point B. [Symbol]
I love jumping off the line at a traffic light or pulsing ahead when you are trying to change lanes. With double the power of the 2011-2016 Leaf (160kW vs 80kW) it really does accelerate fast. It has more than double the regen too, (70kW instead of 30kW). You can literally slow down to a stop without touching the brake pedal. It has a very powerful heater (I’ve seen it has high as 9kW) and warms up in the winter time lightening fast. You can remotely pre-condition using the key FOB. Like the Leaf you can pre-heat the car inside an enclosed garage without fear of carbon monoxide poisoning as opposed to every gasoline/diesel car on the planet.
Battery range is absolutely amazing. Without even trying I can easily get >280 miles of range in the summer time. In the winter time while cranking the heater, range drops to around 180 miles. I used to drive around 63 mph on the interstate because I was trying to conserve battery range. Sadly I am not as efficient of a driver anymore because this car has so much battery capacity and is too fun to punch and drive fast. In the summer time I charge up the battery about once a week. I plug it in on a Thursday evening and the car is ready to go Friday morning for another week of care free driving. In the winter time, with less range, I charge up 2 nights a week.
The Bolt has a claimed 60 kWh of battery capacity. To my surprise this is the usable capacity of the battery and not the rated capacity. To have this much usable capacity the battery must be even larger, probably around 62-64 kWh in rated capacity.
I recorded some readings using the energy capacity meter on the main bolt screen.
Data points for when Chevy Bolt gets a low battery. 1/17/2018
Full battery (usable)
Warning: Low battery warning
Warning: Charge vehicle soon warning
Warning: Reduced propulsion (120kW of power vs 160kW on a full battery)
Warning: Mileage estimates go away and only blinking low battery warning
Arrived Home:
Personal record for lowest battery remaining:
0 kWh consumed (100% remaining)
~52 kWh consumed (13.3% remaining)
53.8 kWh (10.3% of remaining usable capacity)
56.2 kWh (6.3% of remaining usable capacity)
56.9 kWh (5.167% of remaining usable capacity)
57.5 kWh (60-57.5)/60 = 4.167% of remaining usable capacity.
58.5 kWh (60-58.5)/60 = 2.5% of remaining usable capacity.
By this logic it makes sense that the battery does indeed have a 60 kWh usable capacity. But according to this very well documented video of a Chevy Bolt battery tear down by fellow Weber Statue University professor John Kelly, (skip to 44:25 for his proof), the available capacity is only 57 kWh.
On the outside of the battery case is stamped 57 kWh of capacity. Inside the pack, the battery modules each have a capacity rating stamped on them as well.
There are 10 battery modules, 8 of them are marked 5.94 kWh each and 2 of them are marked 4.75 kWh each.
8 x 5.94 kWh = 47.52 kWh
2 x 4.75 kWh = 9.5 kWh
For a total of = 57.02 kWh
So which one is it? 60 kWh of usable capacity or 57 kWh of rated capacity, I am at a loss over this wide discrepancy.
Energy to re-charge vs. energy the car recorded as discharged
3/27/2018 Re-charged 59.0 kWh but Bolt recorded 57.1 kWh consumed. 96.7% charge efficiency? (Warmer battery needed less conditioning?)
3/23/2018 Re-charged 51.7 kWh but Bolt recorded 49.4 kWh consumed. 95.3% charge efficiency?
In both instances I am using a slower 5.7 kW charge rate, (This Juicebox has been intentionally throttled back to minimize resistive losses in charging cables).
I suspect the Bolt’s energy consumption numbers are a little on the high side, or else it’s chemistry is a lot more efficient at charging. Typical charge efficiency is on the order of 85-90% efficient.
Thermal Management:
Because the Chevy Bolt thermally manages its battery pack, I suspect that its life will be greatly extended. While a Nissan Leaf battery pack that is not thermally managed, is pretty much toast after 100,000 miles or so. The Bolt should be able to do much better.
Hypothetically supposed you charged the Bolt’s battery every 180 miles. If the battery has a usable lifespan of 3500-5000 cycles, we can estimate that the Bolt battery will last for 180 x 3500 = 630,000 to 900,000 miles. At this rate, the chassis will rust out long before the battery needs to be replaced.
If the Bolt is what Chevrolet can do when their heart isn’t even in EVs yet, I can’t wait for what the future holds for EVs once the rest of the auto industry finally comes on board?