Sean Graham has built a tidy little web site, AllEV.info, with tons of nerdy details on EVs, especially Chevy’s Bolt.
Graham, who goes by the moniker of Telek on the popular Chevy Bolt EV Forum, is the source of the OBD PIDs used to monitor the Bolt’s inner workings. (I said it was nerdy.) If you don’t know what an OBD reader is or how it’s used to monitor the performance of your car, see Peeking Inside the Bolt’s Brain Reveals Valuable Secrets. Suffice it to say, it’s an electronic gizmo you plug into a port for the purpose underneath the dashboard. The gizmo then talks to your smart phone and–if all goes well—reveals data from the car’s onboard diagnostic system. It’s a gearhead’s dream tool.
Graham obviously invests a lot of time in teasing out technical details of the Bolt and then sharing that information with others through the Chevy Bolt Forum and his web site. He provides a valuable public service, something of a rarity these days.
His FAQ page on the Bolt, Everything You Need To Know About Your Chevy Bolt But Were Afraid To Ask, is as comprehensive as I’ve seen. Anyone driving a Bolt should bookmark this page. I have, and I’ve added a link to it on my own page of Frequently Asked Questions about Electric Vehicles. I’ve only begun to wade through it and I thought I’d read a lot about the Bolt.
For those with 2017-2019 Bolts, Graham has posted a series of detailed articles on Bolt battery fires. He doesn’t sugar coat it either. While we would like to think that EVs in general and Bolt’s in particular don’t catch fire more often than conventional vehicles, Graham sets the record straight with Chevy Bolts with Korean Made Batteries Catch Fire Much More Than Gas Cars. And he backs that up with numbers. They are rare events, but they have occurred and when they do the consequences can be disastrous. Until GM finds a solution, drivers of 2017-2019 Bolts should follow their recommendations on unattended charging.
We had no problems with our 2017 Bolt, but we now drive a 2020 Bolt and our battery was made in Holland, Michigan.
Geek out on Graham’s web site by visiting AllEV.info.
