We returned home after a two-week Christmas holiday. We found the Bolt where we left it. Always a good sign here in Bakersfield where cars disappear from the owners’ drive way on a regular basis.
We also found that the electronic key opened the doors as designed, another good sign. And wonder of wonders, the car powered up when I pressed the start button.
Yes, that’s what cars are supposed to do after such a short period of storage. That shouldn’t be newsworthy. But I wasn’t certain it would power up or whether the key would even open the door. After all, we’d had the Bolt towed away after only a few days of ownership. See Our Bolt is Back or How a 12-Volt Battery Can Kill an Electric Car.
No, I didn’t measure the starter or accessory battery voltage after the car had sat for two weeks. I just wanted to see if it worked. That’s all anyone really cares about. It did.
The experience has reduced, but not eliminated, my “starter battery anxiety.” I’ll continue to carry around my volt-ohm-meter in the trunk and my fancy new jump-start battery for months to come until I am confident that whatever drained the starter battery previously won’t do so again.
For now, our Bolt EV is working as designed and we’re anxious to take it on some road trips.
