Since the advent of EVs, drivers have wondered how to use that big battery to power their home in an … Read more
Chevy Bolt
We were on a road trip and pulled up to an EV Connect kiosk at Daniels Wood Land in Paso … Read more
Stopping to charge your EV on a road trip may seem an inconvenience to some, but not to us. True, … Read more
I’ve tracked battery degradation in the EVs we’ve driven during the past decade. The short answer is that our Nissan Leaf lost a lot, our Chevy Bolts not so much.
Since switching to the Bolts, we’ve traveled nearly 70,000 miles on three different batteries. Each battery has lost about 5% of its capacity over 20,000 to 30,000 miles. Importantly, this modest capacity loss hasn’t affected how we use the cars or how far we can drive them.
In mid March Nancy and I saddled up our Bolt EV and headed out to the Carrizo Plains National Monument … Read more
I’ve been telling anyone who will listen, “No one should buy any passenger car that gets less than 100 miles … Read more
For folks looking for the tire inflator, sealant cannister and even the styrofoam insert that holds them in the stowage compartment, here are the part numbers . . . from a post on ChevyBolt.org.
Discontinued, outdated and outclassed, the Bolt should’ve been a flop in 2023. Instead, it says a lot about what EV owners really want. To go deeper, just this year alone, the Bolt:
At one point saw its sales up 101% over the same period last year
Traded places with the Mustang Mach-E as America’s best-selling EV behind the two volume-focused Tesla models, which is no small feat
Which translated to its best year of sales, ever
Was a leader in fleet sales as well, making it a zero-emissions hero for corporate and government operations everywhere
Got canceled
Then sparked a furor so intense that GM had to quickly about-face and un-cancel it
And will still be the only GM car eligible for the EV tax credit come Jan. 1, 2024
Questions about the slow charging rate of the Bolt (compared to other cars) come up quite often. While the charging port being limited to 150A is often blamed, this is not the root cause. I firmly believe that the pack design (and not the cells) provides a very limited way of removing heat. If the pack were to be charged any faster, it could create unacceptable temperature gradients in the cells, which could cause severe degradation.
We think this is a big mistake, especially given all the recent excitement around the Volvo EX30, a vehicle quite close to the Bolt EV’s footprint and layout. Given the interest we’re seeing in that small, well-priced hatchback/SUV, which despite being called an SUV is still among the smaller EVs currently being introduced, one would think that GM might see that a “Hot Hatch meets MicroSUV” format is popular. Surely that’s why they were bringing back the Bolt in the first place?
