I’ve talked a lot, but I’d like to hear from other people. Everybody seems pretty happy with their cars, are there any non-range anxiety related downsides to electric or plugin hybrid vehicles that you’ve experienced?
I don’t mean, “we have to rent a car for the 800 mile trip to Grandma’s every year,” but if there is stuff like “it said 90 miles of range at the start, but we got 30 miles from home and all of the sudden it said 20 miles left on the battery,” that I’m interested in hearing.
It doesn’t have to be deal-breaker type stuff, or even necessarily things that could be true for any car, like the infotainment system is hard to use. I can’t think of any good examples, maybe it uses more electricity than you expected, or the torque kills the front tires, the gas in the tank got stale (I know they’re supposed to avoid that), I don’t know…
The Leaf has a readout showing expected miles left that is based on your current driving. Leaf owners have dubbed it the GOM: guess-o-meter. if you are currently going up hill, it will show a far lower range than you really have, assuming you won’t be continuing to climb at the same rate for the whole trip.
For instance, we can leave the house with a full charge and the GOM saying we can go 68 miles, and drive about ten miles to a local shopping center on a route that is mostly highway, and mostly up hill. When we get there, it shows we have about 38 miles of travel left. But when we turn around and go home over the same route, mostly downhill, we can end up with a reading of 45 miles or more. IOW, the GOM has averaged out to be about right.
It was a little alarming the first time we took this trip and saw a drop of 20 miles when we knew we had gone only about five. But once we realized how it works, it became something of a game. My wife says she has become much more aware of inclines than she ever was before and now likes to see how many miles she can “recover” on her drive home from work, which is mostly downhill.
I have no real complaints about my Bolt. The center dash display – where the radio, climate controls, etc., are – has had a few glitches. For example, one day the display just didn’t come on when I started the car. Another time, the camera wouldn’t turn off, so I had to drive for a while with the camera displayed instead of the instruments. There have been a few things like that, but they all resolved after restarting the car. I think GM may still be working out a few minor kinks. This is the first model year, so I guess some issues are to be expected. And there’s no way to reorder the presets on the radio, as far as I can tell. If I save a station, it goes to the bottom of the list, and I can’t move it. So I can’t group all the news or rock or whatever stations together. Very minor but kind of an oversight in my mind.
I’ve found the range estimates on the Bolt to be pretty accurate. If I get in in the morning and it says I have 200 miles, and I drive 50, it almost always tells me I have 150 to go. Unless I turn on Sport Mode and drive like a teenager in a Trans Am. Which I do once in a while.
I’ve noticed no real downsides. Other than being very quiet and sailing past gas stations, it’s just a car.
One quirk with the Volt: if you use any of the electronics or climate controls, the radio comes on. If you don’t want to hear the radio, you have to mute it.
The only thing I can think of is that my car has full time high regen. If you take your foot off the gas, you slow down, not coast. It took a little while to get used to it, and I am sure some would not like it. I think it is one of the greatest things about the car. In a typical day, I need to use the brakes maybe like 5 times. I love one pedal driving, I’m sure this is not a universal opinion.
One-pedal driving is by far my favorite feature of the Bolt. That, combined with the hand-brake on the steering wheel (which increases how much kinetic energy the motor converts into electrical energy) I hardly need to use the friction brakes on the wheels. Hopefully that means fewer brake-jobs in the future.
Similar issues for me. Sometimes (maybe once every other month) the center console doesn’t “boot” up. Restarting the car doesn’t help, but time does–driving down the road it’ll suddenly “boot”. Annoying but doesn’t prevent getting someplace.
The only real problem I’ve had is a nail in a tire. When it happened the stock tires were unavailable. As in “there’s none anywhere in southern California”. (My service guy was actually swearing on the phone at Chevy corporate.) The choices were buy four new non-stock tires (because the non-stock have different radiuses than stock), or wait for a stock tire to be shipped for afar. By the way, there is no spare tire in a Bolt. But, the tires are “run-flat”. So I bought a 12V air compressor and reinflated the tire before driving anywhere. :smack: Eventually the dealership found a tire for me, and actually gave it to me gratis. That was back in the spring when there were only a few thousand Bolts on the road, so presumably Chevy has their service supply chain operational by now. Anyhow, it may be wise to invest in a 12V compressor for emergencies.
I’m looking forward to one pedal driving. How is it in the mountains? I think the hand brake you mention would be useful as a way to “downshift.” I would hate having to use the brakes to control downhill speed when it could just regen more.
BTW, (as of 10 years ago, or whenever I rode it) the Pikes Peak cog railway is electric, and uses regenerative braking from the drive motor to control downhill speed. Except instead of dumping the power back into the line, or storing it, they use it to run massive heaters on the roof. Those don’t even heat the cabin, they just are a way to dump energy.
I’m familiar with this. On my bike the distance to empty will be at say 60 when I leave the house, 63 when I get to work (15 miles), and then 40 when I get on the bike after work. Some kind of moving average weighted by instantaneous power use seems best, but I’m sure there are whiteboards filled with different ways to do this.
I have tentative plans with the wife to see a Bolt on Thursday afternoon. Should I make an appointment with the dealer, or just be a unicorn up on the lot? I’ll be totally clear on my purchase plans either way.
Yeah, the compressor is a part of the gunk injector system (for fixing small leaks). I hear you can purchase a spare wheel/compact tire kit from GM.
Upsides to my 2017 Volt:
Comfort.
Power comparable to my old Impreza, which is saying something.
That little braking paddle on the steering wheel is wonderful. I do get confused when I drive our Mercedes, which has paddle shifting. Can you say “First World problem” ?
Android Auto is great.
Downsides on my 2017 Volt:
The middle seat in the back is designed for short children with no legs. Consider it a 4-seat car with 5 seat belts.
When the petrol engine is running, it’s very often running at about 2000 rotations per minute with no relationship to how fast the car is going. I know this is by design, but I’d like it to be quieter.
The blind spots are horrible, and the rear window is way too high. They had the right idea in the original Volt (2011-2015) in adding a hidden window lower down. It’s lucky the rear view camera is standard… but it’s always blurred in rainy weather.
There is no Fast Charger connection, and the internal circuitry for charging is slower than it could be (limited to 16 A, even plugged into a 30 A charger).
One trip out of 7 maybe, I don’t see the Android Auto icon. Sometimes I need to wait, sometimes I need to reboot the radio, sometimes I need to reboot my Galaxy S7 phone. (I’ve tried several USB cables, and I’m using my best one.)
I test drove the Volt, and i also found the blind spots a big negative. Overall I loved the Volt, and i was leaning toward it, but the small back seat and the poor visibility over the shoulder were probably the biggest factors that pushed me to the Bolt.
I loved the Fusion Energi that I had. The fact that it is a normal production car that mixes into the crowd without trying to look like a special snowflake was very highly appealing to me, and the Fusion (any Fusion) is just a nice, attractive car.
It has about three “bands” of range. Below 0, it would go about 12 miles, and that was with the HVAC turned off but the heated seats and steering wheel turned on (hey, I was gaming it, after all). Between 0 and 15 or so, I’d get about 20 miles, again without HVAC. With the weather above 15, even using the HVAC, I pretty much always got the promised 26 miles, driving just like a normal car without gaming. It’s not particularly hilly where I live.
In hybrid mode, I got about 46 mpg or so. I probably could have done better, but at the point the ICE kicks in, I stop gaming completely and drive with comfortable HVAC settings, accelerate hard, and pretty much treat it as a normal car.
I’ll definitely consider another one, depending on overall car circumstances in the next couple of years.
It works quite well. Driving up into the Santa Monica mountains, you lose range much faster than the miles driven. But coming back down, the range increases. So the farther down the mountains you come, the more energy you regain. Like As commasense says, the range indicator averages out to be accurate.
That reminds me, the regen brakes don’t work when the car is fully charged. I’ve set the car for “mountaintop reserve”, which only charges to 80% full. That way I can always use the regen brakes.
I meant to reply to this earlier. Does your Marketeer still run? I’m wondering how well the batteries work, if they still do.
Bumping to add some time-sensitive information for any California electric vehicle owners: all Clean Air Vehicle stickers expire at the end of this year, except for the red ones. These are the stickers that give you access to carpool lanes. Your stickers are probably white or green; these will not be valid after 1 Jan 2019. But you can apply to get a replacement red sticker that is valid until 1 Jan 2022. There are a lot of conditions on getting the red stickers, read the DMV guide for information.
I’m glad you bumped this. We’ve had our Bolt for about 14 months now, and I still love it. Even my brother and his buddy, who are total old-school gearheads, approved of it when I drove us all in it a few weeks ago.
I think they did a software update at one point when I took it in for service, because I can’t remember the last time I had any issues with the display going wonky on me like I mentioned upthread. Speaking of service – it just amounts to a tire rotation. I love not having to deal with oil changes and such.
We have a little less than 2 years to go on the lease. Chevy is supposed to be coming out with some new EVs in 2019. I’m really excited to see what they have available when we’re ready to trade ours in.
Okay, this is a bit of a bump, but my question seems germane to this thread.
We have a 2017 Bolt. Love it. Loveitloveitloveit. It’s perfect for the wife’s commuting needs and all the driving one would do in the city. We also have a clapped-out 2007 Honda Accord that is showing it’s age, but is great for trips longer that the Bolt’s range of ~250 miles (on a good day).
The question is, do I buy another all-electric, or go hybrid? My biggest concern is being able to take the occasional long trip, or getting somewhere without enough juice to get back without necessitating a multi-hour layover at a charging station (charging the bolt with the 120V charger takes DAYS).
I like the simplicity of all-electric, but like the limitless range of a hybrid. I’m very conflicted.
So, what say you, dopers? Anyone have an strong feelings for/against Hybrids
How often do you do the long trips? If it’s just a few times per year you’d probably be better off renting a regular petrol car when you need one. This is what I do.
I think a lot depends on what you mean by “long trips.”
Is 300 miles a long trip? Then sure, why not get another BEV? Is 2,000 miles a long trip? Then yeah, stick with the hybrid.
ETA: and also where you take these long trips to. It’s very different if you expect to plug in your level 1 charger at a cabin in the woods, versus driving on a freeway where you probably have access to a DC fast charger, where you can charge to 80% in roughly a half hour.