[dleibowitz]

How did Chevy Volt engineers manage to take a differentiating technology feature and make it virtually useless and a huge annoyance for owners? On a final test drive before purchasing and I decided to check out this great wireless phone charger with my wireless charging-equipped Samsung Note 5 (no, not the one that spontaneously combusts). Firstly, the well designed phone storage slot to the right of the gearshift is NOT equipped with the wireless charger. Instead, it's located at the fore of the compartment under the armrest. If that's not annoying enough, the charger slot is not deep enough to accomodate a Samsung Note 5, or an iPhone 6 Plus for that matter. That's right, you cannot have the phone in the charger slot and close the armrest compartment. Epic design fail. To add insult to injury, even if I wanted to wirelessly charge my phone there while leaving the armrest compartment open, it won't charge through the phone's protective case. Not my thin rubber case, or the case on the Samsung 7 my salesman was carrying.

So even though this design issue annoyed the heck out of me, I did purchase the Volt anyway, as well as a smaller cell phone, the Samsung S7 Edge. I figured this annoyance was behind me. NOT! Upon taking delivery of the vehicle I learned that even the smaller phone, sans any case, STILL doesn't allow the armrest compartment to close! Shame! But wait, it gets better. I was told by the salesman that there was a "fix" offered by Chevy to their sales and service teams. Low and behold the "fix" is to remove the rubber sleeve from the charging slot, placing your phone on top of a raw metal edge at the bottom of the charger compartment, and then finding some object to wedge the phone against the front of said compartment so that the phone is against the charging surface. No kidding!

Next up for me is to consider either cutting the bottom of the rubber sleeve to allow the phone to sit lower in the compartment but yet not touch the metal edge at the bottom of the compartment, OR to find some way to carve an opening in the inside of the compartment cover/armrest to accomodate the 1/4 inch or so required for the phone to fit. How crazy is this?! Or maybe I'll give Chevy a chance to read this and respond with a real fix? I'm not holding my breathe, but would LOVE to hear from Chevy on this, particularly in a world where cell phones are trending larger in size, and the Samsung S7 Edge is one of the best selling cell phones in the world today.

 

[sosmerc]

I hear ya! My S7 just barely fits into the pocket....but who cares, it doesn't work anyway. It's not the phone, I have 2 different QI wireless chargers I use at home and they are just great!
Maybe it's not that big a deal, but we paid alot of money for this car and it has this feature that is supposed to work.....only it clearly doesn't!

 

[jg123]

They must have designed the slot for my S6 Active, because it fits perfectly, the compartment closes, and it charges. The only thing is I always plug in my phone for the Android Auto, making the wireless charging redundant. Maybe someday an upgrade will come that makes AA wireless, and I will still have this S6 Active...

My problem is even more minor than a first world problem!

 

[sosmerc]

I hope this computer with 4 wheels isn't something you have to replace every couple of years like my cell phone and laptops.!

 

[NinjaVolt]

It is the least useful "option" on my car. We have iPhone 5s that I ordered a single Duracell induction case for "just in case" as we always use armored cases. This worked with the Duracell case but from what I read induction charging may not be very fast.

Pretty much a waste of space, which is critical on a car with so little cubbys. My Odyssey made better use of space.

I would rather have Homelink...GM you getting this yet?

 

[fjdiazg]

How did Chevy Volt engineers manage to take a differentiating technology feature and make it virtually useless and a huge annoyance for owners? On a final test drive before purchasing and I decided to check out this great wireless phone charger with my wireless charging-equipped Samsung Note 5 (no, not the one that spontaneously combusts). Firstly, the well designed phone storage slot to the right of the gearshift is NOT equipped with the wireless charger. Instead, it's located at the fore of the compartment under the armrest. If that's not annoying enough, the charger slot is not deep enough to accomodate a Samsung Note 5, or an iPhone 6 Plus for that matter. That's right, you cannot have the phone in the charger slot and close the armrest compartment. Epic design fail. To add insult to injury, even if I wanted to wirelessly charge my phone there while leaving the armrest compartment open, it won't charge through the phone's protective case. Not my thin rubber case, or the case on the Samsung 7 my salesman was carrying.

So even though this design issue annoyed the heck out of me, I did purchase the Volt anyway, as well as a smaller cell phone, the Samsung S7 Edge. I figured this annoyance was behind me. NOT! Upon taking delivery of the vehicle I learned that even the smaller phone, sans any case, STILL doesn't allow the armrest compartment to close! Shame! But wait, it gets better. I was told by the salesman that there was a "fix" offered by Chevy to their sales and service teams. Low and behold the "fix" is to remove the rubber sleeve from the charging slot, placing your phone on top of a raw metal edge at the bottom of the charger compartment, and then finding some object to wedge the phone against the front of said compartment so that the phone is against the charging surface. No kidding!

Next up for me is to consider either cutting the bottom of the rubber sleeve to allow the phone to sit lower in the compartment but yet not touch the metal edge at the bottom of the compartment, OR to find some way to carve an opening in the inside of the compartment cover/armrest to accomodate the 1/4 inch or so required for the phone to fit. How crazy is this?! Or maybe I'll give Chevy a chance to read this and respond with a real fix? I'm not holding my breathe, but would LOVE to hear from Chevy on this, particularly in a world where cell phones are trending larger in size, and the Samsung S7 Edge is one of the best selling cell phones in the world today.

In my particular case I can charge my Samsung S5 with the Otther plastic/rubber case, yes it's kinda old, but probably the biggest phone in the market at the time of the design of the Gen2 Volt.

I can bet you the next generation Volts or any other car will not be able to charge the iPhone 9 or the Samsung S10 in the future

 

[Fourdoors]

I gave up on it right away when I found out you have to take it out of the protective case. It's not the reason I bought the car anyway. I just use the phone charger. It's a feature that fits into the nice but not necessary. There's so much else to love about this car.

 

[bro1999]

FWIW, the Bolt's wireless charging slot ain't much better. Location is tons better, but not the actual charging capability.

 

[sosmerc]

So today I removed the rubber plug in the charging pocket and tried my S7 again.....and it worked! You have to keep the back of the phone up against the wall, but at least it does work. If I really needed to charge I guess I would put a small piece of foam between the front side of the phone and the console to hold the phone secure against the charging surface. BUT I plan to have the phone hooked up to usb anyway during trips so that I can use Android Auto and that negates the usefulness of the wireless charging slot. All in all, not a great design, but I will overlook it.

 

[johnchitown]

Size issues aside, I have an iPhone 6 with an aftermarket Qi charge card that sits between the outer and inner cushions of my case and it seems to charge fine. Phone sits securely in the slot.