From the NAV system that hasn't been announced yet? Interesting.
Just as a note I believe he stated that the car will continue to put out maximum power for the 8 year warranty. The Bolt EV battery pack will have a warranty of 62% capacity after 8 years/100K miles. I believe this was mentioned in the raw video from the Washington post test drive. Also keep in mind that 62% is likely under severe conditions (high heat with many DC fast charges and many deep battery cycles).
My apologies it's 62% after 10 years (CARB required warranty). But keep in mind almost nobody will see that level of degradation. The average user will likely still have over 90% after 8 years. The Volt BTW is warrantied for 70% after 10 years or 150K miles and we haven't seen anyone hit that level of degradation with their high milage Volts.
Most batteries are considered EOL when they hit 80% of capacity. One of the great things about the Volt is that I haven't seen any real loss of range. Maybe a couple of miles in six years, but it's hard to say because the new tires make a much bigger difference. Of course we have to expect some degradation -- it's the nature of the chemistry -- but roughly 40% would be extremely high. It would keep me from being in the first set of buyers. Maybe a lease. A short one!
The 80% is just a uniform battery industry testing convention. The battery doesn't suddenly become unusable after that. A car that starts with 80 miles and degrades to 80% or 64 miles may no longer work for an owner who was just barely making it but a Bolt EV at 80% is still 190 miles and if power were to degrade to 80% it would still be 160 HP which is about the same power and the same weight as a gen 2 Volt.
It is 8 years. The CARB battery warranty requirements do not apply to all-electric cars, just hybrids that have fossil fuel engines in them.
No. The forward collision warning camera system can read speed limit signs and that is likely where the speed limit display data is coming from.
He also said its normal for all Lithium-ion batteries to have gradual battery capacity loss. My guess is that for many owners it will be around 85%-90% after 100,000 miles and more if that happens over a full 10 years due to calendar time losses. The battery will likely not need to be replaced over the typical 15 year industry lifetime of the car and even after that will still be drivable at somewhat reduced but still totally reasonable range and power as a "clunker" used car for years after that.
No argument on that, but I don't expect any BEV to degrade almost 40% over eight years. That would be nuts. Especially given that, as you point out, with 238 miles of range, if you drove 10K miles a year you'd only be putting the cells through 40 cycles.
The ELR shows the speed limit but that's not always correlated with the signs. Or at least I don't think it is. Sometimes it is -- changes right at the sign -- but sometimes not. I've assumed it's in the map data. Maybe I should tape over a sign and test! LOL
Really? 238 miles in the Bolt should be roughly equivalent to 40 miles in the Gen 1 Volt and 53 miles in the Gen 2 Volt, and last I check, plenty of Volt owners are regularly exceeding EPA estimates.
I had an "after market" version of the Mobileye system used by GM installed on my 2011 Volt. It is completely independent of the Volt's builtin NAV and I'm fairly confident that the Mobileye unit doesn't have its own GPS and builtin NAV map with speed limits. Yet, it happily reads the speed limit signs and will show them on a smartphone app. The manual makes it clear that the Mobileye is reading the speed signs with its forward-looking camera. You have to tell it whether to look for US or European style road signs.
The 238 miles from the EPA test are without regen! Usually you should get back about 10% more range with regen. So heat and A/C should be no big deal.
