At What Cold Temp, Bolt Won't Start
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If this is anything like the Volt, it won't be related to the outside air temperature at all. On the Volt, the limit is on the battery pack temperature. If the pack gets cold enough, the electrolyte freezes, which prevents the battery from discharging safely (there's a temperature range where it can discharge safely but not charge safely above that.)
If I remember right, the Volt limit was a pack temperature of 17F (which would require the car being parked cold soaking in temperatures well below that for many hours.)
Is there any way to get more information on this and/or get the a reading on the battery temperature? Vermont does get sub-zero temperatures and a couple years ago we had several polar vortexes come down and kept temperatures below zero for days.
On the Volt, any of the OBDII scanners would give you pack temperatures, DashDAQ and random Bluetooth units with the Torque smartphone app being the most popular. I suspect the same is true for the Bolt.
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Do you mean -17F?
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Since the Bolt was only available in a handful of states from Oct 2016 until now, we won't know for sure until someone in a cold state goes through a brutal winter. Alas, where I live, we had Snowageddons 1 and 2, then mild winters since (just after I bought snow tires for the Volt)
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<The screen on the Bolt says it is recommended the car be plugged in overnight if it is below 32F or above 90F. So we can expect the pack conditioning kicks in outside that range.>
http://insideevs.com/chevrolet-bolt-highway-range-efficiency-in-the-rain-video/
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I would think this number makes sense. I've parked my Volt in weather that ranged from -15 (high) to -30F (Low) for a few days strait un-plugged and it started up. Mind you it started in deep cold mode with gas engine running and working hard to minimise battery usage.
Low ERDTT limit on 2013+ Volt's is 15F and wile this number is not at all related the low electrolyte freeze temperature must be way below that.
Volt nearly shuts the battery down when -10C (battery temp) and switches to engine
And apparently completely shuts down when -20C (to be confirmed, I hope to never be the one to confirm that)
I suspect bolt would go into turtle mode at -10C if it has the same limits, until the battery heats up.
It would be interesting to know if GM added standby heating as the bolt does not have engine backup like volt (and therefore I presume they didn't bother, just use the engine).
i.e. if you're at 95% power and parked, it could turn on the battery heat to never let you get below -9C (or whatever the min temp may be)
Note that to even get to -10 from operating temp, it was extremely cold (-25C) and parked unplugged for 9.5-10 hours.
And apparently completely shuts down when -20C (to be confirmed, I hope to never be the one to confirm that)
I suspect bolt would go into turtle mode at -10C if it has the same limits, until the battery heats up.
It would be interesting to know if GM added standby heating as the bolt does not have engine backup like volt (and therefore I presume they didn't bother, just use the engine).
i.e. if you're at 95% power and parked, it could turn on the battery heat to never let you get below -9C (or whatever the min temp may be)
Note that to even get to -10 from operating temp, it was extremely cold (-25C) and parked unplugged for 9.5-10 hours.
Nope. Volt regularly tested at -30F (-34C). Haven't found a corresponding video for Bolt yet.
http://media.chevrolet.com/media/us...1001/currentChannelId/Most Recent.gsaOff.html
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http://gmauthority.com/blog/2016/12...v-returns-200-miles-in-sub-zero-temperatures/
This the the Detroit Free Press Article...
http://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...evrolet-bolt-fender-bender-accident/95481484/
This the the Detroit Free Press Article...
http://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...evrolet-bolt-fender-bender-accident/95481484/
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