[bl80]

Sorry this might be long. I copy/pasted this from what I posted on the reddit group. Didnt know this forum existed till just now.

Tried to include all info.

Got Premier trim Bolt 2 Saturdays ago. Have used L1, L2 and DC chargers around town numerous times (L1 at home obviously).
--Here is something I did not include on my reddit post - when I picked up the car from the dealer it had 30 miles left on the meter. I live about 26 miles away and due to the EXTREME heat that day had to blast the A/C so my range was definitely reduced due to climate controls. I made it home but when I got about 2 miles away, and after warnings of low power, I got the notice of "Propulsion Power Reduced". I assumed this was normal and thankfully I was able to get home without issue and get my L1 charger connected.

Decided to get an L2 for home so ordered the Juicebox 40pro and got it setup in my garage yesterday. (Juicenet account and all ) Connected it to Bolt and green lights flashed normal.

I noticed the fan was EXCESSIVELY loud compared to how it normally sounds w my L1 that I always keep connected (I am in Arizona so I hear it running all the time).

The car is set for Hilltop and only charges at night. I got into the vehicle and set an override and disabled the Hilltop option. It immediately changed to "Charging" and all looked great. (Was VERY excited to see the full charge would only take 1.5 hours - it was at 75% or so and this time).

About 15 min later I decided to make quick run to store. Disconnected the charger and got in the car and started it. Immediately got "Propulsion Power Reduced" on my screen. (Wtf!?). Turned off and on and message went away but "service required" light stayed illuminated. I called eMotorWerks and we reviewed my charge history and nothing looked out of place - reconnected and verified live that it was charging as expected and all looked normal. Car is running fine. OnStar confirmed the service required light but whatever code caused it gave them no addition info.

So I dropped it off to the local Chevy Dealer Service center when their tech proclaimed "I havent even seen one of these cara before!" Which filled me with confidence (/s). Just got a call that "a module needs to be replaced" and no more info.

Ill update when this is settled. In my line of work I constantly have to fix things that other break. My first question is "what changed or what did you do differently?" Unfortunately in this there are a few things : new charger is one and also I have never changed the in-car charge settings while power connected. Not sure what might have happened...

 

[Steverino]

Propulsion reduced because you were basically running on empty. You were in limp mode. Eventually that and the car would have stopped. Luckily you made it home in time to avoid that. I would have opened the windows and turned off the A/C to provide a bit more reserve.

The fan running louder on L2 vs. L1 is likely due to a LOT more power being pumped into the battery, requiring more cooling effort. Plus, the car was just run very hard.

Please let us know what error codes they found and what component was replaced

 

[DonC]

As Steverino mentioned the propulsion power reduced was because the battery was going flat. Nothing abnormal about that. Other of course than raising the question: What lame dealer would sell you a Bolt EV without a full charge much less 30 miles of range?

For future reference, it's a good idea to have OnStar give you the exact codes. That's usually helpful. They can also tell you how soon you need to have the dealer look at the problem. Gives you a good idea of whether it's serious.

Also agree with Steverino about the fan speed. Seems normal.

I'd wonder if "replace a module" is "reprogram a module". Might even be something as simple as clearing the codes if the error message was the result of a hiccup when charging and everything checks out. At least on the Volt, under these circumstances the error light usually just resolves itself after a couple of charges.

 

[wordptom]

when I picked up the car from the dealer it had 30 miles left on the meter. I live about 26 miles away and due to the EXTREME heat that day had to blast the A/C so my range was definitely reduced due to climate controls. I made it home but when I got about 2 miles away, and after warnings of low power, I got the notice of "Propulsion Power Reduced". I assumed this was normal and thankfully I was able to get home without issue and get my L1 charger connected...

So I dropped it off to the local Chevy Dealer Service center when their tech proclaimed "I havent even seen one of these cara before!" Which filled me with confidence (/s). Just got a call that "a module needs to be replaced" and no more info.

Just to remind you, the battery in an electric vehicle is the "fuel tank" for everything - the motor AND the accessories. If you turn the air conditioning on high (or the heat in the winter), there’s less fuel remaining for the motor.

The "30 mile estimated range" at the dealer likely did not anticipate using some of that 30 miles of the power that otherwise could have been used for the motor to blast the air conditioning as you drove, and thus you bottomed out the normal available range before reaching home 26 miles away, and limped home on a small window of "emergency power" in Reduced Propulsion Mode.

The Chevrolet Bolt is a recent arrival on the electric car market, and it wouldn’t be unusual for a service tech at a Chevy dealer to have not yet seen one (doesn’t necessarily mean the tech hasn’t worked on Volts, just that the tech hadn’t yet seen an all-electric Chevy model).

 

[TheBlueFlash]

Why would you leave the dealer with only 30 miles? I would not have left that lot w/o a full charge. You expect a full tank of gas if you buy an ICE car.

 

[fishhawk]

Why would you leave the dealer with only 30 miles? I would not have left that lot w/o a full charge. You expect a full tank of gas if you buy an ICE car.

Exactly. Shame on the dealer for letting the OP drive the car of the lot. Maybe they wanted a self-fulfilling prophesy?

 

[BillG]

Sorry this might be long. I copy/pasted this from what I posted on the reddit group. Didnt know this forum existed till just now.

Tried to include all info.

Got Premier trim Bolt 2 Saturdays ago. Have used L1, L2 and DC chargers around town numerous times (L1 at home obviously).
--Here is something I did not include on my reddit post - when I picked up the car from the dealer it had 30 miles left on the meter. I live about 26 miles away and due to the EXTREME heat that day had to blast the A/C so my range was definitely reduced due to climate controls. I made it home but when I got about 2 miles away, and after warnings of low power, I got the notice of "Propulsion Power Reduced". I assumed this was normal and thankfully I was able to get home without issue and get my L1 charger connected.

Decided to get an L2 for home so ordered the Juicebox 40pro and got it setup in my garage yesterday. (Juicenet account and all ) Connected it to Bolt and green lights flashed normal.

I noticed the fan was EXCESSIVELY loud compared to how it normally sounds w my L1 that I always keep connected (I am in Arizona so I hear it running all the time).

The car is set for Hilltop and only charges at night. I got into the vehicle and set an override and disabled the Hilltop option. It immediately changed to "Charging" and all looked great. (Was VERY excited to see the full charge would only take 1.5 hours - it was at 75% or so and this time).

About 15 min later I decided to make quick run to store. Disconnected the charger and got in the car and started it. Immediately got "Propulsion Power Reduced" on my screen. (Wtf!?). Turned off and on and message went away but "service required" light stayed illuminated. I called eMotorWerks and we reviewed my charge history and nothing looked out of place - reconnected and verified live that it was charging as expected and all looked normal. Car is running fine. OnStar confirmed the service required light but whatever code caused it gave them no addition info.

So I dropped it off to the local Chevy Dealer Service center when their tech proclaimed "I havent even seen one of these cara before!" Which filled me with confidence (/s). Just got a call that "a module needs to be replaced" and no more info.

Ill update when this is settled. In my line of work I constantly have to fix things that other break. My first question is "what changed or what did you do differently?" Unfortunately in this there are a few things : new charger is one and also I have never changed the in-car charge settings while power connected. Not sure what might have happened...

You guys aren't reading his entire post. He knows why the PPR message showed up the first time he drove the car. He is talking about the most recent incident, when it came on while the battery was at least 75% charged.

 

[bl80]

You guys aren't reading his entire post. He knows why the PPR message showed up the first time he drove the car. He is talking about the most recent incident, when it came on while the battery was at least 75% charged.

Correct - this has nothing to do with the "Valid" PPR message on day 1.

Update - Bolt back in the garage. They cleared the service light and told me that GM had instructed them to do so as a pending system update will resolve it. All codes point to inverter issue. They tried to order the inverter module but the GM engineers told them to clear code for now.
Here's exact notes on my paperwork: Called TAC case xxxxxx Codes P0AEE, P9BD2, P0BDC - Instructed to take snapshot of power inverter module temperature and send to engineering. Unrealized 24285374 sl-n-module Instructed to direct customer this condition is being worked on by gm engineers. if code comes back necessary to clear code and turn vehicle back to customer.

 

[Jeff N]

It's hard to say anything without knowing the error code numbers. The OP should ask the dealerfir them since they should have been written down into the service record by the tech working on the car.

 

[DonC]

Seems like this is a software issue though it's possible it may require a hardware fix. That would likely involve a lot of Bolts.

NOTE: I edited the title to add the error codes since that is an important piece of into and makes searching easier. To make room the extraneous info was removed.

You guys aren't reading his entire post. He knows why the PPR message showed up the first time he drove the car. He is talking about the most recent incident, when it came on while the battery was at least 75% charged.

I think that was understood. The fact there are two issues doesn't answer the question of why the dealer would let someone off the lot with a battery that was almost flat.

As for the second, errors from charging are not unknown on the Volt. I'm just guessing, but there may be a software bug that triggers error codes when the car is charging under certain conditions. The JuiceBox may also be involved in some way.

 

[bl80]

Thank you all for the input -- Let me first address the topic about leaving the lot with 30 miles left on the charge - this was my decision based on the miles to get home and my inexperience with EV cars. This was kind of an impulse pick-up for me after a test drive - I am definitely learning as I go. The dealership did not have a fast charger. The portable L1 was connected for 2 hours before I picked up the car and 30 miles was all I had on it. I made the decision to drive home and I would have made it without getting the low warning if I had not taken an exit to try to hit an L2 charger station. Unfortunately both stalls were in use (this was in front of a movie theater so I knew it was going to be a while). I made it home with a few miles to spare but learned a good lesson.. That all being said....

As DonC edited, those are the error codes I got back from GM Service Center. Full info on my paper work below. Unfortunately more issues are still occurring.

While connected to my at home L2 Juicebox 40 pro the car seems to reset the connection.
This is after getting car back from GM from very recent issue (notes below).

I get a "Charging Override / Interrupt Occurred" message on my screen.
The charge picks back up after about 1 minute and continues on.

-Upon next time charging at home (first time since getting car back) I got a few texts via Chevy App that my charging had been interrupted.

-Looking at the Juicebox info in the charging app I see dips where the charging goes to zero then goes back to normal.

-Another very odd item that I notice is when the car is connected it sometimes kicks on the fan at INSANE level. I hear it all the time running then shutting off, then on again. But it occasionally goes VERY loud - I have never heard this before with my L1 charger and my garage has been continually in the upper 110+ temps for last 2 weeks -- it is so damn warm here in Arizona.

-I cannot confirm this for all times but I am certain that one time it disconnected from charging was after the fan went the high level. I heard the fan go to the high speed, stay there for a couple minutes then it stopped and the Juicebox made the clicks that occur when I disconnect the charger handle from the car. Then about 1 min later it went back to regular fan and continued on. The green charge indicator never went amber that i saw. stayed green.

-I kept the charger in all night, fully charged fine for the last hour of the hilltop charge. The last while it tapered down the amps and did not have any disconnects.

Heres the details from the trip to the GM service center after they cleared light and told me it was something "they were working on" with software.

Here's exact notes on my paperwork:

Called TAC case xxxxxx Codes P0AEE, P9BD2, P0BDC - Instructed to take snapshot of power inverter module temperature and send to engineering. Unrealized 24285374 sl-n-module Instructed to direct customer this condition is being worked on by gm engineers. if code comes back necessary to clear code and turn vehicle back to customer.