[Matt832]

My cousin's Ford Flex died and she decided to take advantage of the deals on the Bolt EUV. Ordered one mid Jan. and it came in a week ago. She splits her time between Chicago and Michigan and a SE MI dealer had availability. Came in today to pick it up and found she needed to return to Chicago tomorrow for work. It was 198 mile trip according to Google maps. With the cool/cold weather it should have been doable but tight. Half way there she stopped at a DC Quick charge and topped off to 80%. Got a call a few hours ago she was 80 miles from destination with range of 19 miles. Got to the nearest charging station and both units were out of order. She panicked. Ended up calling On star for a tow to the nearest dealer, but she is stranded. Odometer showed a total of 218 miles driven, 2 when she left the dealership with a full charge.

I have no idea why the battery depleted so quickly. In moderate temps the Bolt is rated 240 miles on a charge. cold weather will drop it but she did the wise thing and charged up 1/2 of the way there. Should have easily made it the rest of the way. Got to say this soured her on a car she was excited to get and did the research on how to deal with charging.

 

[obermd]

Battery Electric vehicles can lose up to 40% of their range in the frigid cold. This is unfortunately something that isn't publicized by dealerships, but is by the anti-EV crowd. As for the DCFC chargers not working, this is likely because no one is making money from them so they have no incentive to keep them working.

 

[Steverino]

Low tire pressure, high cabin heat, high cabin fan speed, higher driving speed will all reduce range. The opposite will extend range. DCFC is not the only way to charge though it is the fastest. Level 2 will add about 10 miles or so an hour. Did she look for any of those or just DCFC?

If I were making that trip and having not made that trip before, I'd go 55 MPH, tires at 40PSI, use the seat and wheel heating with minimal cabin heat to keep the windshield from fogging. I'd also map where both the DCFC stations are as well as plan B Level 2 stations.

My 2017 with the new battery pack gets about 200-220 range in winter, add 100 miles for summer. That trip would not be the ideal first one I'd want to make in the car.

 

[hellsop]

There's a BIG gap (~150 miles) between Kalamazoo and like 5-10 miles inside the Illinois border that's basically zero CCS charging options. Plugshare and Level 2'ing your way across is the only fall-back. (I know there's a couple of hotels with chargers along the route, but they are/were all non-networked so you'd have to go try them to learn if you want to bother checking in.) I don't think the MyChevy app tells you about those either.

I'm sorry it happened, though.

 

[Danno]

If she's new to electric vehicles, she was probably driving at high speeds and using cabin heat and unaware of how those adversely affect range. She almost certainly could have made it if she had kept an eye on range versus miles left and, once she realized the trend indicated she wasn't going to make it, lowered her speed and shut off cabin heat.

 

[Matt832]

She dives 60-70mph, slow by my standards. I believe heat was at 72 when she took off, so not terrible. Have not talked to her yet today, ended up taking a Lyft home. On Star was somewhat helpful, but could have done a little more in my opinion. When I called them to check on her situation when I could not reach her they found her location but could not contact her due to no signal area. They ended up calling her cell. All in all kind of a perfect storm, no charging, no onstar and dropping temps.

 

[Cloudnine]

Sorry to hear, that is a rough neighborhood to have car issues. Drove it myself for many years due to a weekly IA-MI round trip. What I have seen in that stretch of I-94/I-80 rounding Lake Michigan would curl your eyelids.

 

[Cloudnine]

Somewhat related true story. I was on a long x-country drive and was talking to a convenience store clerk who told me of a friend who had a new Tesla. Friend comes down to visit, the Tesla quits on her twenty miles from her destination. She has the car towed to her friend's house, stays for a week. On her return trip home, clerk says, "What do you think happened?" I said, "Quit twenty miles from home?' Bewildered, she asked, "How'd you know?".

 

[begreen]

She dives 60-70mph, slow by my standards. I believe heat was at 72 when she took off, so not terrible. Have not talked to her yet today, ended up taking a Lyft home. On Star was somewhat helpful, but could have done a little more in my opinion. When I called them to check on her situation when I could not reach her they found her location but could not contact her due to no signal area. They ended up calling her cell. All in all kind of a perfect storm, no charging, no onstar and dropping temps.

What were the outdoor temperatures during this ordeal? What are others reporting for vehicle range loss during below zero temps?

 

[Steverino]

What are others reporting for vehicle range loss during below zero temps?

My Bolt drops from 300/330 miles in summer to 200/220 miles in winter. That's fairly normal. Again, If my trip was going to be about the same as the battery range I'd drive at 55mph, watch the cabin heating, make sure my tires were at 40PSI, and I'd have several Plan B charging options scoped out.

 

[caronjeff]

Driving I94 between Kalamazoo and Chicago the average speed in the left lane is about 83. I could easily see an attempt to stay at 65-70 creep up to 70-75 with traffic blowing by on the left. And the outside temperature around here has been around 15 Fahrenheit for several days now. Still it’s 120 miles from Kalamazoo to downtown Chicago. One would think an 80% charge should do the job.

 

[Matt832]

Exactly. It was cold, dropped to 1 to 10 degree range that night. My Volt '11 Volt drops from 30 to 20 miles per charge in cold weather, even with the loss of 1/3 range she should not have an issue with a new vehicle. I would hope there was some improvement in cold weather performance in 12 years.
Never having used a public charging station, how fool proof are they? She stopped at a rapid charge station, plugged in and watched as the car charged to 80% and got a message it was at 80% and slowing down the rate when she unplugged. What are the odds a brand new car would have an issue with the battery heater? That is the only thing I can think that would impact range to the extent it did.
She is going to call GM Monday, i would guess they can run remote scans to see what the situation was. Driving from KZ to just over the Indiana border should not have deplete a battery with an 80% charge.

 

[Steverino]

it was at 80% and slowing down the rate when she unplugged.

Charge rate tapering is how DC FC works. Assuming you pull in with a near empty battery, it charges at a fast rate but then starts slowing down as you approach 80%. The next 20% can take a long time. That said, the new Bolt's do a much better job at that than my 2017.

Common DC Fast Charging Curves and How to Find Yours | ChargePoint

www.chargepoint.com

 

[Matt832]

Some more details..

She said she was driving at 65-70, heated seats and steering wheel off, temp at 68 fans off or low. She said that hitting a low number of miles on a charge the display says "low" not showing range. She was on expressway trying to work across lanes to get over and scared the car would die and come to a stop on the expressway, very stressed out. She was down to 55mph at that point. She said if she knew she had 3 miles of range left or whatever she would not have been so panicked, my Volt shows down to 1 mile of battery range, why not the Bolt?

Still don't understand whey the 80% charge did not get her home from KZ.

 

[hellsop]

She said if she knew she had 3 miles of range left or whatever she would not have been so panicked, my Volt shows down to 1 mile of battery range, why not the Bolt?

Precisely because conditions have so much of an influence that when LOW kicks on (at 5% State of Charge), you probably have less than 10 miles left and the choices about what to do about it become very narrow. It's already reached a critical "as soon as possible" moment and someone choosing poorly because they thought they could go 5 miles further than they actually could becomes VERY very likely.

Still don't understand whey the 80% charge did not get her home from KZ.

Still sorting that part out. Minimum mileage from 80% would put running out of juice at 120 miles, or someplace around where I-90 and I-94 cross over east of the Skyway. Average conditions (above freezing, no wind, keep it below 70) would make it all the way to the Loop. The first reliable stops I would have expected a route planner to offer would offer are the Meijer in Evergreen Park or the Chicago Ridge Mall station, and those are about 140 miles from Kalamazoo, not 120.

There's three stations under construction in Benton Harbor, so this won't be a problem forever, but for right now...

 

[Steverino]

Looks like the main range reducing factor was the highway speed. After the DC recharge, how many miles displayed on the driver's dash? Was the rest of the trip at 55MPH?

Owners Manual

When To Charge
When the high voltage battery is low, the following charging messages may display on the Driver Information Center (DIC):
CHARGE VEHICLE SOON : The battery needs to be charged soon.
PROPULSION POWER IS REDUCED : The accelerator pedal response is reduced and the remaining range value changes to LOW, charge the vehicle immediately.
OUT OF ENERGY, CHARGE VEHICLE NOW :
The battery charge is fully depleted. The vehicle will slow to a stop. Brake and steering assist will continue operating. Once stopped, turn the vehicle off. See Propulsion Power Messages p 102.

 

[scottf200]

Very sorry to hear of this stressful event.

I wonder if you can simulate this in abetterrouteplanner (ABRP) as I'm pretty sure you can use the Bolt as one of the cars.
You should be able to put in temperatures and other factors to help.
Classic: A Better Routeplanner
Newer: ABRP

Charging curves on Bolts are still brutal.

How Long Does It Take To Charge a 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EV?

We fully deplete the 65 kWh battery of a 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EV and then plug it into a DC fast charger to see just how long it takes to fully charge a Bolt EV.

insideevs.com

Aside: I think currently PlugShare is the most accurate on charging stations but their metrics are not that believable. Even if only 1 of 4 (or whatever) are working and you tried all 4 then you are only supposed to put in the 1 successful one and they count that as a good in their scoring system. Lot of complaints about this. Plugshare is now owned by EVgo ... suspect they want nothing but positives. I follow the charging networks somewhat closely. CCS various charging companies/brands have some maintenance / dependability issues (after initial install push). RateYourCharge on Twitter follows a lot of these issues.

 

[Matt832]

Thanks, I'll pass the route planners on to her.
Using the Classic I plugged in some variables -temp, wind and speed - and it indicated a recharge in KZ & New Buffalo. Interesting that it did not show charging to 80% in KZ only 65% in 31 minutes, then to 53% in New Buffalo in 33 minutes. Wish the My Chevy app did as well at route planning as these two do it would have made a world of difference.

She said it was terrifying thinking her car would stop in the middle of the expressway with vehicles doing 80+mph surrounded by semi's. She said she feels the car will be fine getting around Chicago where she puts on an average of 200-250 miles a month going to various schools. I was glad to hear that, I was worried she would just want to get rid of the vehicle. Her plan was always to rent a car for longer trips, but with proper planning there is no reason the Bolt couldn't work fine for her. Just a matter of getting comfortable. This was just bad timing since she wqs planning a bit of time to get acclimated to the car but had a work emergeny that forced her to return without time to really plan.

 

[Steverino]

I went from Chicago burbs to Iowa for a wedding with a planned recharge along the way. I was a bit worried knowing that charging can sometimes be a hit or miss affair, so I planed a number of alternatives, just in case. But it went smoothly and we recharged the Bolt overnight at a station by the hotel.

 

[Eric99]

My cousin's Ford Flex died and she decided to take advantage of the deals on the Bolt EUV. Ordered one mid Jan. and it came in a week ago. She splits her time between Chicago and Michigan and a SE MI dealer had availability. Came in today to pick it up and found she needed to return to Chicago tomorrow for work. It was 198 mile trip according to Google maps. With the cool/cold weather it should have been doable but tight. Half way there she stopped at a DC Quick charge and topped off to 80%. Got a call a few hours ago she was 80 miles from destination with range of 19 miles. Got to the nearest charging station and both units were out of order. She panicked. Ended up calling On star for a tow to the nearest dealer, but she is stranded. Odometer showed a total of 218 miles driven, 2 when she left the dealership with a full charge.

I have no idea why the battery depleted so quickly. In moderate temps the Bolt is rated 240 miles on a charge. cold weather will drop it but she did the wise thing and charged up 1/2 of the way there. Should have easily made it the rest of the way. Got to say this soured her on a car she was excited to get and did the research on how to deal with charging.

Also could have been driving into a strong headwind. One should always be mindful of ground speed and which way the wind is blowing and how strong. Driving 70 MPH ground speed with a strong headwind could be as much as 90 MPH Wind Speed, which would destroy range. The aerodynamic drag forces are exponentially related to air speed. Recommendations are to drive slower, possible using other slow moving traffic (trucks) to create an aerodynamic air pocket (drafting), and using less heat from HVAC and take advantage of heated set and steering wheel if equipped. Also make sure the tire pressure is correct.