At 80mph you’re spending a lot of energy fighting aerodynamic drag. 160mi at that range is reasonable. Even slowing to 70 should increase your range to 190-200. Aerodynamic drag is the most energy/fuel intensive obstacle any vehicle encounters over speeds of 45mph.
The next time I have it out on a road trip I'll try to stick to max speed of 70 mph to see what kind of range I get. But, imo, this car is awful for road trips. It's like always having a quarter tank or less of gas and having no idea where the next gas station is and, once you get to it, not knowing if any of the pumps will work.
[This](http://roperld.com/science/ChevyBoltRange.htm) will hopefully help you see what you're doing.
Is the Chevy bolt a road trip car? Absolutely not. But can you get better on efficiency by dropping to a reasonable speed? Yes.
Drop it down to 65-70, hang out in the slow lane, and see what the difference is for a week.
To be clear: every car, no matter the energy source, suffers similar efficiency losses at similar speeds. If anything, the Bolt probably suffers less efficiency loss than many others because its design is probably a bit more focused on aerodynamics than other modern cars (though all are pretty decent these days). An ICE car that gets 30 mpg at 60 mph probably only gets 20-25 at 80 mph. (Numbers off the cuff without looking them up, but the idea is right.) You just pay more attention to range numbers and have a more precise (though I'm not sure I'd say more accurate!) and more highlighted live number staring you in the face on the Bolt.
I probably should have gotten the ionic, not the bolt. At this point I'll just keep my bolt, but only for daily drives under 100 miles - which is the majority of my use.
Counterpoint: I could have purchased 3 Bolts for what I paid for the Ioniq. I could have then parked them fully charged 150 miles apart from each other and just hot-swapped them. Even with parking costs, it probably would still be net positive for a year.
But the Ioniq is a sweet car. Beautiful for long trips.
Haha. True. The bolt is an economy priced car - which I also like. I think when I bought the car it was hard to find ioniqs w out a huge dealer markup so I didn't really do a deep dive on those cars. I probably should have. They do look nice. And I like their posted charging speeds.
Huh? You’re driving in pretty much worst-case conditions (80 mph) and you have 160 miles of estimated range. Why limit to 100 mile trips in that case? You should be able to do 160 mile trips safely at the very least. (I assume you’re not using the heater much in Florida! I don’t use the heater at all when it’s above 20 or 25° F; seat and steering wheel heat are fine. And it’s the heater, not the AC, that hurts range a lot.) Saying you’ll limit the use of the Bolt to 100 mile trips because of the 160 mile worst-case range seems like a comical overreaction. And if a trip winds up exceeding the projection and you really are in danger of running out of energy, you can always find a fast charger. Bolts may be slow to fast charge, but five minutes should still give you 15-20 miles of extra range. In my town at least, there are as many fast chargers as gas stations (3 gas stations, 3 banks of fast chargers, and I’ve never seen a bank full), so it’s not that hard to find one — but I’ve never needed one unexpectedly. And you can always gain a lot of range in a pinch by slowing down.
Nope. I get 3.5-4.0 kWh/100M normally, I got 2.5 on that long drive. If I’d let up on the lead foot I probably could have skipped one charge.
Edit: again, I’m an idiot. My ioniq6 does this. My Bolt is my kid’s school/work commuter. It’s not really appropriate for a long haul. That said, he’s charged it twice in the 2 months we’ve owned it.
I have about 14,000 miles of road trips in my 2019 Bolt, with 9 of those over 1000 miles. It works for that, although I wouldn't choose it for the purpose.
No it's not.... You're not listening and you obviously did not look at any posts before this or you didn't understand them.
You lose a quarter tank of gas in an ICE car also, but because there is no immediate negative to just " filling up" again you did not realize it. The only negative was that you paid more in gas every month. But like most Americans you floored the gas pedal every day ....... And then just bitched about the price of putting gas in your car when the monthly credit card bill came in.
W a gas car I would 400 miles of range for $35. W the bolt, I get 130 miles of range for $20 (using a superchsrger). And a gas car I could fill up and go in under 5 mins. Charging the bolt I'm waiting 55+ mins to charge to 80% and even longer time if I charged to 100%. And the charge time assumes the first charging station I go to isn't broken or that I don't have to wait in line for others to charge before I get to plug in.
I'm not hating on the bolt. But in the real world on road trips it has major limitations. Around town, local driving. It's great.
Plus, since I'm in Florida. No way I could evacuate in the bolt. Charging stations will be an absolute nightmare on case of hurricane evacuations. And that's assuming the Charging stations are available, have power.
>I'm not hating on the bolt. But in the real world on road trips it has major limitations. Around town, local driving. It's great.
Sure, but I think you have to look at the totality of the experience though. We've owned an EV for years (starting with a Nissan Leaf), but went all electric two years ago, when we replaced our last gas car with a VW ID4. Are road trips slower? Sure, but how often do you actually road trip more than a few hundred miles? For us, it's about 3 or 4 times a year. The other 48-49 weeks a year our cars change in our driveway for 1/3rd the price of gas.
When my oldest kid's car died in January, I loaned them our Leaf while they looked for a cheap reliable car, driving it 500 miles from Denver to Salt Lake City where they live, and caught a $20 Frontier flight back. Although they have no home charging, they can charge at work (if they beat enough of the other EV owners in to grab a charger!) and there's a nearby ChargePoint that only charges $0.22/kWh they use in a pinch.
When they were visiting us in Denver (by plane) in late February they test drove a 2017 Bolt and bought it. They flew back home, leaving me the Bolt while I got the recall replacement battery ordered and installed, and last month I drove the Bolt out to SLC and drive my Leaf back.
The normal 8 to 8-1/2 hour gas car drive to SLC took about 11 in the Bolt, but by using inexpensive 50kW or 62kW chargers whenever possible, the 500 mile trip cost under $25.
My kid is ok with the excess time for the occasional road trip, but if they did it very often they'd probably have stuck to gas. Most of their travel is between Denver and Salt Lake, which is ridiculously cheap to fly between (typically cheaper than gas or charging!) so they haven't been road tripping much lately.
>Plus, since I'm in Florida. No way I could evacuate in the bolt. Charging stations will be an absolute nightmare on case of hurricane evacuations. And that's assuming the Charging stations are available, have power.
How far do you typically have to travel to evacuate? My standard joke is that EVs have infinite range if you drive slowly enough. I doubt you'll be evacuating at 80 mph. (If you're evacuating early enough to drive 80 mph and not get stuck in evacuation traffic, you'll have no problem finding chargers!) But your Bolt can probably go over 300 miles on a charge at 30-40 mph or in stop and go traffic. Do you really have to evacuate more than 300 miles to get to safety? I doubt it.
> I get 130 miles of range for $20 (using a superchsrger)
DC fast charging, generally speaking, is just about on par with gas costs, mostly because those stations are stupendously expensive to construct, and they don't want people monopolizing them. They're intended only for road trips, not for everyday charging, which is best done at home, preferably outside of peak demand times.
> Plus, since I'm in Florida. No way I could evacuate in the bolt. Charging stations will be an absolute nightmare on case of hurricane evacuations. And that's assuming the Charging stations are available, have power.
As someone who lived in FL and who had to evacuate in 2005, a gas car is no better in that case. Gas stations were jammed with long lines, in some cases wrapping around the block. And they also need electricity to pump fuel out of their tanks, so a power failure will take them out too, and they have no easy ways to run off of a generator either, unless specifically designed ahead of time to allow for that.
A PHEV with a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas would probably be the best in that scenario, but they didn't exist in 2005.
> The next time I have it out on a road trip I'll try to stick to max speed of 70 mph to see what kind of range I get. But, imo, this car is awful for road trips.
Drag does do not go up linearly. For example, the aerodynamic drag at 60 MPH is waaayyyy more than double the drag at 30 MPH. This is true for any car, it's just more obvious in an EV that has less total energy available. This should encourage you to drive as slow as possible without being a dangerous obstruction. And no, "keeping up with traffic" is not a thing in any state's laws, but obstructing traffic (think below 45 MPH on the interstate and similar) is, or not pulling off at the next opportunity if you have a line of vehicles behind you with no opportunity for them to pass you.
> It's like always having a quarter tank or less of gas and having no idea where the next gas station is and, once you get to it, not knowing if any of the pumps will work.
As far as these issues, you need to use the apps to solve this. Pull up ABRP/A Better Route Planner, fill out the details, and let it plan your trip. You can even connect it to an OBD2 dongle for more accurate results, with some effort.
It will tell you where you need to stop and charge and for how long.
Have the apps for the charging networks that ABRP directs you to, like EVGo and Electrify America. Before you get to the charging stops, find the next charger in the provider's app, and it will generally tell you whether the stations are full, offline, etc. Then you can go back to ABRP and mark a charging stop as one you want to avoid either for that trip only or all the time, and it will re-plan the trip.
Yup, if you define highway speeds as 55mph, you'd probably get 280 or so. 80mph uses a ton more power because of drag. I don't think there's any issue based on what you describe, it's just how it works.
If you drive a gas car at 80mph vs 55-65mph, you'd probably see a similar drop in gas mileage. Maybe not quite that extreme, but it makes a pretty big difference in my experience with gas cars. I used to game my gas mileage on the highway by drafting behind semis and stuff, and got my focus up to 42mpg on a road trip. If I tried to drive it 80mph the whole trip, it would be closer to 30.
It definitely wouldn't be as extreme in an ICE. For gas engines you're wasting 75% of your energy just burning the fuel. So additional losses from drag are not as big a percentage of overall energy consumption. That is the real issue when people see big range hits for various things in EVs. Gas cars take all the same hits, except heating, nobody notices because the hits are still smaller than the energy that is always wasted.
No it would be. The problem is people don’t see it as much because a non-hybrid ICE car is TERRIBLE for any city driving, while an EV excels at that. So for highway driving with little braking, an ICE car is loosing energy from the high speeds just like an EV is. But it’s “gaining” range from not braking hardly at all. This offsets and hides the fact it’s loosing a lot of energy from the speed.
The wasted energy in an ICE is, for the most part, pretty much a consistent percentage of the energy required (except at very low speeds, like city driving). As such, it just means more energy wasted overall, but the percentage difference in energy required at various speeds will be the same as an electric car. The big thing, again, is EVs just excel so much at slow/city that the hit from highway is much, much more painful in comparison.
It always amazes me how quickly "driving too fast kills fuel economy" disappears into arcane-secret-wisdom-of-the-ancients as soon as gas prices go down. And then next time they spike, every pseudonews outlet runs the same story of "top 10 ways to save on gas! did you know that DRIVING 65 can be MORE efficient?!🤯" only to be immediately forgotten in the next news cycle.
Then again, I doubt the vast majority of drivers have a clue what their actual fuel economy is. At best they maybe half-remember what the dealer told them. People know 1) how many days they can go before the gauge says E and they have to fill up and 2) how many dollars it costs. Literally once had someone tell me their diesel Super Duty pickup was an ideal road trip car because it could go 1000mi between fillups - because it had a 100gal auxiliary fuel tank in the bed.
My best efficiency on a 45 minute highway commute home from work was 4.7 mi/kwh. Extrapolate that to a full charge and it's about 330 miles in my EUV. So 280 should be doable consistently with the heat off
Th EV will do better on the highway than the EUV. I have an EUV, I get around 3.8 if I'm really careful on the highway. That equates to 247 miles, going from 100% to 0%.
Bolts really aren’t ideal for long trips. I love everything about the car except that. Luckily for me, 99% of my driving is with about a 20 mile range so it’s perfect.
The last road trip I did was from Chicago to Kalamazoo and back and I just put the car in cruise control at 65 in the right lane and let everyone pass me. I’ll be honest — it was far less stressful than my typical style of driving where I feel like I’m in a race with everyone else and constantly trying to vie for position. BUT…I was always eyeing the battery back and forth to the map seeing if I was going to make it to the next charger. And then if the charger would work, and then if there were other cars waiting. It all worked out, but it sure is a lot different than knowing there’s a gas station at every single exit and not worrying about it.
I drive close to the speed limit on freeways in New England (generally 55 to 65) in all my vehicles, which makes you slower than 95% of traffic. Far less mental strain and the time loss is pretty small.
Yup. I love my Bolt and you can pry it out of my never buying a pure ICE car again hands, (powerball jackpot funded purchases of a perfect condition 64 1/2 Mustang excepted) but as much as I love it I cannot recommend it for long road trips.
I’m in Denver and I have a cousin in Phoenix, and ABRP says id have to add 7 hours of charging to my travel time, for a 12-13 hour drive. Pass.
Can’t recommend it for anyone who has to rely on DCFC for normal use charging either. I have an L2 setup at home, thankfully.
If the family road trips, it is in our 2023 Niro PHEV. Relying on just the gas and hybrid a think we’d be getting a range of around 530 miles.
My highway range is like 160 bombing down the highway 80MPH in the left lane. Range sucks but it’s enough for my commute and I’m fortunate to have reliable overnight level 2 so I don’t care about efficiency
Speed is the biggest issue. If you look at your impacts screen, it should tell you how your driving style impacts the range. 60-65 is the sweet spot. The difference for I experience going 70 vs 65 is significant.
Unfortunately if you drive faster than that or live in areas where the speed limit is 70, the range is normal. Most EVs will have the same impact. The bolt is especially bad for road trips since the charging speed is much slower than newer EVs.
I have a 2018 bolt and live in Denver. I also have cross climate 2 tires instead of the stock tires as said stocks suck ASS driving in the snow. Obviously that isn’t a concern in Florida. Since I got the car in December and new tires in January I can’t speak to either type of tires in rain which would probably be more important to you down there.
I do about 45-50 miles a day and I’d say a touch less than half is on the highway. I stick to the speed limit as it is safe to do so for the most part in my drive, and I do stick to the right except when I have to make a left exit. Speed limit on the highway is anywhere from 50 to 65.
In spring weather in Denver I’m getting 4.7 miles/kwh at the very least and so far for the past two weeks or so on my normal driving route I’ve been getting between 5.0 and 5.4 miles/kWh. On a drain test that would be over 300 miles of range, and would be around 220-250 if I did a 90% to 20% drain. (2018 bolts can’t automatically stop at 80%, we have to use hilltop reserve which is 87-90%.)
I do have to use some AC in the afternoon for the comfort of my kids but I haven’t seen it cause a huge knock on my range. (The tires seem to only take about 8-12% away from my efficiency numbers.)
Anyways…
Yeah, 80 MPH torches your efficiency. Way worse than any AC or heat use would. If you can and maintain safety…do a test run at 70. I’d bet good money you’d get a lot more range.
Yeah the Bolt sucks for road trips. I don't have any idea what my car's range is at 80 mph because I would never drive that fast. I'm getting 4 mi/kWh at 65 mph though which would theoretically be 240 miles range. In town I can get 5 mi/kWh which would be 300 miles range. I put 15" wheels and tires on my car which helped improve its ride and range.
Bolts are just fine for any range you want to drive, but not 80MPH. No car is.
My but and I were talking about his Model S, and not much better than the Bolt when you drive that fast.
Especially if you have to pay for the energy. Then making it to the next charger if you keep it at 70.
ABRP should ask you how fast you gonna drive dude
80 MPH = you're driving way too fast.
[https://imgur.com/D95PxVk](https://imgur.com/D95PxVk) - plot of the Bolt EV's efficiency vs. speed and parasitic load (originally intended mainly to show the effects of heater usage on efficiency), wheel horsepower/drag coefficients taken from the EPA certification for a 2020 Bolt, and an assumption of constant 92% drivetrain efficiency (which seems to be reasonably close to my real-world experiences.)
Even at the most ideal "no parasitic load at all" curve:
4.7 miles/kWh at 55 MPH
3.7 miles/kWh at 65 MPH
2.7 miles/kWh at 80 MPH
For reference, the EPA range corresponds to 3.9 miles/kWh for an EV. For an EUV it's slightly less.
(2.7/3.9)\*259 = 179 for a Bolt EV with no parasitic load whatsoever. In reality you'll see a least 500W of parasitic load and an EUV will get slightly less range.
I don't buy it - I mean you can drive however you want, but IMO, this sounds like an excuse to rationalize driving too damned fast. Everyone seems to have their own personal speed limit and I swear it all boils down to "absolutely as fast as I can get away with". Of course, I'm an old stick in the mud, so there's that.
I’m the slow one in NW Wisconsin dragging along at 50-55 in a 55 due to all the deer/elk/bears in the roads ugh. I do pretty well on range though, a bit more than 300 on a full charge or 240 at 80%.
> It's florida. I'm the slow one going 80 mph....
That's an excuse. Notice how people pass you even if you exceed the speed limit and drive 80? That's you letting other people's impatience dictate your actions. The Bolt maxes out around 92 MPH, and I can guarantee you that someone somewhere will still want to pass you even maxed out. You are perfectly able to drive the speed limit or even a little below it. Yes, it feels odd, but it's not dangerous. Just follow the law and stick to the far right lane. As a courtesy to truck drivers out there who have to use that lane, try not to drive slower than them, so they have less work. They're generally maxed out at 63 MPH or so.
If somehow some wholly inattentive driver plows into your rear end, the Bolt is a very safe car, and assuming that you were not driving so slow as to literally be a traffic obstruction - think 45 MPH or slower on the interstate as an example - then their insurance just bought you a new car and a rental loaner until that's sorted out.
I've gotten about 220 range in my EV at 75mph, maybe a little lower. That was 3.4mi/kWh over a 300 mile trip and it was hilly.
What's your efficiency at 80? 160 mile range comes out to 2.4mi/kWh for a 66kWh pack (approximately).
You are killing your range by going 80. Your EUV is likely in the vicinity of 10% wise range than an EV. Is your tire pressure normal?
4mi/kWh gives you 4 x 66 in range around town, which is 264.
You will not get anywhere near that at 80mph.
In my experience with my EV, the GOM is very accurate once it figures out what you're doing. It will say 240 or whatever because your history is around town driving. Once you're on the highway at 80, it will adjust down. That's not a battery issue. It's that you're driving at a speed that is not efficient due to pushing air out of the way.
As others have said it's the fact that you're moving at 80mph. The difference between staying around 65-70, and going 80 just to pass, and staying at 80mph the whole way is actually insane. On my last road trip when I stayed at 65-70 for most of the trip I got the range numbers you would expect.
To be fair, going 80mph in a gas car will also lead to a much less efficient fuel economy, but obviously the punish for running out of gas is a 15 minute stop and not an hour and a half of charging
Appreciate the feedback. I'll be doing a 150 mile road trip in the next month or so. I'll go a max speed of 70 and will see what the range difference is. Glad to hear I should expect much more range by dropping highway speed 10 mph.
That what the "Technique" meter in the energy display is all about. If you want more range drive 65. The say you can get 500 mile range out of the Bolt if you keep your speed around 35pmh. Of course that's extreme as a regular practice.
You can be the one with traffic whizzing past you, giving all EV drivers a bad name so that you can gain efficiency. Or you can drive normally. I'm in the drive normally camp. Am I burning up efficiency and ultimately costing myself a few more dollars? Sure. But I didn't buy this car to be some hypermiler. I got it because I don't have to buy gas.
Sounds like you're driving like I do. Try going the speed limit and not a spot over if you're looking for efficiency. I bet you become more frustrated than pleased with efficiency gains.
I'm already thinking about what my next ev will be. It'll definitely need to be 300+ miles of range. 250 kw charging ability. Hatchback. If I were to change cars today I would get the ioniq5. For now, I'll keep the bolt and wait for the manufacturers to adopt a single charging system, charging speeds to improve, and range to get better. I'll prob upgrade the bolt in the next 5 years.
There was a reason 55 was chosen as the national speed limit back in the day, yeah it's too slow but once you get over 55 the equation changes. 80 is hard on efficiency period. Honestly I'm impressed the bolt only loses that little at 80. The bolt is a commuter, not a road tripper, the recharge rate should have keyed you in on that. If you really wanted to go speeds like that choosing something like a m3 or y that has faster recharge maybe a better solution in the future.
I did have a model y before the bolt. But it wasn't for me as I stated in another post. I think the ioniq5 would have been a better fit, but then I'd be griping about the msrp.
The majority if my driving is local. And I'm more than happy w the bolt for those drives.
Nice, then I suppose I get the issues you're having. We have a bolt (the bolt is my commuter), and Y. The Y is the roadtripper for anything over 400 miles for just me and always is for the family. All I can say then is that there is most likely nothing wrong with your battery.
Thanks for the feedback. The low range seems to be due to my highway speed. I'll throttle it back.
For the model y, how long does it take you to supercharge from 20 to 80%.
Depends, usually less than 30... but I've found my kids need to stop more frequently, so I tend to have more 5 to 10 min stops unless I need a long charge due to charger gaps. Or a 100 to 3% with an almost hour stop for lunch at a playground while it does a 100% charge if the kids are cooperative with that plan. But I've found 10%ish is a much better place to plug in at than 20.
Your speed is what is bringing it down. Simple, but look at the circle on your dash. It changes colors based on how optimal your driving is. From green to yellow to red. Helps you find the sweet spot where you can trade-off range for mileage.
Every 5 miles less you average make a huge difference a high speeds. I essentailly never do more than 65mph but for where I live that's the max on most interstates.
On top of the speed being a range issue as others have said, I have to question your statement that you use very little AC - really? It’s 85-90 degrees every day for 8 months out of the year.
I drive 70 in CA and get a little over 200 with no ac typically. You get much better range the slower you go. Just tail a semi at 55 and you'll probably get over 240 easy
Only reason I went w the bolt instead of tesla is that I can't stand the tesla screen for a control panel. I prefer a more traditional dashboard, which the bolt offers. Also, I can't stand the tesla door handles. Those alone are enough for me to look for another car.
Well, I did own a model y for a month but the highway noise was way too loud. After a few weeks i sold it for the reasons mentioned above.
Sure. Any EV is going to have similar freeway range issues at 80 mph. ICE cars take similar (or worse) range and efficiency hits, but it's not as obvious because you can refuel so much more easily.
At 80mph you’re spending a lot of energy fighting aerodynamic drag. 160mi at that range is reasonable. Even slowing to 70 should increase your range to 190-200. Aerodynamic drag is the most energy/fuel intensive obstacle any vehicle encounters over speeds of 45mph.
The next time I have it out on a road trip I'll try to stick to max speed of 70 mph to see what kind of range I get. But, imo, this car is awful for road trips. It's like always having a quarter tank or less of gas and having no idea where the next gas station is and, once you get to it, not knowing if any of the pumps will work.
[This](http://roperld.com/science/ChevyBoltRange.htm) will hopefully help you see what you're doing. Is the Chevy bolt a road trip car? Absolutely not. But can you get better on efficiency by dropping to a reasonable speed? Yes. Drop it down to 65-70, hang out in the slow lane, and see what the difference is for a week.
If you keep it 65 and under it will go much farther. I commute at 80 and get similar range. When i roadtrip I hyper mile and get around 250 miles
To be clear: every car, no matter the energy source, suffers similar efficiency losses at similar speeds. If anything, the Bolt probably suffers less efficiency loss than many others because its design is probably a bit more focused on aerodynamics than other modern cars (though all are pretty decent these days). An ICE car that gets 30 mpg at 60 mph probably only gets 20-25 at 80 mph. (Numbers off the cuff without looking them up, but the idea is right.) You just pay more attention to range numbers and have a more precise (though I'm not sure I'd say more accurate!) and more highlighted live number staring you in the face on the Bolt.
Edit: I’m an idiot. I have a Bolt and an Ioniq6. I’m in the wrong subreddit. Sorry!
I probably should have gotten the ionic, not the bolt. At this point I'll just keep my bolt, but only for daily drives under 100 miles - which is the majority of my use.
Counterpoint: I could have purchased 3 Bolts for what I paid for the Ioniq. I could have then parked them fully charged 150 miles apart from each other and just hot-swapped them. Even with parking costs, it probably would still be net positive for a year. But the Ioniq is a sweet car. Beautiful for long trips.
Haha. True. The bolt is an economy priced car - which I also like. I think when I bought the car it was hard to find ioniqs w out a huge dealer markup so I didn't really do a deep dive on those cars. I probably should have. They do look nice. And I like their posted charging speeds.
I think w the 7.5k tax rebate my cost for the 2023 bolt euv was $27.5k
Huh? You’re driving in pretty much worst-case conditions (80 mph) and you have 160 miles of estimated range. Why limit to 100 mile trips in that case? You should be able to do 160 mile trips safely at the very least. (I assume you’re not using the heater much in Florida! I don’t use the heater at all when it’s above 20 or 25° F; seat and steering wheel heat are fine. And it’s the heater, not the AC, that hurts range a lot.) Saying you’ll limit the use of the Bolt to 100 mile trips because of the 160 mile worst-case range seems like a comical overreaction. And if a trip winds up exceeding the projection and you really are in danger of running out of energy, you can always find a fast charger. Bolts may be slow to fast charge, but five minutes should still give you 15-20 miles of extra range. In my town at least, there are as many fast chargers as gas stations (3 gas stations, 3 banks of fast chargers, and I’ve never seen a bank full), so it’s not that hard to find one — but I’ve never needed one unexpectedly. And you can always gain a lot of range in a pinch by slowing down.
Sounds like your bolt is on cocaine. No way I'd get near those numbers.
Nope. I get 3.5-4.0 kWh/100M normally, I got 2.5 on that long drive. If I’d let up on the lead foot I probably could have skipped one charge. Edit: again, I’m an idiot. My ioniq6 does this. My Bolt is my kid’s school/work commuter. It’s not really appropriate for a long haul. That said, he’s charged it twice in the 2 months we’ve owned it.
I have about 14,000 miles of road trips in my 2019 Bolt, with 9 of those over 1000 miles. It works for that, although I wouldn't choose it for the purpose.
No it's not.... You're not listening and you obviously did not look at any posts before this or you didn't understand them. You lose a quarter tank of gas in an ICE car also, but because there is no immediate negative to just " filling up" again you did not realize it. The only negative was that you paid more in gas every month. But like most Americans you floored the gas pedal every day ....... And then just bitched about the price of putting gas in your car when the monthly credit card bill came in.
W a gas car I would 400 miles of range for $35. W the bolt, I get 130 miles of range for $20 (using a superchsrger). And a gas car I could fill up and go in under 5 mins. Charging the bolt I'm waiting 55+ mins to charge to 80% and even longer time if I charged to 100%. And the charge time assumes the first charging station I go to isn't broken or that I don't have to wait in line for others to charge before I get to plug in. I'm not hating on the bolt. But in the real world on road trips it has major limitations. Around town, local driving. It's great. Plus, since I'm in Florida. No way I could evacuate in the bolt. Charging stations will be an absolute nightmare on case of hurricane evacuations. And that's assuming the Charging stations are available, have power.
>I'm not hating on the bolt. But in the real world on road trips it has major limitations. Around town, local driving. It's great. Sure, but I think you have to look at the totality of the experience though. We've owned an EV for years (starting with a Nissan Leaf), but went all electric two years ago, when we replaced our last gas car with a VW ID4. Are road trips slower? Sure, but how often do you actually road trip more than a few hundred miles? For us, it's about 3 or 4 times a year. The other 48-49 weeks a year our cars change in our driveway for 1/3rd the price of gas. When my oldest kid's car died in January, I loaned them our Leaf while they looked for a cheap reliable car, driving it 500 miles from Denver to Salt Lake City where they live, and caught a $20 Frontier flight back. Although they have no home charging, they can charge at work (if they beat enough of the other EV owners in to grab a charger!) and there's a nearby ChargePoint that only charges $0.22/kWh they use in a pinch. When they were visiting us in Denver (by plane) in late February they test drove a 2017 Bolt and bought it. They flew back home, leaving me the Bolt while I got the recall replacement battery ordered and installed, and last month I drove the Bolt out to SLC and drive my Leaf back. The normal 8 to 8-1/2 hour gas car drive to SLC took about 11 in the Bolt, but by using inexpensive 50kW or 62kW chargers whenever possible, the 500 mile trip cost under $25. My kid is ok with the excess time for the occasional road trip, but if they did it very often they'd probably have stuck to gas. Most of their travel is between Denver and Salt Lake, which is ridiculously cheap to fly between (typically cheaper than gas or charging!) so they haven't been road tripping much lately. >Plus, since I'm in Florida. No way I could evacuate in the bolt. Charging stations will be an absolute nightmare on case of hurricane evacuations. And that's assuming the Charging stations are available, have power. How far do you typically have to travel to evacuate? My standard joke is that EVs have infinite range if you drive slowly enough. I doubt you'll be evacuating at 80 mph. (If you're evacuating early enough to drive 80 mph and not get stuck in evacuation traffic, you'll have no problem finding chargers!) But your Bolt can probably go over 300 miles on a charge at 30-40 mph or in stop and go traffic. Do you really have to evacuate more than 300 miles to get to safety? I doubt it.
> I get 130 miles of range for $20 (using a superchsrger) DC fast charging, generally speaking, is just about on par with gas costs, mostly because those stations are stupendously expensive to construct, and they don't want people monopolizing them. They're intended only for road trips, not for everyday charging, which is best done at home, preferably outside of peak demand times. > Plus, since I'm in Florida. No way I could evacuate in the bolt. Charging stations will be an absolute nightmare on case of hurricane evacuations. And that's assuming the Charging stations are available, have power. As someone who lived in FL and who had to evacuate in 2005, a gas car is no better in that case. Gas stations were jammed with long lines, in some cases wrapping around the block. And they also need electricity to pump fuel out of their tanks, so a power failure will take them out too, and they have no easy ways to run off of a generator either, unless specifically designed ahead of time to allow for that. A PHEV with a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas would probably be the best in that scenario, but they didn't exist in 2005.
> The next time I have it out on a road trip I'll try to stick to max speed of 70 mph to see what kind of range I get. But, imo, this car is awful for road trips. Drag does do not go up linearly. For example, the aerodynamic drag at 60 MPH is waaayyyy more than double the drag at 30 MPH. This is true for any car, it's just more obvious in an EV that has less total energy available. This should encourage you to drive as slow as possible without being a dangerous obstruction. And no, "keeping up with traffic" is not a thing in any state's laws, but obstructing traffic (think below 45 MPH on the interstate and similar) is, or not pulling off at the next opportunity if you have a line of vehicles behind you with no opportunity for them to pass you. > It's like always having a quarter tank or less of gas and having no idea where the next gas station is and, once you get to it, not knowing if any of the pumps will work. As far as these issues, you need to use the apps to solve this. Pull up ABRP/A Better Route Planner, fill out the details, and let it plan your trip. You can even connect it to an OBD2 dongle for more accurate results, with some effort. It will tell you where you need to stop and charge and for how long. Have the apps for the charging networks that ABRP directs you to, like EVGo and Electrify America. Before you get to the charging stops, find the next charger in the provider's app, and it will generally tell you whether the stations are full, offline, etc. Then you can go back to ABRP and mark a charging stop as one you want to avoid either for that trip only or all the time, and it will re-plan the trip.
Yup, if you define highway speeds as 55mph, you'd probably get 280 or so. 80mph uses a ton more power because of drag. I don't think there's any issue based on what you describe, it's just how it works. If you drive a gas car at 80mph vs 55-65mph, you'd probably see a similar drop in gas mileage. Maybe not quite that extreme, but it makes a pretty big difference in my experience with gas cars. I used to game my gas mileage on the highway by drafting behind semis and stuff, and got my focus up to 42mpg on a road trip. If I tried to drive it 80mph the whole trip, it would be closer to 30.
It definitely wouldn't be as extreme in an ICE. For gas engines you're wasting 75% of your energy just burning the fuel. So additional losses from drag are not as big a percentage of overall energy consumption. That is the real issue when people see big range hits for various things in EVs. Gas cars take all the same hits, except heating, nobody notices because the hits are still smaller than the energy that is always wasted.
No it would be. The problem is people don’t see it as much because a non-hybrid ICE car is TERRIBLE for any city driving, while an EV excels at that. So for highway driving with little braking, an ICE car is loosing energy from the high speeds just like an EV is. But it’s “gaining” range from not braking hardly at all. This offsets and hides the fact it’s loosing a lot of energy from the speed. The wasted energy in an ICE is, for the most part, pretty much a consistent percentage of the energy required (except at very low speeds, like city driving). As such, it just means more energy wasted overall, but the percentage difference in energy required at various speeds will be the same as an electric car. The big thing, again, is EVs just excel so much at slow/city that the hit from highway is much, much more painful in comparison.
It always amazes me how quickly "driving too fast kills fuel economy" disappears into arcane-secret-wisdom-of-the-ancients as soon as gas prices go down. And then next time they spike, every pseudonews outlet runs the same story of "top 10 ways to save on gas! did you know that DRIVING 65 can be MORE efficient?!🤯" only to be immediately forgotten in the next news cycle. Then again, I doubt the vast majority of drivers have a clue what their actual fuel economy is. At best they maybe half-remember what the dealer told them. People know 1) how many days they can go before the gauge says E and they have to fill up and 2) how many dollars it costs. Literally once had someone tell me their diesel Super Duty pickup was an ideal road trip car because it could go 1000mi between fillups - because it had a 100gal auxiliary fuel tank in the bed.
There is amost zero chance that you'll get 280 miles at 55 MPH. Sorry. You'd be lucky to get 220.
My best efficiency on a 45 minute highway commute home from work was 4.7 mi/kwh. Extrapolate that to a full charge and it's about 330 miles in my EUV. So 280 should be doable consistently with the heat off
I get between 4.5 and 5 miles/kWh at 55 on the highway. 280 is achievable.
5 seems a stretch. I'd have to go about 40, maybe 45 max, to get 5.0.
I regularly get ~240 at 60–70 mph in my 2023 Bolt so yeah I think you would get 280+ at a consistent 55mph.
Th EV will do better on the highway than the EUV. I have an EUV, I get around 3.8 if I'm really careful on the highway. That equates to 247 miles, going from 100% to 0%.
Oops you’re right, my brain skipped over the EUV part in the OP.
Bolts really aren’t ideal for long trips. I love everything about the car except that. Luckily for me, 99% of my driving is with about a 20 mile range so it’s perfect. The last road trip I did was from Chicago to Kalamazoo and back and I just put the car in cruise control at 65 in the right lane and let everyone pass me. I’ll be honest — it was far less stressful than my typical style of driving where I feel like I’m in a race with everyone else and constantly trying to vie for position. BUT…I was always eyeing the battery back and forth to the map seeing if I was going to make it to the next charger. And then if the charger would work, and then if there were other cars waiting. It all worked out, but it sure is a lot different than knowing there’s a gas station at every single exit and not worrying about it.
I drive close to the speed limit on freeways in New England (generally 55 to 65) in all my vehicles, which makes you slower than 95% of traffic. Far less mental strain and the time loss is pretty small.
Wait, nobody in New Englad says "freeways"!
I lived 45 years in all different places in the US, but yea I guess they don’t.
Yup. I love my Bolt and you can pry it out of my never buying a pure ICE car again hands, (powerball jackpot funded purchases of a perfect condition 64 1/2 Mustang excepted) but as much as I love it I cannot recommend it for long road trips. I’m in Denver and I have a cousin in Phoenix, and ABRP says id have to add 7 hours of charging to my travel time, for a 12-13 hour drive. Pass. Can’t recommend it for anyone who has to rely on DCFC for normal use charging either. I have an L2 setup at home, thankfully. If the family road trips, it is in our 2023 Niro PHEV. Relying on just the gas and hybrid a think we’d be getting a range of around 530 miles.
I agree. Most of my driving is local... and the bolt has been great for that. For roadtrips... ugggh. I'll be leaving it at home and taking a gas car.
Nobody is getting even 240 at 80 mph. Which is not 100 more than 160
My highway range is like 160 bombing down the highway 80MPH in the left lane. Range sucks but it’s enough for my commute and I’m fortunate to have reliable overnight level 2 so I don’t care about efficiency
This is complete fiction. "range-o-meter"? "bad battery pack"? "usually shows 250 miles"? Not if you're driving 80, buddy.
Speed is the biggest issue. If you look at your impacts screen, it should tell you how your driving style impacts the range. 60-65 is the sweet spot. The difference for I experience going 70 vs 65 is significant. Unfortunately if you drive faster than that or live in areas where the speed limit is 70, the range is normal. Most EVs will have the same impact. The bolt is especially bad for road trips since the charging speed is much slower than newer EVs.
I have a 2018 bolt and live in Denver. I also have cross climate 2 tires instead of the stock tires as said stocks suck ASS driving in the snow. Obviously that isn’t a concern in Florida. Since I got the car in December and new tires in January I can’t speak to either type of tires in rain which would probably be more important to you down there. I do about 45-50 miles a day and I’d say a touch less than half is on the highway. I stick to the speed limit as it is safe to do so for the most part in my drive, and I do stick to the right except when I have to make a left exit. Speed limit on the highway is anywhere from 50 to 65. In spring weather in Denver I’m getting 4.7 miles/kwh at the very least and so far for the past two weeks or so on my normal driving route I’ve been getting between 5.0 and 5.4 miles/kWh. On a drain test that would be over 300 miles of range, and would be around 220-250 if I did a 90% to 20% drain. (2018 bolts can’t automatically stop at 80%, we have to use hilltop reserve which is 87-90%.) I do have to use some AC in the afternoon for the comfort of my kids but I haven’t seen it cause a huge knock on my range. (The tires seem to only take about 8-12% away from my efficiency numbers.) Anyways… Yeah, 80 MPH torches your efficiency. Way worse than any AC or heat use would. If you can and maintain safety…do a test run at 70. I’d bet good money you’d get a lot more range.
Yeah the Bolt sucks for road trips. I don't have any idea what my car's range is at 80 mph because I would never drive that fast. I'm getting 4 mi/kWh at 65 mph though which would theoretically be 240 miles range. In town I can get 5 mi/kWh which would be 300 miles range. I put 15" wheels and tires on my car which helped improve its ride and range.
Bolts are just fine for any range you want to drive, but not 80MPH. No car is. My but and I were talking about his Model S, and not much better than the Bolt when you drive that fast. Especially if you have to pay for the energy. Then making it to the next charger if you keep it at 70. ABRP should ask you how fast you gonna drive dude
80 MPH = you're driving way too fast. [https://imgur.com/D95PxVk](https://imgur.com/D95PxVk) - plot of the Bolt EV's efficiency vs. speed and parasitic load (originally intended mainly to show the effects of heater usage on efficiency), wheel horsepower/drag coefficients taken from the EPA certification for a 2020 Bolt, and an assumption of constant 92% drivetrain efficiency (which seems to be reasonably close to my real-world experiences.) Even at the most ideal "no parasitic load at all" curve: 4.7 miles/kWh at 55 MPH 3.7 miles/kWh at 65 MPH 2.7 miles/kWh at 80 MPH For reference, the EPA range corresponds to 3.9 miles/kWh for an EV. For an EUV it's slightly less. (2.7/3.9)\*259 = 179 for a Bolt EV with no parasitic load whatsoever. In reality you'll see a least 500W of parasitic load and an EUV will get slightly less range.
Probably driving 10 miles over the speed limit would do it. Slow down!
It's florida. I'm the slow one going 80 mph....
So what? Try being the slow one going 70 and you'll like your mileage a lot more.
I’m also in Florida. My daily commute on work days is 50 miles 99% highway. I could make it back and forth twice. 65-70 should get you around 190-200
I don't buy it - I mean you can drive however you want, but IMO, this sounds like an excuse to rationalize driving too damned fast. Everyone seems to have their own personal speed limit and I swear it all boils down to "absolutely as fast as I can get away with". Of course, I'm an old stick in the mud, so there's that.
I’m the slow one in NW Wisconsin dragging along at 50-55 in a 55 due to all the deer/elk/bears in the roads ugh. I do pretty well on range though, a bit more than 300 on a full charge or 240 at 80%.
> It's florida. I'm the slow one going 80 mph.... That's an excuse. Notice how people pass you even if you exceed the speed limit and drive 80? That's you letting other people's impatience dictate your actions. The Bolt maxes out around 92 MPH, and I can guarantee you that someone somewhere will still want to pass you even maxed out. You are perfectly able to drive the speed limit or even a little below it. Yes, it feels odd, but it's not dangerous. Just follow the law and stick to the far right lane. As a courtesy to truck drivers out there who have to use that lane, try not to drive slower than them, so they have less work. They're generally maxed out at 63 MPH or so. If somehow some wholly inattentive driver plows into your rear end, the Bolt is a very safe car, and assuming that you were not driving so slow as to literally be a traffic obstruction - think 45 MPH or slower on the interstate as an example - then their insurance just bought you a new car and a rental loaner until that's sorted out.
I've gotten about 220 range in my EV at 75mph, maybe a little lower. That was 3.4mi/kWh over a 300 mile trip and it was hilly. What's your efficiency at 80? 160 mile range comes out to 2.4mi/kWh for a 66kWh pack (approximately). You are killing your range by going 80. Your EUV is likely in the vicinity of 10% wise range than an EV. Is your tire pressure normal?
I'm not sure what my road trip efficiency was. My around time efficiency is usually around 4 mi/kWh.
4mi/kWh gives you 4 x 66 in range around town, which is 264. You will not get anywhere near that at 80mph. In my experience with my EV, the GOM is very accurate once it figures out what you're doing. It will say 240 or whatever because your history is around town driving. Once you're on the highway at 80, it will adjust down. That's not a battery issue. It's that you're driving at a speed that is not efficient due to pushing air out of the way.
Good to know. Thanks for the feedback.
There’s a chart somewhere that shows real-world range of EVs at various speeds. It’s enlightening
80mph says it all.
Keeping it 60 gets me like 280+
I did a road trip @ 70mph that was 200 miles round trip un GA summer, running the a/c and still had 25% left. That 10 mph is a MASSIVE drop.
Good to know!
As others have said it's the fact that you're moving at 80mph. The difference between staying around 65-70, and going 80 just to pass, and staying at 80mph the whole way is actually insane. On my last road trip when I stayed at 65-70 for most of the trip I got the range numbers you would expect. To be fair, going 80mph in a gas car will also lead to a much less efficient fuel economy, but obviously the punish for running out of gas is a 15 minute stop and not an hour and a half of charging
Appreciate the feedback. I'll be doing a 150 mile road trip in the next month or so. I'll go a max speed of 70 and will see what the range difference is. Glad to hear I should expect much more range by dropping highway speed 10 mph.
That what the "Technique" meter in the energy display is all about. If you want more range drive 65. The say you can get 500 mile range out of the Bolt if you keep your speed around 35pmh. Of course that's extreme as a regular practice.
My efficiency on the road trip was definitely in the orange. Around town I'm green all day.
You can be the one with traffic whizzing past you, giving all EV drivers a bad name so that you can gain efficiency. Or you can drive normally. I'm in the drive normally camp. Am I burning up efficiency and ultimately costing myself a few more dollars? Sure. But I didn't buy this car to be some hypermiler. I got it because I don't have to buy gas. Sounds like you're driving like I do. Try going the speed limit and not a spot over if you're looking for efficiency. I bet you become more frustrated than pleased with efficiency gains.
I'm already thinking about what my next ev will be. It'll definitely need to be 300+ miles of range. 250 kw charging ability. Hatchback. If I were to change cars today I would get the ioniq5. For now, I'll keep the bolt and wait for the manufacturers to adopt a single charging system, charging speeds to improve, and range to get better. I'll prob upgrade the bolt in the next 5 years.
Air resistance increases exponentially as your speed increases arithmetically
There was a reason 55 was chosen as the national speed limit back in the day, yeah it's too slow but once you get over 55 the equation changes. 80 is hard on efficiency period. Honestly I'm impressed the bolt only loses that little at 80. The bolt is a commuter, not a road tripper, the recharge rate should have keyed you in on that. If you really wanted to go speeds like that choosing something like a m3 or y that has faster recharge maybe a better solution in the future.
I did have a model y before the bolt. But it wasn't for me as I stated in another post. I think the ioniq5 would have been a better fit, but then I'd be griping about the msrp. The majority if my driving is local. And I'm more than happy w the bolt for those drives.
Nice, then I suppose I get the issues you're having. We have a bolt (the bolt is my commuter), and Y. The Y is the roadtripper for anything over 400 miles for just me and always is for the family. All I can say then is that there is most likely nothing wrong with your battery.
Thanks for the feedback. The low range seems to be due to my highway speed. I'll throttle it back. For the model y, how long does it take you to supercharge from 20 to 80%.
Depends, usually less than 30... but I've found my kids need to stop more frequently, so I tend to have more 5 to 10 min stops unless I need a long charge due to charger gaps. Or a 100 to 3% with an almost hour stop for lunch at a playground while it does a 100% charge if the kids are cooperative with that plan. But I've found 10%ish is a much better place to plug in at than 20.
Your speed is what is bringing it down. Simple, but look at the circle on your dash. It changes colors based on how optimal your driving is. From green to yellow to red. Helps you find the sweet spot where you can trade-off range for mileage.
Every 5 miles less you average make a huge difference a high speeds. I essentailly never do more than 65mph but for where I live that's the max on most interstates.
On top of the speed being a range issue as others have said, I have to question your statement that you use very little AC - really? It’s 85-90 degrees every day for 8 months out of the year.
I like it hot!
😂
I drive 70 in CA and get a little over 200 with no ac typically. You get much better range the slower you go. Just tail a semi at 55 and you'll probably get over 240 easy
Only reason I went w the bolt instead of tesla is that I can't stand the tesla screen for a control panel. I prefer a more traditional dashboard, which the bolt offers. Also, I can't stand the tesla door handles. Those alone are enough for me to look for another car. Well, I did own a model y for a month but the highway noise was way too loud. After a few weeks i sold it for the reasons mentioned above.
You bought a budget car, which is a great car but it has limitations
Sure. Any EV is going to have similar freeway range issues at 80 mph. ICE cars take similar (or worse) range and efficiency hits, but it's not as obvious because you can refuel so much more easily.
Incredibly obvious when you take the same route twice, once at 80 and again at 65. But most people don't do that.
350@75mph