For those without a garage

- I don't have a garage to park my Bolt in, once it arrives. I have a carport that keeps the weather off, but the car will live in ambient outside temps.
- I find little value in the included L1 portable charge cord. I have a portable charge cord that i will keep in the car that will do both L1 (120 volts) and L2 (240 volts). I was at a loss as to what to do with the included L1 portable charger.
- I read in the manual that they recommend plugging the car in (or driving) when temps are 32 degrees or colder, or 90 degrees or hotter.
- I like to keep the batteries between 20% and 80% charge level.
- I don't drive a lot during the week. most driving is on the weekends, so the car sits idle in the driveway for 4 -6 day stretches.

with all this in mind, i came up with a use for the included L1 charge cord that might be useful for others without a garage. this past weekend I wired up an outdoor rated thermostat switch with a temp range of -30 to 220 degrees F. the portable charger will plug directly into the thermostat switch. i plan to plug the L1 cord into the car, at 8 amps, during Winter and at the height of Summer. This way, anytime the temps dip below 33 degrees, power will be supplied to the car to warm the batteries until the outside temps rise to 37 degrees. If the temps climb above 89 degrees, power will be supplied to the car to cool the batteries until outside temps go back down to 85 degrees. All the temperature values are easily adjusted as needed. I figure at a mere 8 amps, 120 volts, I can keep the charge between 20% and 80% with relative ease. I thought this might work for others without a garage.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnycee/31516670624/in/dateposted-public/

With the car's thermal management system, as long as the pack has plenty of charge the external connection should be unnecessary. Anyone have details from the manual on when it will warm its own battery pack? Power consumption? activation parameters?

I'm on my fourth Winter in Upstate NY with my Leaf parked outside, directly in the path of North and West winds. The Leaf has a 300 watt battery warmer, but it only comes on when the pack's temperature (not the air temp) is in the mid single digits Fahrenheit. I find that between the mass of the pack, warming from driving, and the slight but long warming provided by the L-1 charging I use, the pack heater rarely runs. I think that most Bolt drivers will similarly find that this is only an issue when the car isn't driven or charged for several days, during really Frigid weather...

Finally, I suggest that any EVSE activated by an outlet timer not also be turned off by it - set the timer so the car is still charging when you use it, or charging ends normally. Using a timer to "unplug" an EVSE while connected and charging isn't good practice...

- I like to keep the batteries between 20% and 80% charge level.

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You may find that prudent, but I think it is pointless.
However, if you want to limit the range to less than the engineers designed it for, keep it plugged in on the OEM L1 trickle-EVSE, and set the car to home-on-hilltop mode for a (reported) 87% charge.

Keeping the SOC above 20% is a good idea, especially in Winter, if for no other reason than you might need to go somewhere some distance away, quickly. The 87% Hilltop Mode limit is likely good enough for a top limit.

You could also use the "departure time" delayed charging mode (if that is what it is called on the Bolt). It will immediately start charging to 40% SoC (if needed), then further charging will be delayed based on when you say you want to leave and the amount of time needed for a 'full charge'. If you set 'departure time' to (say) 8 PM, that leaves you plenty of time to go out and unplug the car at any point in the morning, while leaving the vehicle plugged in for battery conditioning off of AC.

{Does anybody know if 'battery conditioning' is more 'aggressive' if plugged in vs. battery powered? By 'more aggressive', I mean will start warming battery pack at a higher tem, and start cooling battery pack at a lower temp, when plugged in.}

Do we even know whether the Bolt's exposed charge level is actually the max for the battery? On the Volt I know they only allow the battery to cycle between certain limits. If it's the same for the Bolt, then it would be pointless to limit charging to 80% because it would already be doing it itself.

Nagorak said:

Do we even know whether the Bolt's exposed charge level is actually the max for the battery? On the Volt I know they only allow the battery to cycle between certain limits. If it's the same for the Bolt, then it would be pointless to limit charging to 80% because it would already be doing it itself.

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The general impression is that GM wasn't extremely conservative with the Bolts' charge limit, because they wanted to beat the Model 3's range spec, and by more than a mile or two. It's probably something like the Leaf's actual SOC, in the mid nineties.