Chevy Bolt and EV Trip Planner Estimates Experience To Date

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paulgipe

Well-known member
Chevy Bolt Supporter
Joined
Feb 19, 2017
Messages
228
Location
Bakersfield, California 93305
I've taken our Chevy Bolt, a battery electric vehicle (EV), on three road trips in our three months of ownership.

I'd used EV Trip Planner previously to estimate the amount of energy required for each leg of road trips we'd taken in our 2015 Nissan Leaf. While not foolproof, the web site trip planner was useful for determining how often and where we would need to stop and charge.

So when we leased the Bolt, EV Trip Planner was where turned first to plan our road trips.

Since I'd last used EV Trip Planner, Ben Hannel, the web site's designer, has added two pull downs for the Nissan Leaf: Leaf Alpha and Leaf Beta. There is no pull down for the Chevy Bolt, though there is one for Tesla's Model 3.

I have a query into Ben, a student at Stanford University, but at this time I don't know the difference between the two pull down entries.

For all practical purposes, the Chevy Bolt resembles the Nissan Leaf except that the Bolt uses a much bigger battery and is a few hundred pounds heavier.

However, on a recent trip to Grover Beach from Bakersfield, I found that EV Trip Planner's Leaf Beta entry underestimated consumption by more than 20% on one leg. See Trip Report: Bakersfield to Grover Beach in a Bolt--Mileage Estimates Off.

On an earlier trip to LAX I had thought that Leaf Beta was returning more accurate estimates of consumption than Leaf Alpha. See Trip Report: Bakersfield to LAX in a Bolt.
The experience of being off by more than 20% on one leg of the trip to Grover Beach was unnerving. I always try to maintain at least a 20% reserve for unexpected contingencies, such as a road being closed or a charge station being out-of-service.

RTEmagicC_Chevy-Bolt-and-EV-Trip-Planner-Trip-Mileage.jpg.jpg


Our experience so far is that Leaf Alpha consistently overestimates consumption. Thus we'll arrive at our destination with more charge than expected. This is how we prefer it.

I'll continue to make these comparisons as we explore the range of the Bolt. For now, though, I'll use Leaf Alpha in the pull down menu and temper these estimates with those returned from Leaf Beta.

I also plan to take a series of drives that we've done in the Leaf and compare the Bolt's consumption with that of the Leaf.

As noted in the companion articles, the error in EV Trip Planner's estimates for Leaf Beta on the trip to the coast could have been due to a headwind.
 
I did about 3000 miles of long distance driving last summer in my Bolt EV, and I had no problems predicting range. In planning, I assumed a range of 238 miles, and planned charging stations with a margin of 30-60 miles of range left. Also, I planned a backup charging station at each stop. Two times I used the backups because I found the Chevy dealership chargers charged at only half the rate of EVgo stations, and so not useful for long distance driving. I generally charged to 80% for 30 minutes or 40 minutes depending on range left. I found I was able to do up to 450 miles per day, usually with about 3 charging stops. I did this from ME to OH via NYC and NJ turnpike. It was a great experience, and there was no nail biting on the way, and lots of great experiences at all charging locations. Generally, I started each day with a full charge at a hotel, and drove around 200 miles on the first leg, and so the three charges were during the last 250 miles to the next overnight.
 
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