Range, real world use case, etc.

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roundpeg

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 4, 2016
Messages
515
Location
South California
Hi all, new to the forum, and new to real BEVs (though I do own a LEV, not sure that counts!).

Much to my own surprise, I am seriously considering the Bolt to replace my 13-year-old gas burner. My use case is probably a bit different than usual so I was hoping I could run it past some experienced EV owners to get a better feel for whether I am a good candidate for one of these cars.

I do not commute. I work at home. I tend to drive under 5,000/year. With the exception below, most of this is local driving (around town, and under 50 miles round trip). So no issues there.

But when I do need to drive longer distances, the trips are often into the big city, about 65 miles away, minimum. You might see where I am going with this. Round trips not much under the 200 range seem bound to create the dreaded range anxiety. More likely than not, these trips will not be to places where I could stop for long enough to recharge (even assuming I found a charger, another issue).

A related question: on a hot day (running the AC) or at night (lights on), how much range reduction can be expected? Would I be nuts to attempt a 150 round trip in an EV mainly at freeway speeds on a hot day, with a return at night?

We have two cars. The other can be used for cross-country travel. The idea would be to use the EV for pretty much everything else.

What do you think?

Thanks!
 
Welcome to the forum!

It sounds like you would be a good candidate for a Bolt. With your trips into the "big city" (which one?), you would do well to find a place to charge while you are there. But even if you can't, 150 miles round-trip should be doable in the Bolt.

A/C is very efficient in an EV. It is actually heat that kills you. In an ICEV, you have tons of waste heat, so you don't think about it. In an EV, heat + highway can easily cut 30% or more off your range. That could make your 150 mile trip to the city less comfortable.
 
Thanks, and thanks for the answer. The big city in question is Los Angeles, so cold is rarely an issue. Of course in California EVs have access to the HOV lanes without a "carpool" but (as Johnny Carson said years ago), on the freeways in LA, anything going less than 65 MPH is a bridge. Even worse in the HOV lanes you are treated like a obstacle if you're going less that 85. I can easily see a 10-20% range penalty for trying to keep up with the nutty LA drivers. So it seems a Bolt's 200 mile range could be closer to 150 in what I call real-world use.

Chances are, my trips into the city would not come with recharge opportunities, at least not long or convenient ones. But that's another thing I wonder about. I see lots of charging stations mapped in the LA basin but not many in what I would think of as useful locations.
 
You're welcome.

Yes, in LA, heat is the last thing you'll have to worry about. Although last time I visited a friend there, it was 75F outside. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but the locals were all wearing pants and light jackets. It was laughable. I bet many of them turned on the heat in their cars too.

You are correct that speed kills range. In the Leaf, Tony Williams put together an exhaustive range chart at various speeds. The short version is, the car gets its EPA range at about 60MPH. At 65MPH, you get 91% of that. 75MPH = 76%. He didn't go higher than that (at least in the version I have). I suspect the Bolt will see a similar range drop off in terms of percent. In other words, your 10-20% hit at 85MPH is highly optimistic. It will be more like 30-40%.

I know that's not the greatest new to hear, but I'd rather be honest than you be disillusioned. It's a drawback of the upright crossover design. It just isn't made for high speeds.
 
GetOffYourGas said:
I know that's not the greatest new to hear, but I'd rather be honest than you be disillusioned. It's a drawback of the upright crossover design. It just isn't made for high speeds.
The good news is that it's fully under the control of the owner. Want more range? Just go slower. Nobody's forcing you to use the HOV lane...
 
Well I don't tend to drive that fast by choice, or above 70 if I can help it, which often makes me the slowest driver on the freeway. But one of the advantages of owning an EV (or a hybrid) in CA is access to the HOV lanes. It's extremely handy but you can't legally exit and enter these lanes at will and the traffic in them is always being pushed by the speed demons. Everywhere really.

Yep, those nasty laws of thermodynamics! They apply equally to gas-burners but most drivers tend to overlook the efficiency penalty for speed when range isn't an issue. They are paying an extra dollar a gallon but don't even know it.

Funny thing about the weather here. Some people wear mittens and scarves whenever the temperature drops below 65 and some guys put on their shorts every day of the year even when it's in the 40s! True story.
 
roundpeg said:
Well I don't tend to drive that fast by choice, or above 70 if I can help it, which often makes me the slowest driver on the freeway. But one of the advantages of owning an EV (or a hybrid) in CA is access to the HOV lanes. It's extremely handy but you can't legally exit and enter these lanes at will and the traffic in them is always being pushed by the speed demons.
Of course you don't necessarily have to use the HOV lanes the entire distance. If you only use them for, say, 20 miles in each direction then they'll have less of an effect on your overall range. So if you can limit the time you spend doing the 75 or 80 MPH then you may still be able to easily stay within the comfortable range of the Bolt.

One of the things you can do to get a feel for how well it will work is to measure the gas consumption of your existing car for the same trip. Fill it up before you leave the house, do the trip at the speeds you think you'd need to do it in the Bolt, and then fill it up again when you return. Divide the number of number of miles measured on the odometer by the number of gallons it takes for the second fill-up to get the MPG. Then compare the MPG to the EPA rating for your model year of car. Let's say the EPA rating is 25MPG and your measured fuel usage was 20MPG - that means you're using 25% more fuel.

If you use 25% more fuel than the EPA rating of your car, then you can figure (very, very roughly) that you'd get 25% less range in the Bolt, which would mean an EPA rating for the Bolt would work out to something like 150 miles.
 
SeanNelson said:
roundpeg said:
Well I don't tend to drive that fast by choice, or above 70 if I can help it, which often makes me the slowest driver on the freeway. But one of the advantages of owning an EV (or a hybrid) in CA is access to the HOV lanes. It's extremely handy but you can't legally exit and enter these lanes at will and the traffic in them is always being pushed by the speed demons.
Of course you don't necessarily have to use the HOV lanes the entire distance. If you only use them for, say, 20 miles in each direction then they'll have less of an effect on your overall range. So if you can limit the time you spend doing the 75 or 80 MPH then you may still be able to easily stay within the comfortable range of the Bolt.

One of the things you can do to get a feel for how well it will work is to measure the gas consumption of your existing car for the same trip. Fill it up before you leave the house, do the trip at the speeds you think you'd need to do it in the Bolt, and then fill it up again when you return. Divide the number of number of miles measured on the odometer by the number of gallons it takes for the second fill-up to get the MPG. Then compare the MPG to the EPA rating for your model year of car. Let's say the EPA rating is 25MPG and your measured fuel usage was 20MPG - that means you're using 25% more fuel. If you do this several times (to average out inaccuracies due to exactly where the pump shuts off then you fill the tank) then you'll get a pretty good idea of how much the high speeds are affecting your fuel economy.

If you use 25% more fuel than the EPA rating of your car, then you can figure (very, very roughly) that you'd get 25% less range in the Bolt, which would mean an EPA rating for the Bolt would work out to something like 150 miles.
 
If you live in or near Los Angeles, then the Bolt would be perfect for going just about anywhere in Southern California. Palm Springs, San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc...

If you exceed 150 miles, there are plenty of fast chargers along the way that can put 90 miles of range into a Bolt within 30 minutes.
 
SeanNelson said:
Of course you don't necessarily have to use the HOV lanes the entire distance. If you only use them for, say, 20 miles in each direction then they'll have less of an effect on your overall range. So if you can limit the time you spend doing the 75 or 80 MPH then you may still be able to easily stay within the comfortable range of the Bolt.

One of the things you can do to get a feel for how well it will work is to measure the gas consumption of your existing car for the same trip. Fill it up before you leave the house, do the trip at the speeds you think you'd need to do it in the Bolt, and then fill it up again when you return. Divide the number of number of miles measured on the odometer by the number of gallons it takes for the second fill-up to get the MPG. Then compare the MPG to the EPA rating for your model year of car. Let's say the EPA rating is 25MPG and your measured fuel usage was 20MPG - that means you're using 25% more fuel.

If you use 25% more fuel than the EPA rating of your car, then you can figure (very, very roughly) that you'd get 25% less range in the Bolt, which would mean an EPA rating for the Bolt would work out to something like 150 miles.

I get what you are saying but I think that exercise won't work so well, since an EV is much more energy efficient in stop-and-go situations than a gas burner, and my current car is now so old that it hardly gets EPA milage anyway, even if I work at it. It does have a continuous gas mileage readout and I have used that quite a bit over the years, enough to know that the penalty for driving over 55-60 is pretty stiff. About 10% for every ten miles over. I'd expect similar for an EV since the same laws of physics apply.

The limitation with HOV lanes in CA is you can only enter and exit them legally at intervals where the lines break. Kind of a pain, if you're law-abiding. It always seems you get in when you should get out and vice-versa.
 
Geo said:
If you live in or near Los Angeles, then the Bolt would be perfect for going just about anywhere in Southern California. Palm Springs, San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc...

If you exceed 150 miles, there are plenty of fast chargers along the way that can put 90 miles of range into a Bolt within 30 minutes.

I live about halfway between LA and Santa Barbara, so both of them not a big problem (round trip). Palm Springs and San Diego would be on the hairy edge, one way.

But since you raise the fast charger point, that gives me the opportunity to ask about the practicality of planning trips around drop-in recharges. A quick survey of charging stations (in the LA basin) places a lot of them inside parking garages and the like.
 
roundpeg said:
SeanNelson said:
One of the things you can do to get a feel for how well it will work is to measure the gas consumption of your existing car for the same trip.
I get what you are saying but I think that exercise won't work so well, since an EV is much more energy efficient in stop-and-go situations than a gas burner,
If you compare the highway EPA rating of your car to what your readout says (and if you've measured the gas you actually consume to confirm how accurate the readout is) then it should give you at least a starting point to think about in terms of what the Bolt might do on those fast highway stretches.
 
roundpeg said:
I do not commute. I work at home. I tend to drive under 5,000/year. With the exception below, most of this is local driving (around town, and under 50 miles round trip). So no issues there.

But when I do need to drive longer distances, the trips are often into the big city, about 65 miles away, minimum. You might see where I am going with this. Round trips not much under the 200 range seem bound to create the dreaded range anxiety. More likely than not, these trips will not be to places where I could stop for long enough to recharge (even assuming I found a charger, another issue).

Every EV driver seems to go through range anxiety sooner or later. It is not entirely rational, like many fears.

I don't know the actual range of the Bolt. A 150 mile trip seems close enough to the "200 mile" range that I'd be somewhat concerned about suggesting a Bolt.

I personally have never planned to never go below about 20% with the Leaf and the Ford Focus Electric, as I like to keep a reserve for unforeseeable issues. So take the actual range, and reduce by a safety margin of 20%, or whatever you feel comfortable with.

Next, cold, winds, snow, rain and such can reduce range as well. Both directly and because of use of climate controls. I know you don't have some of these kinds of weather, but a strong wind or wet roads seem to be within possibility. Reduce range by a weather margin of 20%. Might be more, usually will be near zero.

Next, battery life. Batteries don't have the same capacity as they age. While the actual battery capacity loss of the Bolt will not be known for years, and I have no idea how long you might own the Bolt and expect to take this trip. But some loss of capacity factor needs to come into play here. Perhaps another 20%.

The above three can be summarized as the "No Worries Range". It is about half of the EPA range.

Last, speed. The faster you drive, the more you use. You might be able to have some control over this... Or not, depending on the road and traffic.

Based on the above, I'd not recommend the Bolt. Unless you can find reliable destination charging... If you can find an L2 near where you will be, and have a few hours to charge, at least on bad weather days, you can improve the above quite a bit. About 20 miles of range added per hour.

You might consider a different EV, one with range only for your in town driving, and leave the trips to the city to the other car.


roundpeg said:
A related question: on a hot day (running the AC) or at night (lights on), how much range reduction can be expected? Would I be nuts to attempt a 150 round trip in an EV mainly at freeway speeds on a hot day, with a return at night?

AC doesn't use all that much power. At 70MPH, the car would be using something like 20kW. The AC and TMS should using well less than 20% of this. Hot air is less dense, so air resistance is less. Lights draw less than 100W, or 0.1kW.

(TMS = Thermal Management System, to keep the battery cool for improved battery life)
 
Thanks for all the answers!

Of course the actual range of a Bolt is TBD, both by the EPA, and drivers once they get out on the roads.

Where I live, all out-of-town driving is a 20-mile round trip, minimum. More like 30-40, on average. So with the suggested rules of thumb, it seems the currently available EVs with rated ranges of <85 miles aren't going to be very suitable even for my local driving. This is what has kept me away from seriously considering the current products (Golf, Focus, Leaf, etc). The Bolt may not be suitable for driving into LA unless I know I can find a charging station at my destination.

How practical is it to find fast chargers at non-destination locations?
 
roundpeg said:
Where I live, all out-of-town driving is a 20-mile round trip, minimum. More like 30-40, on average. So with the suggested rules of thumb, it seems the currently available EVs with rated ranges of <85 miles aren't going to be very suitable even for my local driving.

2016 Nissan Leaf SL/SV has a 30kWh battery, and 107 miles EPA range. There are others that are rumored soon.


roundpeg said:
How practical is it to find fast chargers at non-destination locations?

Varies a lot. LA should be fairly good. Start with http://www.plugshare.com

Plugshare also has apps for Android and iPhone.
 
roundpeg said:
How practical is it to find fast chargers at non-destination locations?
I've started looking at PlugShare and driving by potential charging locations to get a feel for where they are and whether they are often busy. The plan is to ease some of that public charging anxiety by the time I can get my Bolt.

But my biggest gripe is still the hoops you have to jump through to sign up and become a member of a multitude of charging networks to be sure that you'll be able to charge when you need to. IMHO all chargers should work with no more than a simple swipe of your credit card. Imagine a gas station trying to compete in the marketplace if they only accepted their own particular brand of credit card.
 
I'm old enough to remember gas station credit cards! Going back to that would be revisiting the energy past while trying to move onto the energy future.

Perusing PlugShare is what gets me concerned about recharging anywhere outside of my own garage, for the reasons you mention, and also due to the inconvenient and often not entirely public locations of many of these chargers (inside the parking garage of an apartment complex, how does that work?). And it's all well and good to have a charging station at a shopping mall, provided your destination is the shopping mall. And what happens if you get to the charger and the spots are all full? Up a creek without a proverbial paddle, it seems.

Not trying to talk myself out of the Bolt but I am hoping to better understand the constraints of EV ownership and use. The best case it seems could be as a daily commuter, provided the commute is under 150 miles.
 
roundpeg said:
The best case it seems could be as a daily commuter, provided the commute is under 150 miles.
Well, yeah. The Bolt is a city car. If most of your traveling is long distance then not even a Tesla with their superfast charging network is really up to snuff yet. It's going to take 400-mile battery packs that can be charged in about 30 minutes before long distance travel in an EV will rival the convenience of gas cars.

It'll get there, but it's still early days yet. Right now I think the Bolt is terrific for local trips and long distance trips are "feasible". You can do them, but only if you're willing to put up with the charging issues.
 
SeanNelson said:
Well, yeah. The Bolt is a city car. If most of your traveling is long distance then not even a Tesla with their superfast charging network is really up to snuff yet. It's going to take 400-mile battery packs that can be charged in about 30 minutes before long distance travel in an EV will rival the convenience of gas cars.

It'll get there, but it's still early days yet. Right now I think the Bolt is terrific for local trips and long distance trips are "feasible". You can do them, but only if you're willing to put up with the charging issues.

I wouldn't dream of taking any EV on a true cross-county trip (the Tesla fast charger network feels like a stunt to me). Still I am not entirely convinced that a 200-mile range is useful only for commuting, although that does seem like its most obvious best use case. I could still see it meeting a pretty substantial percentage of my needs. Just trying to get a better handle on the outer limits of its utility.

Does anyone know if Chevy will provide chargers at dealerships? Seems like an obvious thing to do.
 
roundpeg said:
Still I am not entirely convinced that a 200-mile range is useful only for commuting, although that does seem like its most obvious best use case. I could still see it meeting a pretty substantial percentage of my needs. Just trying to get a better handle on the outer limits of its utility.

One way you might get a better feel for how an EV trip to LA would work would be to mock one up, using a trip model or just making a stop like you needed a charge.

Use https://evtripplanner.com/index.php

Tesla 70 is as good of guess as any, at this point. I suspect that the Bolt probably has better range. You could export a CSV and mock up a better guess as to range in a spread sheet, if you wanted to...

I picked LA center as a destination, and due East found a place that was 75 miles one way, then made it a round trip by adding another point. This would likely be a reasonable trip almost all the time. EVTripPlanner rated this trip as "yellow" with a speed multiplier of 1.25 (driving 80+ MPH), as is getting close to the range of the Tesla 70.

Suppose the wind is blowing hard. Then you might have a faster drain than usual on the way home, and would like or need to add a stop.

I then added a charging stop to the trip plan at the EVGO at "Ontario Mills - Neiman Marcus" on the way out of town. Might want to stop before that. But your passenger can use the Plugshare app to see if the chargers are available before you get there. Car's nav system might be able do this as well. Likely would only need a short stop, EVTripPlanner suggests 40 minutes for the Tesla 70, but that is charging at L2 (8kW for the Tesla). DCQC is at 44kW.

Three stations there, but one the Bolt can't use, the Chademo only DCQC. Yes, you probably need a deck of membership cards for likely networks, but isn't too hard. And calling and giving a credit card over the phone is possible as well.

Next time you go to LA, find a charging station half way home, park near by and go have a cup of coffee... or whatever is local and open at the time you are there. See if a 10 or 20 minute stop at a L3 DCQC would be a pain, or not an issue.

roundpeg said:
Does anyone know if Chevy will provide chargers at dealerships? Seems like an obvious thing to do.

I'm mostly not thrilled by dealership provided charging stations. Often business hours only, sometimes very nice, sometimes "our make only" sometimes "if you bought it here only", sometimes just nasty. I'd rather see at destinations, at restaurants and other reasonable stopping points like malls...
 
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