Winter driving?

Thinking about buying a bolt butt would like to know about putting studded tires on it and what winter driving (studded tires. using the heater, etc) would do to the range? I would be driving about 180 miles a day (round trip) for commuting to work over a mtn pass. Haven't found any real information on this issue.

jim9006 said:

Thinking about buying a bolt butt would like to know about putting studded tires on it and what winter driving (studded tires. using the heater, etc) would do to the range? I would be driving about 180 miles a day (round trip) for commuting to work over a mtn pass. Haven't found any real information on this issue.

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As a long time electric car driver, I'd suggest you not get a Bolt or any similar 60kWh electric car, unless you have reliable charging at both home and work.

Mountain driving, snowy roads, wind, cold and winter tires all reduce range. Also, batteries will lose capacity over time.

If your commute was 90 miles and not mountains, no worries. If you had a charging station aka "L2 (240 V 40 Amp)" at both home and for your use only at work, then it would be worth looking closer. Do you have a charging station possibility at work?

Hello WetEv, thanks for the honest reply. Yes I do have 240v at home and I have seen charging stations at work although I dont know what lvl they are. Currently spending $500 a month for gas and would rather put that money to better use. Charging issues aside what life time should I expect for this car / battery? What would be the cost of replacing the battery? can it even be replaced? so many questions.

jim9006 said:

Hello WetEv, thanks for the honest reply. Yes I do have 240v at home and I have seen charging stations at work although I dont know what lvl they are. Currently spending $500 a month for gas and would rather put that money to better use. Charging issues aside what life time should I expect for this car / battery? What would be the cost of replacing the battery? can it even be replaced? so many questions.

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The charging stations at work are available for anyone? The problem you would have with non-dedicated charging at work is as more people buy electric cars then getting a charge station each and every day is going to get harder over time, especially when you need it most, in the winter. At my work, there are charging stations, but company policy is that the charging stations are for occasional use only, except for car pool electric cars, which can charge 4 hours at no cost every day.

1) What lifetime for the battery? Hard to say exactly. Chevy's warranty would be a lower bound, as Chevy will replace the battery if it falls below that. The warranty is 40% loss over 100k miles. A more realistic expectation would be capacity loss of 10% to 20% over the first 100k miles. Tesla battery capacity losses over 100k miles have been in the range of 10%. My Leaf, with a battery 1/3 the size of the Bolt, is down about 10% after 30k miles. After the Bolt has been out a few years, will be easier to say.

2) I've not seen an estimated price for a battery replacement, and wouldn't expect to see one for a couple of years. Unlikely that anyone would get past the warranty miles before then. Leaf battery replacement is about $6k.

3) The battery can be replaced, there is one reported case that I've heard about of a bad battery in a new Bolt replaced under warranty.

There are a lot of questions I do not even have guesses for.

Manual:

https://my.chevrolet.com/content/dam/gmownercenter/gmna/dynamic/manuals/2017/Chevrolet/BOLT%20EV/Owner's%20Manual.pdf

I have not seen winter reviews yet, since not many got delivered in time to play in the snow.

That being said, I am not sure where you are. My Leaf handled ok in the snow, although I only had a few chances to drive in it. The roads get plowed, but not down to pavement, so I wasn't trail breaking. I always prefer FWD over RWD when winter driving, as i did years ago in Oregon. The weight and FWD made the Leaf easy to drive in.
Studded tires would cut range, as stock tires are low rolling resistance, and some say it is also low traction. Winter tires with chain option when required might be better.

The public chargers you see are likely L2, although DCFC may be available to you. If you can charge at home and work, you could make it easily over the pass, with few worries.

Your commute is about 45000 miles per year with 2 mountain passes daily, which would wear out any car in a few years. No one has gotten close to that yet. I think the Active Thermal Management System for the battery increases the lifetime of the Bolt and it's battery . Leaf had a passive cooling system, and many have said it hurt battery lifetime and capacity.

The first Leaf driver to reach 100,000 miles had a similar commute (including a pass) in Oregon. His car was still running, although I don't remember how much capacity he had lost. Because of the 24kw battery, he stopped to charge in the middle of his trip going to and from work. He also charged at work and at home.

Studded tires would cut range, as stock tires are low rolling resistance, and some say it is also low traction. Winter tires with chain option when required might be better.

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I'm fairly sure that tire chains would be worse for energy economy than studded tires. I suggest the OP get a full set of Nokian snow & ice tires. At least some of them are relatively low in rolling resistance, and they have an excellent reputation for Winter traction.

The reason I suggested chain is that, in my experience, only when required, that are needed for a few miles when cresting a pass.

Eastocean said:

The reason I suggested chain is that, in my experience, only when required, that are needed for a few miles when cresting a pass.

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I thought you meant to leave on the car for the worst of the Winter. I have no experience with cresting passes, but if it has to be done often, then chains would seem to be very ungainly and labor-intensive. Maybe the smaller tire cables with grippers?

I was a in a similar situation a few years back. 180 mile daily commute. I crunched the numbers and decided I wanted those 12 hours a week to do other things. So I just made an arrangement with a B&B right next to the office. The costs exactly offset (at 50 cents a mile), and I suddenly had three magical hours a day to go walking, hiking, cycling, etc. I stayed Monday thru Thursday nights. The B&B owner was delighted to have steady business and gave me a discount. I basically had my dedicated room and an excellent breakfast each morning.

Don't know if that's an option you would consider? You can't really do it if you have family or pets at home depending on you. I guess it still doesn't address the drive Monday morning and Friday night, except that now they're one way with a week to recharge (and your B&B will probably give you a plug).

You might want to check out the Bolt stats web site. I don't know if anyone of interest to you will respond, but you may be able to get at least part of your questions answered. I would post your questions in the other Bolt forums too.

https://www.voltstats.net/BoltEV/Stats/Details/9143

I can't speak for the Bolt (yet!) as I won't take delivery of mine until July or August.

But for the last 3 years I've driven a Chevy Volt in Jackson, Wyoming in severe winter conditions. The Volt sees about a 30-40% drop in EV range during cold winter months (ambient temps below 32F and as low as -20 below). I have a set of Blizzak non-studded snow tires and with those tires the Volt is great on snow and ice including over mountain passes. Front wheel drive plus low CG due to battery makes for good handling on slick roads. Only real issue is very low clearance of the Volt... it acts like a snow plow in more than about 4-5 inches of snow! The Volt ICE runs when temps are below about 18F to help heat the cabin and battery, so electric only isn't an option in depths of winter.

I anticipate seeing a 30-40% drop in Bolt electric range in severe cold due to battery conditioning. But I'm OK with that. I haven't driven a Bolt in snow yet, but with good snow tires I would anticipate it will be at least as good as the Volt if not better.

I generally stay away from winter tires (I have no good reasons for it though) but I can add my winter driving experience. Colorado is just now coming out of the snowy months and I have been driving with this Bolt since March. That's been about 2 months of off-and-on-again snow.

It certainly handles quite well in packed snow and icy slush. The extra weight seems to really add to the handling. Wear warm indoor clothes and you can get by on just the seat and steering wheel heaters saving you some range. I noticed about 15-20% drop in range although temps never went below 0 during that period (got close a couple times there).

With Nokian winter tires, some of which have very low rolling resistance, there won't be much, if any drop in range in dry conditions. Michelin X-Ice tires are also excellent rolling resistance.

NeilBlanchard said:

With Nokian winter tires, some of which have very low rolling resistance, there won't be much, if any drop in range in dry conditions. Michelin X-Ice tires are also excellent rolling resistance.

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I've been very pleased with the performance of the Michelin X-Ice tires on my Prius C, but I did experience about a 6% hit to fuel economy compared to the stock summer tires. Some of that may be due to the fact that there were brand new this past December and so were still going through their break-in phase.