Sorry to beat dead horse but..recommendations for upping mileage

so, i ordered a chevy bolt for my husband for his birthday, i had given specifications to the dealership, i had even discussed with them how awesome i thought it was that it could charge X amount of miles while he was at work/or traveling and taking a long lunch break with Fast Charge...you think that would mean my car would come with that . but when the car was delivered to my house and after i signed papers and they drove off, we noticed that that car wasn't installed with the DC option in the car!! ugh! The dealership won't take the car back without some crazy restocking fee, etc, so needless to say we are stuck with 240V option only that takes 8-9 hours at night.

so, question is this. my husband has been driving it and now, fully charged it say 175 mile max! we've had it a week. it used to be 241?? How do we get this back up so he can go farther? can we get this back up? we are very new to the electric car world. His last car he had for 15 years so this is all very very new!

Any vehicles efficiency (and range) is affected by many factors. Speed, weather conditions, terrain, fast starts and stops, etc.

If he drives the Bolt like he was trying to maximize mpg in an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle, it is very likely he will see the range on the "guess-o-meter" increase.

The range figure shown on the display is not an absolute, but a prediction based on recent driving. If he is commuting at 85 mph on the freeway, range will be much less.



Good reading here:
http://www.roperld.com/Science/ChevyBoltRange.htm

Too bad about the lack of the DCFC option. I agree that Chevy should have made it standard, and at some point they likely will (the BMW i3 went thru the same sequence - optional DCFC then standard in later model years).

Thank you for that info! that is more helpful than anything i've been able to find anywhere!!

If you had a verbal agreement with the dealership to get a car with DCFC, and they slipped you one without it without first showing you the invoice, you may have a case to have them take it back. Man, dealerships are slimey...

Double check in "energy settings" that you have "Hilltop Reserve" mode set to OFF. Sounds like it may be ON. Hilltop reserve mode limits battery charge to around 175 miles to allow room in battery for regenerative energy to go into the battery. If you are 100% charged at top of hill, it would damage battery if you used regenerative braking.

Sorry dealer gave you false promises. I purchased DCFC on mine even though the closest DCFC is (ironically) about 250 miles from me. I got it because I think resale value may be better with DCFC option. But so far 100% of my charging is at home overnight, so doesn't matter to me how long it takes.

Good luck!

LeftieBiker said:

If you had a verbal agreement with the dealership to get a car with DCFC, and they slipped you one without it without first showing you the invoice, you may have a case to have them take it back. Man, dealerships are slimey...

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Verbal is nearly meaningless (technically not, but nearly impossible to prove).
The dealer will have in hand a signed purchase agreement for a specific car without DCFC. A written contract will hold a lot more weight than anything verbal. And "I didn't read everything before I signed it" won't get you very far....

Tetondoc said:

Hilltop reserve mode limits battery charge to around 175 miles

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Not quite. Hilltop Reserve limits charge to about 88% of full. Your indicated available miles at that charge level will depend on your driving habits and weather.

DucRider said:

Good reading here:
http://www.roperld.com/Science/ChevyBoltRange.htm

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With all due respect Gary, the results on this webpage are all kinds of wrong. Wrong battery capacity, wrong drag coefficient, wrong tire resistance and ultimately wrong predictions. Even his "updated" PDF, that supposedly corrected his webpage, is should be ignored. It predicts the 238-mi EPA range can only be achieved at 40 mph. Since he has incorrect inputs, his results are way off, and no fancy equations can fix that.

P.S. I didn't review his equations in depth, but they look reasonable. Good math, but bad assumptions for the Bolt EV.

Do we know what the Cd of the Bolt EV is? I have heard 0.308.

To answer the OP, you can do aero mods to lower the Cd, and this will extend the range.

Like what, for example?

joe said:

Like what, for example?

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Like driving slower. :mrgreen:

Seriously. 5 mph makes a big difference.

Indeed, 5 mph slower can extend range by ~10%.

It's also helpful to avoid headwinds. A 5 mph "wind" is just a very light breeze and can be hard to perceive. Integrated car range predictions will continue to be a WAG until terrain and real-time weather are also factored into the analysis.

kathytrask said:

so, i ordered a chevy bolt for my husband for his birthday, i had given specifications to the dealership...

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And I thought I was scammed because they left out the Nav in the Bolt EV Premiere that GM President Mary Barra promised at the 2016 roll out at the Las Vegas CES show!

You should jump up and down!!!

Take it to the Sales Manager, then the General Manager of the dealer, then to corporate Chevy and GM!!

This is OUTRAGEOUS!!!!

Does your state have a "lemon law" like California? While not exactly on point, if it does, then it means there are lawyers specialized in these types of cases who will know how to quickly deal with your situation and give you some advice!

Beat them down to the point where they take it back!

I was sold the wrong Toyota 4-Runner in 1997 after 8 hours of test driving and negotiations and paperwork and drove off the lot with them giving me a different one than the one I test drove. After six weeks of back and forth (and driving this wrong one), they finally gave me ALL my money back and I purchased the one I wanted from a different dealer!

It is up to YOU to be tough!

joe said:

Like what, for example?

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Moon disc wheel covers, camback, fold the side mirrors back, etc. I wouldn't want to implement many modifications, especially on a new car, but it is possible to vastly improve aerodynamic efficiency if you vastly modify the rear shape, making it more like a sideways teardrop.

Easiest solution is to drive slower.

Check out http://Ecomodder.comif you're interested.

NeilBlanchard said:

Do we know what the Cd of the Bolt EV is? I have heard 0.308.

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It is 0.308. Originally believed to be 0.32 but that was more of a design specification than what the final number turned out to be.

Also interesting is this:

"Car and Driver magazine then published a detailed review of the Bolt in its October 2016 issue in which a road test showed the car could drive a surprising 190 miles with cruise control set to 75 mph and climate controls set to 72 degrees."

As others have mentioned, speed in relation to efficiency is one of the biggest factors with range. Drive 75, and you're probably not going to get 238 miles.

http://www.hybridcars.com/2017-chevy-bolt-ev-is-less-of-a-drag-than-originally-believed/

oilerlord said:

Drive 75, and you're probably not going to get 238 miles.

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Roger that. The flip side of a high Cd however is that slipstreaming, whether 10' or 150' feet behind a large truck, should have a more noticeable effect on the mileage of high Cd cars than low. Using the ten-bar Energy History indicator (my favorite indicator by far) I've noticed 6 miles/kwh (360 miles range) when following a large truck doing 70 mph at a safe distance of 150' on a level road. Until I understand this phenomenon better, for now I'm attributing this impressive improvement to the Bolt's high Cd.

Incidentally I found a cute way of monitoring instantaneous consumption in miles/kWh: "simply divide" (see below) the mph shown on the speedometer by the kW being consumed, immediately to the right, taken to be positive when yellow and negative when green (regen). So if you're going at 70 mph and there's a yellow 14 kW to its right, your mi/kWh is an amazing 70/14 = 5 mi/kWh, which you're not going to ever see unless there's a large truck not too far ahead of you, or you're going downhill, or you have a strong tailwind. 60 mph while consuming 15 kW corresponds to a more typical 4 mi/kWh. Assuming no headwind or tailwind, one way to estimate road slope is to drive at 64 mph on a level road with no vehicles immediately ahead of you and see whether you're consuming more or less than 16 kW.

"Simply divide" is of course an oxymoron for all but those well versed in the magic of mental arithmetic. A passenger with a calculator at the ready can be very helpful here.

vrpratt said:

oilerlord said:

Drive 75, and you're probably not going to get 238 miles.

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The flip side of a high Cd however is that slipstreaming, whether 10' or 150' feet behind a large truck, should have a more noticeable effect on the mileage of high Cd cars than low. Using the ten-bar Energy History indicator (my favorite indicator by far) I've noticed 6 miles/kwh (360 miles range) when following a large truck doing 70 mph at a safe distance of 150' on a level road. Until I understand this phenomenon better, for now I'm attributing this impressive improvement to the Bolt's high Cd.

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Yeah, I used to hypermile my VW too, and got pretty good at it. Roger that on slipstreaming behind a semi, or really any larger vehicle. It works, and I have no doubt you can push 6 miles/kWH while doing it. I'll bet the new Prius with it's 0.24 Cd would be a hypermiler's dream.

The biggest reason I don't follow trucks anymore is because one kicked up a large rock a few years ago which cost me $250 for a new windshield. I followed a few trucks with my EV just to see how it affected the consumption needle but I suddenly realized it wasn't worth saving (literally) a few pennies per charge by doing it (my base rate is only $0.03 per kWh). While it was fun to push for a personal best range, the savings don't come close recovering the cost of windshield or paint damage.

Exactly--Penny wise , pound foolish.

I've gotten some of my best range estimates in my i-MiEV by running in rush hour traffic. Around here, that means heavy traffic moving about 5 over the speed limit (a welcome break from the usual 15-20 over everyone else runs). With that many cars moving air, they more or less pull you along. I've managed to travel 40 miles on the highway and use just under half a charge (which is a big deal in the i-MiEV, as the same trip running solo uses 3/4 of a charge if not a bit more). Given that half a charge is roughly 7 kWh, that calculates to an impressive 5.7 mi./kWh in a car with a .35 Cd, where normal highway driving is about 3.3 mi./kWh.

Running behind a semi isn't really worth it. Besides damaging the car's paint/windshield, they're too square to cleanly pull air unless you're dangerously close. I find that pickup trucks an SUVs tend to cut the air better and you don't have to be as close to them to benefit.

The biggest range saver is finding a surface street that runs parallel to the highway, such as how route 40 follows alongside I-70.

PV1 said:

Running behind a semi isn't really worth it. Besides damaging the car's paint/windshield, they're too square to cleanly pull air unless you're dangerously close.

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The benefit of following a semi is that you can go slower without unnecessarily impeding traffic. They need to go around the semi anyway, so going around you as well isn't really much of an added obstacle. And they'll mentally blame the semi instead of you for the slow speed.

You don't need to be terribly close to the semi to get that benefit. I've followed semis at decent distances all over the country and haven't had any rock impact issues. Most of my impact incidents have occurred on two-lane undivided roads from debris kicked up by oncoming traffic.