Chevrolet Bolt & Bolt EUV

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The question is, what will Chevy or the dealers do when the Bolt qualifies for the tax credit in January? Will they raise the price, or will it be an even better deal?

Doesn't matter for me now, I've got an ID4 on order. I think the Bolt is a better overall total value, but my wife hates it, and I wanted faster charging for returning from hiking trips. I wish she had let me get an ioniq 5 (when we could have gotten one), but I'll be happy enough with the ID4. She really had her heart set on the Etron Q4, but it never came, and now that it finally IS coming, its too late. Audi nixed the RWD model, raised prices, dealers are asking 10k above sticker, and its going to loose its tax credit. The tesla model Y would be the far better value at that point. I suspect to get a Q4 you will have to shell out nearly 70k. It was originally suppose to start around 43k.

Personally I think the Bolt would be the perfect "second" EV (or EUV) in a multi EV household. If they would even bump the charging to 100 or 125 kW, it would be on a whole other level of value.

You guys know a lot about the Bolt, what exactly is the limiting factor for DC Charging? It hard to believe its maxing out what could be accomplished.
 
danrjones said:
You guys know a lot about the Bolt, what exactly is the limiting factor for DC Charging?
Heat

Even though the Bolt has liquid cooling, the heat removal capacity (joules/time) is not high. This is easy to see because the pack temperature climbs during DC charging even though the cooling is ramped up. The pack temps do not reach the temps seen in a LEAF, and they of course fall quicker than a LEAF, but the underlying limit stems from the same problem.

IIRC, the Bolt is limited to 150 Amps since people report a max of 54 kW. People who think a higher power rating is a simple matter of conductors or electronics do not understand that these components are sized for the heat removal capacity of the pack.
 
I'm not clear that Bolt's low limit is due to heat. We went over this before at https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=589649#p589649. Many have speculated it's due to GM and/or LG Chem being very conservative.

It's not like the Bolt can charge faster if the battery is colder. In fact, if it's too cold, it's also slow (for a different reason). And, actually unless the Bolt's pack is hot, it can take a very long time before the AC compressor noisily kicks on to chill the battery coolant. One can have (as I did) have DC FC sessions without the AC compressor noisily sounding.

https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=565246&hilit=thermal+management+noise#p565246 has a video of what the thermal management sounds like. If it comes on at all, you'll go from quietly charging to suddenly AC compressor coming on at full. Unfortunately, I never did get Torque Pro to try monitoring various values (e.g. temps, water pump speeds, etc.) before my Bolt was bought back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hyzmS5GM4 has some peeks at Torque Pro to show various temps during his charging. At 10:01 or so, you can hear the AC compressor buzzing from the battery cooling but from inside the car. At 14:37, it looks like the battery coolant pump isn't running. At 18:00, it looks like the pump is running but likely to circulate coolant that's being heated by the 2 kW battery coolant heater since it's cold.

Many of the charging videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJqgqWqKmdkIuBZa7JK5KSw/videos also show Torque Pro values.

Bolt does max out when DC FCing at ~54 to 55 kW. And, it starts ramping down around 50% SoC.
 
No evidence, but I wonder if LG Chem knew that there was a possible issue with the battery quality control, and insisted on the low charge rate in an effort to prevent - or at least forestall - any problems.
 
I just placed an order for a 2023 Bolt EUV for January delivery. With a few options it came to $27,785 + tax. I had been looking at other BEVs but the new tax law put a halt to that. I believe right now the Leaf and the Bolt will qualify for the $7,500 rebate, but the list of other qualified EVs will be out the end of this year.

I was looking for a Leaf 40 but first, hard to get and second, the new tax law made the Bolt a no-brainer. Considering that a Leaf+ lists for close to $40,000, the Bolt is way cheaper.

One big motivating factor for me is used car pricing - I can get $15 - $18,000 for my low mileage (16,000) 2017 S depending if I trade, Carmax or private sale. My SOH is at 89%, so it shows all bars and posts 120 - 130 miles on the GOM.

Nice to have options!
 
joeriv said:
Nice to have options!

Exactly !

I sold my 2013 LEAF model 's' for $9k and bought a 2022 Bolt LT for $27k out of pocket.
Very nice EV for my use case, at a reasonable price.

My wife is the big surprise. She is normally the last one to care about cars beyond their utility or talk about them, but she gushed this week that the Bolt is the first car she has ever driven that makes her understand the 'joy of driving.' One month into our car ownership, and she is planning her first EV driving trip out of state *alone.* Since we own only one car, we'll rent an ICE for a couple of days. She is going to saddle me with the ICE LOL.
 
SageBrush said:
One month into our car ownership, and she is planning her first EV driving trip out of state *alone.* Since we own only one car, we'll rent an ICE for a couple of days. She is going to saddle me with the ICE LOL.

How far is the trip? The Bolt charges pretty slow, 1 hour for every 2-3 hours of driving.
 
Triggerhappy007 said:
SageBrush said:
One month into our car ownership, and she is planning her first EV driving trip out of state *alone.* Since we own only one car, we'll rent an ICE for a couple of days. She is going to saddle me with the ICE LOL.

How far is the trip? The Bolt charges pretty slow, 1 hour for every 2-3 hours of driving.

She calculates (itself a surprising development) a 15 minute stop on the outgoing leg to give herself a safety cushion. 215 miles each way, 2000 feet net elevation climb on the way out. I suggested she use 0.15 kWh per 100 net feet elevation change. She will spend two days at her destination and stay near a charging location with both L2 and L3. This is a lady who spent over 5 years frustrated that she could not understand the difference between kW Vs kWh. The Bolt has been a grand teacher. I gave her advance notice that she will also have to be aware of headwinds. That got me a raised eyebrow but I think she will manage with some practical approximations. She was also happy to calculate some SoC intermediate points as range checks, and we've talked about ways to deal with deviations. The Tesla does this all automagically, while the Bolt benefits from some practical hands-on from the driver. I'm positive that had my wife not acquired these calculation skills, she would never have gained the confidence to take a longer/long-ish trip alone in an EV not named Tesla.

Today she went out for a 100 mile round trip that included about 15 minutes of DC charging (a dry run for the real thing.) Our habit is to plug in the car when it is parked at home for battery pack thermal control reasons. The pack modules were 86F - 88F when she plugged in, and after about 20 minutes of 9.6 kW L2 connection, they were down to 82 - 84F. Ambient is 90F. By that time the car had stopped removing heat from the coolant circuit so it looks like the car actively cools the modules down to 84F. I'll guesstimate that 1.5 kWh were used for active cooling. I would prefer to see below <80F but this is such a leap over the LEAF that I cannot complain too much.
 
SageBrush said:
The pack modules were 86F - 88F when she plugged in, and after about 20 minutes of 9.6 kW L2 connection, they were down to 82 - 84F. Ambient is 90F. By that time the car had stopped removing heat from the coolant circuit so it looks like the car actively cools the modules down to 84F. I'll guesstimate that 1.5 kWh were used for active cooling. I would prefer to see below <80F but this is such a leap over the LEAF that I cannot complain too much.

You don't want to cool below the dew point, as you get condensing humidity. Energy use goes way up, and you get water places where you really don't want water. Water can cause things like this:

https://youtu.be/AWi7AeZaNcI

Sure, rate of Tesla battery fires is slightly lower than the rate of ICE fires. Better would be the LEAF, there is one documented traction battery fire with a LEAF... in a car that was caught in a flood... two weeks later it caught fire. Yawn.


Houston TX hit a dew point of 78F yesterday. Cooling below 80F is a bad idea.

With better chemistries, active cooling is only needed for performance cars. This will be more true with solid state batteries. Wouldn't it be nice if battery fires were really really rare?
 
WetEV said:
SageBrush said:
The pack modules were 86F - 88F when she plugged in, and after about 20 minutes of 9.6 kW L2 connection, they were down to 82 - 84F. Ambient is 90F. By that time the car had stopped removing heat from the coolant circuit so it looks like the car actively cools the modules down to 84F. I'll guesstimate that 1.5 kWh were used for active cooling. I would prefer to see below <80F but this is such a leap over the LEAF that I cannot complain too much.

You don't want to cool below the dew point, as you get condensing humidity.

I had not considered this. Sounds like a very fair point if condensation can happen inside the battery pack. The Bolt does not have a 'heat pump' per se; it uses a condenser and a chiller. I'm not sure of the functional difference, and I don't know if the working gas would keep the interior of the pack at low humidity. Why isn't this a problem in the winter ?

As of this morning (about 16 hours after the readings I posted above), 4 of the 6 modules were at 68 degrees and (the almost always warmer) module with the BMS was 72F. I'm highly skeptical that the pack cooled down this much just from heat conduction of the case with ambient. I hope to get Torque Pro to log coolant pump and coolant temperature through a night. I expect to find that the Bolt periodically through the night runs the battery circuit coolant pump. By the way, the inverter also cooled down very nicely. It is on a separate coolant loop.

My very crude guesstimate based on 84F peak and 72F nadir pack temperature works out to 78F average pack temperature in the summer months.

Sweet.
 
SageBrush said:
WetEV said:
You don't want to cool below the dew point, as you get condensing humidity.

I had not considered this. Sounds like a very fair point if condensation can happen inside the battery pack. The Bolt does not have a 'heat pump' per se; it uses a condenser and a chiller. I'm not sure of the functional difference, and I don't know if the working gas would keep the interior of the pack at low humidity. Why isn't this a problem in the winter ?

The pack is usually warmer than the air temperature in the winter. Also very little humidity in the air at cold temperatures.

Usual active pack temperature control is a water+antifreeze loop through the pack, and a chiller and/or heater outside the pack. Heating the pack in winter allows for charging at higher rates among other benefits.


SageBrush said:
I hope to get Torque Pro to log coolant pump and coolant temperature through a night. I expect to find that the Bolt periodically through the night runs the battery circuit coolant pump. By the way, the inverter also cooled down very nicely. It is on a separate coolant loop.

My very crude guesstimate based on 84F peak and 72F nadir pack temperature works out to 78F average pack temperature in the summer months.

Sweet.

Will be nice to hear your results.

78F average pack temperature isn't that bad. Unless you have a Gen 1 LEAF with the horrid old chemistry, of course.
 
WetEV said:
The pack is usually warmer than the air temperature in the winter.
I presume that is true for some of the hours of each day, but I know for sure from monitoring my Tesla pack that it was colder than ambient every day in the winter after a couple hours of morning sunshine.

Will be nice to hear your results.

78F average pack temperature isn't that bad. Unless you have a Gen 1 LEAF with the horrid old chemistry, of course.
78F average for my ~ two hot summer months a year.
 
SageBrush said:
WetEV said:
The pack is usually warmer than the air temperature in the winter.
I presume that is true for some of the hours of each day, but I know for sure from monitoring my Tesla pack that it was colder than ambient every day in the winter after a couple hours of morning sunshine.

Dew point temperature is usually close to the low temperature of the day.
 
Apologies if I missed this on an earlier post here, but does the Bolt have a consistent charge curve withultiple successive long DC charges?

I was comparing ICE and Leaf runs to Kansas, and wanted to model whether a Bolt would be good enough or not.


https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=32788&start=10
 
SageBrush said:
…bought a 2022 Bolt LT for $27k out of pocket.
Excellent!

Did you get the $2,500 CO resident credit at point of sale?

Not so lucky around here, even without any government incentives. Cheapest, entry level 2022 Bolt 1LT is $36,380 ($9,490 dealer markup).
 
iPlug said:
SageBrush said:
…bought a 2022 Bolt LT for $27k out of pocket.
Excellent!
Did you get the $2,500 CO resident credit at point of sale?

Ahh... no.
We moved out of Colorado a couple of years ago.

That is a crazy mark-up. IIRC, the factory that produces the Bolt was shut down this week after a homicide, so supply is not going to improve any time soon.
 
SageBrush said:
Ahh... no.
We moved out of Colorado a couple of years ago
Just noticed your sig, should have looked there first.

SageBrush said:
That is a crazy mark-up. IIRC, the factory that produces the Bolt was shut down this week after a homicide, so supply is not going to improve any time soon.
Part of this might be a regional demand thing. The price you paid is what they’re going for here used, 2 to 3 years old, with average annual mileage.

Thinking ahead to next year when my oldest son will be able to drive. Was looking at used Bolts and surprised to see how expensive they are, but new prices here explain that.

BEV demand is probably tamer in your neck of the woods.
 
iPlug said:
BEV demand is probably tamer in your neck of the woods.

Nice understatement ;)
This Bolt is the first car I have bought locally in quite a while. If you are inclined, consider shopping out of state.
 
SageBrush said:
Nice understatement ;)
This Bolt is the first car I have bought locally in quite a while. If you are inclined, consider shopping out of state.
Would need the vehicle ~next summer so plan to take a look at out-of-state offers closer to then. Still hoping for used if price is right; looks like might qualify for the new $4k used BEV credit just signed into law that requires dealer sale.
 
Back
Top