In early November 2017 we leased a Chevy Bolt LT from the local dealer. We also arranged for friends to lease a similar vehicle with the same deal. We specified that our Bolt needed DC Fast Charging, heated front seats and steering wheel, and the blind-spot warning system. We drove the car for nearly 30,000 miles when we returned it to GM in early October 2020 when we picked up a new Bolt LT. Again, our friends bought themselves a new Bolt at the same time. The Bolt has served us well and there wasn't anything else on the market like the Bolt for what we paid.
One of the concerns about battery electric vehicles is the amount of degradation the battery suffers during normal use. We drove a Chevy Bolt for three years, clocking nearly 30,000 miles on the...[more]
We drive electric and have for several years now. We encourage our friends to do so as well. However, some have balked, arguing that electric vehicles are too expensive. The question is, are they...[more]
After two months of driving a 2020 Chevy Bolt for some 2,000 miles we've found that the traction battery of our car has a capacity of 64 kWh, not the 66 kWh advertised. More interestingly, the 2020...[more]
I am looking for drivers of 2020 Bolts who have kept records of consumption and State-of-Charge.[more]
GM's official Bolt EV videos lists 21 separate videos on the Bolt, its features, and how to use it. The most recent is October 2020 titled Chevrolet EV Power Panel on charging, charging networks,...[more]
Oy vey! I just concluded a three month search for what I consider a reasonably priced Chevy Bolt EV. What an experience.[more]
What you need to know to lease a Bolt with year-end sales promotions. This presentation was made for friends in Bakersfield considering an EV.[more]
Since 2008 new cars in the US include a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). The monitoring system includes a sensor in each wheel that sends a wireless signal to the car's computer. The computer...[more]
That sounds simple enough but 15 of those miles were on an "improved" dirt road. This is a bone rattling trip over a rutted and washed out road that gave both the Bolt and its passengers a good...[more]
Unfortunately, fires and smoke scuppered our most recent plans. So instead we headed east to Breckenridge Mountain where Forest Service web cams indicated the smoke wasn't quite so thick.[more]
The drive to Horseshoe Meadows is a trip we long for every summer. The drive up Hwy 395 on the East Side of the Sierra Nevada is one of the best road trips you can make in North America. The scenery...[more]
It's an EV driver's nightmare. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere with an Electrify America charging station that wouldn't charge our car.[more]
As part of our weekly Covid-19 get-a-ways, we headed into the Sierra Nevada above Porterville toward scenic Dome Rock.[more]
We've been taking weekly day trips from sheltering in place during the Covid-19 pandemic. On 17 July we took our most ambitious route yet in the Bolt EV. We made a 220-mile loop through the Kern...[more]
And, unlike the earlier adventure, (see Chevy Bolt 225 Mile Roundtrip with 21 Percent Charge Remaining), this trip required us to leave the paved road. The Jackass Peak trailhead was some nine miles...[more]
There are two situations where it's wise to charge your EV only to 80% State-of-Charge (SOC). The first situation is to prolong battery life. The second is as a courtesy to other drivers.[more]
We're a one-car family and our vehicle is a Chevy Bolt EV. So when friends decided to go backpacking in the Golden Trout Wilderness during the Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing required that we...[more]
With spring wildflowers beckoning and little chance of breaking social distancing orders, we headed to a remote site between Bakersfield and the coast famous for its spectacular blooms.[more]
With bright sunshine, spring in the air, and a bit of cabin fever, we headed west out of Bakersfield to a remote site on the Carrizo Plains National Monument hunting wild flowers. Social distancing...[more]
Short PowerPoint on leasing a Chevy Bolt EV.
Below are some links I created for a group here in Bakersfield that's interested in leasing a Chevy Bolt EV.[more]
The following are short answers to a list of questions raised by a group here in Bakersfield for a Zoom video conference call.[more]
And why not? The San Andreas Fault is one of California's defining features and it was on the way, so why not drive a winding portion of it in our sporty Chevy Bolt EV.[more]
Yes, heated seats in an Electric Vehicle are a must. And a heated steering wheel too, if you can get it. This is particularly true for limited-range EVs like the early Nissan Leaf, but it remains a...[more]
We've been driving electric for five years and we've seen tremendous improvement in both the cars and the charging network in that time. This trip was proof of that. Everything worked as expected....[more]
Here in California it costs costs a little less than $0.06 per mile for us to charge our Bolt EV at home. Elsewhere in North America it may cost half that to charge at home. The cost to drive on...[more]
As part of its penance for the diesel-gate pollution scandal, Volkswagen is building a continent-wide network of DC fast charging stations for electric vehicles under the brand of Electrify America. [more]
I was talking to a Chevy Bolt newby and in the course of the conversation I found that they knew another Bolt driver who charged off-peak using a cheap 120-volt timer you can get at any big box store...[more]
We are approaching the two-year anniversary of leasing a 2017 Chevy Bolt EV. This is a good time to take stock of any degradation in the Bolt's traction battery capacity and how that compares with a...[more]
Experienced EV drivers always have a Plan B for charging on the road, and for good reason. Charging network reliability, especially for non-Tesla EVs, can be spotty at best even in "green"...[more]
I am a slow learner, but I've come around to Sean Nelson's view that Android Auto is an indispensable tool for the Chevy Bolt EV. Nelson drives a Bolt in Canada's British Columbia province. And he...[more]
My wife Nancy's friend Virginia was visiting. Virginia has a relative she hadn't seen in many years on California's central coast in Arroyo Grande. We have a friend in adjoining Grover Beach. The two...[more]
I haven't had trouble using Android Auto, but others have. Here are some simple instructions that seem to work for me.[more]
There are four route planners I've used for planning trips in our Chevy Bolt. I've reported on my experience with EV Trip Planner, Green Race, and Chevy's own Energy Assist App. The first two are...[more]
I previously reported on my experience using three different EV trip planners. See Energy Consumption Estimators, Trip Planners, and the Chevy Bolt EV. Since then I've been experimenting with A...[more]
We recently completed a round trip from Bakersfield to Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park in our Chevy Bolt. We've done this trip many times in a gasoline-powered car, but this was the first...[more]
We've now made the trip a few times in both the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt. As with our trips to Kernville, actual consumption has varied for each trip and has varied with the results of four...[more]
We've now done the trip several times and we can look at the variability in consumption relative to estimates by EV Trip Planner, Chevy's Energy Assist app, and A Better RoutePlanner (ABRP). [more]
Our family car--our only car--is a Chevy Bolt. When we want to drive somewhere, we drive the Bolt. The Bolt is a battery-electric vehicle (EV). It runs on electricity. You can't just pull up to a gas...[more]
Everyone who has a cell phone knows that batteries don't last forever. For drivers of electric vehicles (EVs), or those considering one, the first question that comes to mind is, "How long will the...[more]
Our 2017 Chevy Bolt EV is about 18 months old. The windshield wipers were beginning to streak so I decided to replace the wipers. Despite that the replacement wipers for the windshield were not...[more]
As Tony Williams says, "plan the drive and drive the plan."[more]
Since we and friends each leased a Chevy Bolt in November 2017, we've watched prices rise and stay high. Several of our friends and acquaintances have considered a Bolt, GM's first mass-produced,...[more]
While a friend was visiting from Canada, we took her on a road trip from Bakersfield, California to the coast via Mount Pinos in the San Emigdio Range. This is an easy trip in a gasoline-powered car....[more]
We leased a Chevy Bolt EV in early November 2017. I've been driving the electric vehicle daily since then. We've also taken it on several round-trip excursions of 300 to 600 miles. I know enough...[more]
In mid August we took our annual vacation to Toulumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park. We drove the family car. Nothing special about that per se, we've been doing it for years. What was different...[more]
Ok, it wasn't four-wheeling, but it was off-road. Today I took the Bolt off road with the Kern Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. The objective was watering a group of Bakersfield Cactus...[more]
EV nerds, rejoice. You can see some of the communications between various parts of Chevy's Bolt EV and its central computer--the brain that runs the car.[more]
Since I've been driving electric I've been itching to drive across the Sierra Nevada to Independence, California from our home in Bakersfield. We love the "East Side" and it's our escape from the...[more]
After receiving a question about how to find some basic information on the Bolt, I thought maybe I should post a little introduction to the dash displays--there are two: the driver's display and the...[more]
We again put our Chevy Bolt through its paces with a 540-mile round trip from Bakersfield to Santa Cruz to visit friends.[more]
In short, it worked as advertised. For us this opens up trips to hotels and motels throughout California that were once restricted to Teslas only.[more]
In a conversation with the campground host about our electric vehicle he mentioned that there was a "charger" at the new Forest Service District Office in Kernville.[more]
We leased a Chevy Bolt EV (electric vehicle) in November 2017. Since then we've taken the car on several road trips of varying distances. Based on these trips, I've tested the accuracy of three...[more]
My friend Gordon Nipp drove to Fresno from Bakersfield in his Bolt. [more]
For my wife's birthday, I offered Nancy an all-expenses paid trip to Ridgecrest, California, including dinner at a French restaurant. Such a deal, I know. How could she refuse?[more]
I've been chomping at the bit to test our 2017 Chevy Bolt's range and we did so on a 186-mile jaunt to the mountains between Bakersfield and Los Angeles.[more]
While discussing a recent road trip with a Canadian colleague, the question arose of how much we were paying to charge on the road.[more]
Mike Brigham, a Bolt driver in Toronto, Ontario reports on the importance of knowing how to use Chevy's App to remotely unlock the vehicle.[more]
We made another run to the coast from Bakersfield in our 2017 Chevy Bolt. This was a business trip. I had a half-day lecture to give at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo. So there was no dawdling to take...[more]
A few weeks ago I had U-haul install a 1.25-inch hitch receiver on our 2017 Chevy Bolt EV to mount a bike rack.[more]
17 March a small group caravanned from Bakersfield to the Desert Tortoise Preserve's new parcel adjacent to the Springbok solar power plant near Cantil, California. The plant is located just north of...[more]
12 March I drove our Chevy Bolt to the ChargePoint station at the Palmdale Water District (PWD). I had an interview with the executives there, and, conveniently for me, they had recently installed a...[more]
I've taken our Chevy Bolt, a battery electric vehicle (EV), on three road trips in our three months of ownership.[more]
On 12 February 2018 we drove our Chevy Bolt to Grover Beach from Bakersfield, California, a distance of nearly 150 miles. I'd been anticipating this drive for several months. It was a first for us to...[more]
In my first extended trip in our 2017 Chevy Bolt EV, I drove down to the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) Marriott for a conference, a one-way distance of 120 miles. Unlike my previous experience driving to...[more]
Motoring along at night returning from a meeting and suddenly I hear a thump, thump, thump. Geesh. We only had the car two months and now a flat tire.[more]
We returned home after a two-week Christmas holiday. We found the Bolt where we left it. Always a good sign here in Bakersfield where cars disappear from the owners' drive way on a regular basis. [more]
On 9 November 2017 we leased a Chevy Bolt EV for about the cost of a cell-phone plan. We chose the base model, the LT, with fast-charge option, heated front seats, and heated steering wheel. In our...[more]
My colleague and early Canadian EV adopter Mike Brigham reported 30 November that he spent an unplanned night in North Bay, Ontario when a DCFC station wouldn't charge his Chevy Bolt EV.[more]
We leased a 2015 Nissan Leaf in late 2014. This was our first electric vehicle (EV). We liked the car, but we returned it to Nissan when the lease expired. We've now leased a Chevy Bolt. Why we did...[more]