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The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

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Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SSDs do this exact same thing. The individual flash cells have much lower durability than the drive itself.

Hard disks do too but the difference is that for disks it's more or less an essential function. If you don't leave plenty of spare sectors over the very inevitable bad sectors will cause the drive to fail outright. Perhaps that's a decision I'd like to make myself but it's still an essential function no matter what. Leaving spare capacity in my battery isn't an essential function. That extra hundred or two miles the…

In practice, although HDD's are meant to be able to deal with bad blocks, and remap them, I have found the opposite to be true.

(I've been working at a low level with disks for over a decade, writing data recovery apps and such)

I have found in practice that by the time a HDD develops a single bad block, 99% of the time it's on a death spiral and it's going to completely die within a month or two.

It seems like none of this bad block remapping, spare space, or anything of the sort has any effect whatsoever. The only thing that keeps them alive is being well enough engineered not to break at all.

Please correct me if my experienced misinformed me and I'm wrong.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#92
post #26
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regen built into pedals feels strange to people not used to it. As does the regen which activates when you lift your foot off the gas. This was not done because they're incompetent, it was done to create a car which is more intuitive to people not used to electric cars.

I've never heard of an efficiency enhancing feature not being automatic. That would be like overdrive defaulting to off, or having to manually enable cylinder deactivation. People would use it more if it was in the pedal's logic.

People who are used to automatic transmissions would think something was wrong with the car, and the dealerships would be swamped with service appointments.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla also includes the tax credit in their price. And at present they don't even have a car. Why are people so bitter that GM is competing? Is this not a good thing?

"Tesla also includes the tax credit in their price." This is false... Tesla advertises their model 3 targeted base price as $35,000. This is before any tax credits.

By the time the model 3 rolls off the line, there may not be any tax credits. We'll have to see what Trump has planned.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'd probably rent a car if I need to drive far enough that I have to use the super charger network.

Its ironic, isn't it. The main reason I want to buy a tesla is due to their advanced autopilot making long distance driving easier. Yet the whole electric thing makes those drives take longer due to recharge time. I wish there was a trailer with a diesel generator you could rent to tow behind your tesla.

You could buy a volt!

:)

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#96
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want a nice car Translation: I can afford a luxury car, Tesla is one of the nicer luxury cars and happens to be electric.

The Model 3 starts at $35k, the Bolt at $37.5k. If you're in the market for the Bolt post-Model 3 launch, then there's not much difference in price - why not go for the classier car?

I live in the outer provinces (New York), whose franchise laws are incompatible with Teslas business model. I also don't feel like driving 150 miles to buy a car from a company that basically doesn't allow 3rd party service.

A friend had one that had problems. Getting it towed to Jersey a few times was not fun. When he got into a fender bender, getting it towed to a certified body shop on Long Island was extra not fun.

Or I can pop into the local Chevy dealer about a half mile away.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#97

One of the Bolt’s best features is a regenerative braking paddle behind the wheel, which simultaneously slows the car and recharges the battery when pulled. So their tech is so crude that there is no regenerative braking built into the standard floor mounted brake pedal? Even my 2006 Prius does regenerative braking based of the brake pedal, with no need for such hacks. Is there any fast recharge system for these? Eg,…

More info: https://electrek.co/2016/09/06/gm-bolt-ev-one-pedal-driving-... tl;dr - no, the paddle is for an additional regen braking mode that regen brakes harder than letting off the gas without using the physical brakes.

It's similar to the "B" position on a Prius shifter, as far as I can tell.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#99
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well dealer distribution is one point. You don't have to go far to find mechanics that can service your Chevy. If you live outside a major city it's a pia to get your tesla serviced. Additionally Chevy allows people to buy parts for their cars and you can service it yourself or at an independent shop.

I have to believe when there are millions of Teslas on the road you'll be able to find Tesla mechanics locally. The danger is the Model 3 flops and you're forever stuck going to the closest Tesla service station.

Doubt it. You can only get a service manual if you live in a right to repair state.

Re: The Chevy Bolt Is the Ugly Car of the Near Future

#100
post #70

Reading between the lines, I think this car is a trick and not meant to sell at all. They get fleet wide mileage credits by producing it, and they are losing money on each car. Electric cars are easy to make, especially if you don't put much effort into it (example: regenerative brake paddle is separate from normal brake paddle). Dealers don't make as much from servicing electric cars. I suspect the fact that it's ug…

The credit is structured to phase out on a per manufacturer basis. GM can't swipe it from Tesla.

https://www.irs.gov/irb/2009-48_IRB/ar09.html#d0e2504

It's also not real clear to me if the regenerative braking paddle does more regenerative braking than pressing the brake peddle (I mean, it tautologically does if you entirely avoid using the friction brakes, but I mean it isn't clear that pressing the paddle operates the capture system at a higher power than depressing the peddle).

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