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Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

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Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#171

Post by mtgx »

MrRadar wrote: post #77
Pxtl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling their new full-electric the Bolt after they already had the Volt was the dumbest product naming marketing fowlup since the Wii-U.

It's even worse in Europe. There the Volt is called the Ampera and the Bolt is called the Ampera-E... even though it's a completely unrelated design.

Wow...at least they sold Ampera-E to Renault. Hopefully Renault won't make the same mistake, considering they din't name their ZOE "Clio-E" (which of course would've been pretty dumb).

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#172

Post by usaphp »

bzbarsky wrote: post #161
usaphp wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To get to $7500 in tax you have to have about $47k of taxable income, and hence about $57k of gross income The OP said “most people don’t pay $7500...” which is not true since I said you have to have “at least 40K+ salary in order to afford that $35k+ car. I did not say you have to have 40k salary to pay 7500$+ in taxes

I admit I don't quite understand. What you wrote was "are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes". My point was that you don't "owe that much in federal taxes" unless your salary is at least $57k. I have no opinion on what the actual incomes are of people who buy $35k cars, because I don't have any data to that effect. I'd really _hope_ they all make more than $57k/year gross, but given the wei…

You are right, I did not phrase my opinion correctly.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#173

Post by jmiserez »

mikeash wrote: post #96
redler wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I read, perhaps here, that Tesla over-provisions its batteries and uses software to optimize the battery "working set" to minimize perceptible range degradation.

I don't believe they hide degradation. They do use less than the full capacity of the batteries in order to minimize degradation, though. Lithium batteries hate extremes, so if you map the official "0-100%" range to an actual range of, say, 10-90%, that will greatly prolong the life of the battery.

Even without doing that, 0% on lithium ion batteries is not actually 0%. Because once you deep discharge it you can’t recharge it again safely.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#174

Post by Neil44 »

klipt wrote: post #68
arkades wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because that’s how regenerative braking works. This was discussed at length in the linked article.

That sounds dangerous. By comparison the Prius uses regenerative braking when you hit the brake, but if that isn't enough it will switch to normal (friction) braking. Having something that switches from braking to no brake without warning seems like ... terrible design.

The Prius also has a one pedal B mode though which sounds similar to the L mode in this Bolt.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#175

Post by kqr2 »

cobookman wrote: post #144
brightball wrote: post #12

You can get a 1 year old Volt for about 15-17k. Best deal out there IMO.

you can buy a new volt and sell it for a profit. Managed to secure a new base 2017 volt for 21k 0 down 0% interest after all rebates & dealer intensives.

Can you provide details?

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#176

Post by hwillis »

bogomipz wrote: post #149
hwillis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well right now most Teslas go to salvage by a third party and some go to Tesla recycling. I assume some number just go to normal scrapyards. It's profitable to recycle the batteries so it isn't really a problem, and isn't likely to be a problem, and there are existing paths to recycle vehicles at EOL. For instance 90% of lead-acid batteries are recycled[1]. Again though batteries are most useful simply as salvage, an…

Interesting, thanks for the detailed response and the links. I guess I imagined recycling lithium-ion was somehow problematic compared to lead-acid batteries. There's actually company called Toxco that has been specializing in recycling lithium-ion batteries for the last 25 years. They recently received from funding from the DOE to develop infrastructure for recycling EV vehicle batteries: https://www.technologyrevie…

Fun fact about li ion batteries: The lithium content of an 18650 cell is just under 2% by mass. The lithium content of (evaporated) brine is higher than that! Even the lithium content of rocky lithium ore (spodumene) is around 1.35%. Right now extracting lithium from batteries is more difficult than mining it in the first place! It's just way too easy to extract, so lithium accounts for less than 1% of the price (haven't checked that lately, but it's been true even through large price surges). Hell, the total material inputs for an li-ion battery are something like $20/kWh including electricity and fuel. The price almost totally comes down to the scale and efficiency of manufacturing.

Hopefully this changes but right now the lithium containing fraction of recycled cells is just used as filler material- concrete aggregate etc. Gravel, basically. Crazy.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#177

Post by strin »

I own a chevy volt and it never felt as good as it should be. Initially it has a burning smell on gas mode. I took it to the dealership for maintenance and they said GM's official solution is to install a "carbon filter" to the venting. It has an integration with Apple CarPlay that works most of the time but has some small glitches.

It all felt like... Nokia - you know the times when you buy those smartphones expecting them to be really intelligent but they turn out to be awefully hard to use... until iPhone came along.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#178

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bzbarsky wrote: post #159
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What table are you using?

https://taxfoundation.org/2017-tax-brackets table 2. To get to $7500 in tax you need to have (7500-1865)/.15 + 18650 = ~$56,000 of taxable income. For married filing jointly, standard deduction (same page, table 4) is $12,700. Two personal exemptions (same page, same table) is $8,100. So the total is about $76,800.

Ok, I was using a simple tax calculator, I thought it already accounted for standard and personal deductions, but I guess not.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#179

Post by pfranz »

samcheng wrote: post #10
mach5 wrote: post #7

we own one, can agree that its great! it's my wife's daily driver, and with my own trips in it, i can't even imagine getting another ICE when the time comes to get a new car for myself. the L mode itself is almost a new driving experience, controlling the car fully through just one pedal and trying to eke out every last drop of kinetic energy back into the battery, and making it a challenge to never use the brakes. i…

Be careful, Tesla drivers discovered that never using the brake, particularly in areas that use salt on the roads, results in expensive corrosion. Automotive brakes haven't been designed with one-pedal driving in mind... https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/24/8500-new-tesla-model-s-... Recommendation: consciously use the brakes in a firm deceleration once a week.

When I wash my cars I intentionally spray a little fresh water on the pads and rotors mostly because caked on brake dust can wear rotors unevenly or cause grinding/slipping of breaks. I've never lived where they salted the roads, but I imagine rinsing them off periodically would help, too.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#180

Post by avar »

mtgx wrote: post #170

Can we please stop calling hybrid vehicles "electric cars"? This is also leading to ridiculous marketing tricks by carmakers where they only make the tiniest amount of changes to "technically" be able to call their cars an "electric car" while common sense-wise being as far away from an all-electric car as possible. This means minimal changes to their own cars while claiming they've "adopted the wave of the future."…

You appear to be confusing the Chevy Volt (hybrid) with the Chevy Bolt (all-electric).
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