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GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

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Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#91

Post by taurath »

systemvoltage wrote: post #81
taurath wrote: post #51

My perception of American designed and engineered vehicles is that they’re really awful, not just from a reliability standpoint but also from a user interface standpoint. GM, Ford, and Chrysler haven’t been building good vehicles in my lifetime - once I switched to Hondas I’ve yet to have any serious engine trouble even in some very old vehicles, whereas every American car I’ve owned has been a money sink. Of course…

I think this would be true in 90's. It was really bad. Now a days, Ford and the rest make excellent vehicles on all fronts.

I always give them a look - my biggest tell is usually which 10+ year old models do I actually see on the road. That’s a long lead time for sure, but IMO they have to prove it. I looked at the JD power reliability rankings for 2021 and was shocked that Honda is near the bottom now - but GM, Ford, Chrysler etc are all middle or bottom of the pack themselves

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#92

Post by adamredwoods »

Animats wrote: post #42

Maybe lithium-ion batteries in mass-market vehicles aren't such a good idea. We may need a battery technology that can survive poor maintenance less than perfect battery construction, and low-cost vehicle designs. Tesla had to put a titanium plate under their battery. That's not a mass-market solution. BYD is converting over to lithium iron phosphate, which is much better behaved when damaged. Toyota is working on so…

CATL sodium batteries, maybe in 2023:

https://qz.com/2041051/chinas-catl-unveils-sodium-ion-batter...

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#93

Post by taurath »

aidenn0 wrote: post #71
taurath wrote: post #51

My perception of American designed and engineered vehicles is that they’re really awful, not just from a reliability standpoint but also from a user interface standpoint. GM, Ford, and Chrysler haven’t been building good vehicles in my lifetime - once I switched to Hondas I’ve yet to have any serious engine trouble even in some very old vehicles, whereas every American car I’ve owned has been a money sink. Of course…

The cells for the bolt were made in Korea though, right?

iPhones are made in China; the brand owner doesn’t get to pass the buck to their contractors that they chose.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#95

Post by travisporter »

sjg007 wrote: post #55
raman162 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's the 5 second cool factor but after that novelty you're probably just as disgruntled as the fact that you lost 35% of the range for your car. I hope the Chevy bolt is a rare case and stories like this don't pop up with the other upcoming electric vehicles. The new lightning F150 looks very attractive.

I don't see how electric cars are any different than mobile phones. So basically this means a 3 year life span in terms of battery performance. Regular combustion cars though also suffer reduced mpg so I am not saying this is an apples to apples comparison.

Common misconception and big reason why many avoid EVs. They are both Li-ion but battery degradation is very much mitigated in an EV because of very close attention to thermal management. Plus warranties on batteries give you something like 70% at ten years I think

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#96

Post by 01100011 »

giantg2 wrote: post #44

My understanding is that GM will replace the battery within 3 years, right? Seems like a good time to buy a cheap electric car at a discount from someone who is (understandably) impatient.

I'm assuming a friend's 2019 Bolt lease so I can try electric for a bit without much commitment. Once the replacement happens I can buy it for $21k, which seems like an alright deal on an electric with a fresh battery pack. Then again, that might be kind of high when you consider the subsidies I could get on a new EV. I'll see how the economics of the deal play out in a year when the lease is up.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#97

Post by philistine »

dmurray wrote: post #4

> The automaker told Bolt owners to limit the charge to 90 percent, plug in more frequently and avoid depleting the battery to below about 70 miles of remaining range. Tesla's approach here would be to issue an OTA update that told your car to treat 90% as 100% and 25% as 0. I can't decide if I like that better or worse.

I think practicality is governing each company’s choice; there’s no way GM is capable of pushing an OTA update to change all those cars’ firmware. If they could push an update over cellular, I would bet you GM would do it in a heartbeat.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#98

Post by colechristensen »

sjg007 wrote: post #55
raman162 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's the 5 second cool factor but after that novelty you're probably just as disgruntled as the fact that you lost 35% of the range for your car. I hope the Chevy bolt is a rare case and stories like this don't pop up with the other upcoming electric vehicles. The new lightning F150 looks very attractive.

I don't see how electric cars are any different than mobile phones. So basically this means a 3 year life span in terms of battery performance. Regular combustion cars though also suffer reduced mpg so I am not saying this is an apples to apples comparison.

While nobody will come out and say it, I’m convinced based on some extensive early career battery system engineering and various evidence from tesla that what they do is put in much more raw capacity than they sell you and then limit with software the capacity of the battery.

Early in the life of the battery this leads to slowed degredation and as the battery agrees the software uses more and more of the raw capacity to make it appear like the capacity is being lost much slower than it is… then at some point capacity will fall off a cliff when the excess is depleted.

Comparable to how SSDs have capacity reserved for bad blocks.

It is probably good engineering but it would be nice for the mechanics to be sold truthfully and some level of control to be given to the owner.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#99

Post by OJFord »

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #72
weaksauce wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

might want to put it into context though... there are on average 160,000 passenger car fires per year and about 360 deaths due to that. i'd like to see that figure broken down per 100k miles driven or per 100k cars of the type but i can't seem to find that easily. https://www.nfpa.org/vehiclefires

How many of those are with the car off and at rest ?

Is that actually relevant though, or just an implementation detail? Perhaps you could argue a moving car seems more potentially hazardous? But then that's only learned from extant behaviour anyway?

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#100

Post by Alupis »

reducesuffering wrote: post #58
ksm1717 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price and panel gaps

I'll give you price but I think that's an equivalent trade-off to all the cons: Much worse horsepower Much worse EV range Still requires ICE maintenance Worse software

> Worse software

The radio might be better in the Tesla, but how many Volts drove their owners into parked fire trucks?

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