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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

#161

Post by turtlebits »

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.

GM's first fix was to go in for a software update that limited max charge to 90%. This of course took scheduling and sitting in a dealer for a little over an hour.

I'd much rather have the OTA option.

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

#162

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

Tesla did pretty much exactly this to some Model S owners. And got sued over it. I don't know if that has been fully resolved yet. Some people got screwed out of a lot of battery capacity and performance.

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

#163

Post by epistasis »

thayne wrote: post #128
sjg007 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least with a car you might be able to replace the battery. Maybe. Of course the auto companies have the same incentives as the mobile phone companies to want you to replace the whole thing.

It's pretty easy to replace phone batteries, I wish people would stop spreading this myth. Popular models can nearly al be done by somebody that could change their own oil in a car. And there are phone repair shops in nearly every town for those who want to spend $20-$50 to have a pro do it.

Please don't discard a phone merely because of a bad battery, unless you've tried to get a replacement!

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

#164

Post by ineedasername »

willcipriano wrote: post #70
ineedasername wrote: post #20

That's insane. For (probably) a majority of owners it makes the car unusable if you adhere to that restriction. If I had one then I would have nowhere to park it. Certainly not at work. And at home with once car in the driveway and another in front of the house they couldn't be 50 feet apart. In tightly packed houses even one driveway to the next isn't 50 feet apart. If you went shopping and we're lucky enough to man…

The idea isn't getting you to adhere to it, the idea is when inevitably one of these ends up incinerating a national forest or a home for orphans, GM can say "We told you to park 50 feet away, if only you hadn't been negligent and followed our simple directions!" rather than "So sorry about that"

Ah, yes that makes sense. The "thoughts & prayers" approach.

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

#165

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

MrFoof wrote: post #153
ineedasername wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but an important part of that context is that electric car fires also burn longer and hotter and take significantly more effort to put out. Too little water can actually make the fire worse. Annecdotally, my recollection from other articles is that electric cars do in fact catch on fire less often. But it also seems like they may be more difficult to deal with. This may change as EV's become more mainstream & fi…

Yep. Moreover, the issue isn't new cars today. You know when you saw that old Chrysler Grand Caravan burning on the side of the road, and you hear the story that the person has been holding it together solely with thoughts and prayers and maybe $500 between tires and oil for the last 7 years of its 19 year life? That's the current inevitability. I'm not worried about someone's 6-month old Bolt or 2-year old Model 3.…

> Germany is starting to standardize on towing an electric car away to dunk it in a tank to ultimately handle fires.

I suppose if the problem is widespread enough, every city will have a mobile dunk truck at the ready for electric vehicle fires.

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

#166

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

Electric cars have been around sufficiently long that we already know this isn't the case. Even with these early technology EVs. The only EV with any kind of problem that is sort-of similar to that is the original Leaf.

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

#167

Post by ceejayoz »

wffurr wrote: post #155
adamredwoods wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CATL sodium batteries, maybe in 2023: https://qz.com/2041051/chinas-catl-unveils-sodium-ion-batter...

Sodium reacts explosively with water.

Pure sodium, sure.

You're full of sodium, though, and you don't explode.

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

#168

Post by ytdytvhxgydvhh »

thayne wrote: post #128
sjg007 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least with a car you might be able to replace the battery. Maybe. Of course the auto companies have the same incentives as the mobile phone companies to want you to replace the whole thing.

So, just like a phone then? Those batteries are also replaceable, even if they aren’t user-replaceable.

https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/battery-powe...

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

#169

Post by InvertedRhodium »

MrFoof wrote: post #153
ineedasername wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but an important part of that context is that electric car fires also burn longer and hotter and take significantly more effort to put out. Too little water can actually make the fire worse. Annecdotally, my recollection from other articles is that electric cars do in fact catch on fire less often. But it also seems like they may be more difficult to deal with. This may change as EV's become more mainstream & fi…

Yep. Moreover, the issue isn't new cars today. You know when you saw that old Chrysler Grand Caravan burning on the side of the road, and you hear the story that the person has been holding it together solely with thoughts and prayers and maybe $500 between tires and oil for the last 7 years of its 19 year life? That's the current inevitability. I'm not worried about someone's 6-month old Bolt or 2-year old Model 3.…

> and is only on the road because someone paid some mechanic off to look the other way during a state vehicle inspection for the past 5 years.

Making mechanics liable - maybe jointly as a business and an individual - for their failure to inspect vehicles properly would be a pretty simple mechanic to reduce this risk.

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

#170

Post by rootusrootus »

rsj_hn wrote: post #12
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 heard really good things about the EV mustang from Ford. I wouldn't take this to be representative of EVs in general, but rather a remark on GM.

The Bolt has been around since 2017, and the Mach-E arrived this year. It is way too early to be deciding that maybe Ford will have better luck.

Neither company is actually making their own batteries, in any case.

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