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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

#181

Post by SwellJoe »

DrScump wrote: post #168
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…

The tires need only be rotated and never replaced? Now that's impressive.

Modern tires last a lot longer than 12,500 miles. So, if they're rotating that frequently, it'd be several iterations before they need to be replaced. I usually end up replacing my tires due to age rather than wear, but I don't have a long daily commute since I work from home.

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

#182

Post by akvadrako »

chairmanwow wrote: post #111

As a sidebar, I really wish that Blendle would exit Beta so that I could buy these extremely interesting articles as a one-off micropayment. I don't intend to get a subscription with every top news organization (NY Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, WSJ, Economist etc), but I would be more than happy to pay $0.25-0.75 for an article like this. I want to pay for their content, but getting locked into a subscription when…

Why does Blendle have to exit beta for this to happen?

BTW, I consider $0.50 for an article to be ridiculous; that's probably 100x - 1000x how much they would make from an advertisement. But no problem, you can often find WSJ articles for free if you just google the title.

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

#183

Post by Shivetya »

GM should be proud of the Bolt and the Volt as well; I own a Volt because it suits my usage needs much better than a pure EV.

However GM is still in the stone ages when it comes to OnStar. You get a short trial and then you are faced with 14.95 and higher per MONTH fees to access their services. Not a problem you say, don't need their navigation in a day of smart phones and the only real value is calling the authorities when you crash.

Yet the kicker is, the GM app which lets you lock/unlock, start/stop you car suddenly loses the ability to tell you your cars tire pressures and range remaining for both fuel and electric. Yep, GM gated that behind an OnStar subscription. Did not used to be, but they threw some switch recently which made the app near useless.

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

#184

Post by agumonkey »

koiz wrote: post #58
hedora wrote: post #20

We just managed to sell another flagship GM vehicle, and the software was so bad, it was nearly a deal-breaker. (Most years of this model had software bugs that were so bad, they could literally kill you — for example, the exhaust system could overheat, and burn the car down). Also, basic electro-mechanical things, like seat belts and the FM radio started to die after 3-4 years. This is with light use in CA. Even whe…

Its what I keep telling people, GM has been during PR on this car but the software is still far from complete.

another case of post shipping software debugging philosophy ?

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

#185

Post by simias »

abduhl wrote: post #40
hedora wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point. I thought I read bolts (volts?) sometimes put themselves into reverse and accelerate while off+charging. I wanted to paste a link, but found this article instead. It looks like this safety issue is by design. (Also, CR says the handling is “choppy” on uneven pavement, which matches my old lemon): http://www.chevybolt.org/forum/#/topics/7778?page=1 “On this rainy morning while turning to park in a stall…

your case in point is that someone who wanted to park decided not to use his brakes? is removing your foot from the accelerator instead of using the brake a standard learned behavior amongst bolt/volt owners?

Maybe if you're used to driving manual cars and use engine braking? Sometimes I try to engine brake while the gearbox is in neutral by mistake, it's not a pleasant feeling when you don't feel yourself slow down.

If people are used to the car reacting in a certain way and it suddenly changes I'm not surprised that in can be enough to momentarily lose control. I wouldn't like that at all.

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

#186

Post by Tade0 »

mtgx wrote: post #171
MrRadar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I believe Opel was sold to PSA, not Renault-Nissan.

This does not bode well for the Ampera-e, because PSA has a penchant for crises.

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

#187

Post by Theodores »

Tade0 wrote: post #186
mtgx wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I believe Opel was sold to PSA, not Renault-Nissan. This does not bode well for the Ampera-e, because PSA has a penchant for crises.

Since the Ampera was a badge engineered made in the USA car my guess is that Peugeot are not buying it. Furthermore their CEO has no grand ambitions for electric vehicles, so the Ampera is gone already.

PSA took on Chrysler many decades ago and after a while the factory that was making Chrysler cars was making the Peugeot 309 which was a roaring trade success in the UK and other markets. Eventually the factory closed after the 309 had had its run. So you can expect the same, a new family crossover will come out in Peugeot branding from the Astra factory, this will sell for a few years, have a facelift and sell on for a few more years. Then they will close the factory. It is inevitable.

Of course Peugeot will sell EVs, however, for small cars it is not hard to buy a few motors and batteries from Bosch and to stick them in a car. So they will be joining the market when all the suppliers have the off the shelf parts all worked out for them.

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

#188

Post by stephengillie »

Neil44 wrote: post #174
klipt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just a low-gear mode, like putting an old 3-gear automatic in 2nd gear, to engine brake downhill.

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

#189

Post by [deleted] »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #42

The question I have to ask: Has anyone here gotten an EV and successfully gotten a charger setup going in an apartment garage? For where I live, I'd say we have 100-150 parking spaces, all underground. There are two spaces that have chargers, which are first-come-first-served, I don't count them. So, the idea would be to get my own charger. I already have a safe place to put it: There is a wide-but-not-deep storage u…

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by dagw »

abduhl wrote: post #40
hedora wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point. I thought I read bolts (volts?) sometimes put themselves into reverse and accelerate while off+charging. I wanted to paste a link, but found this article instead. It looks like this safety issue is by design. (Also, CR says the handling is “choppy” on uneven pavement, which matches my old lemon): http://www.chevybolt.org/forum/#/topics/7778?page=1 “On this rainy morning while turning to park in a stall…

your case in point is that someone who wanted to park decided not to use his brakes? is removing your foot from the accelerator instead of using the brake a standard learned behavior amongst bolt/volt owners?

Isn't engine breaking a thing that most people do or at least learn? Or can't you engine break with an automatic?
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