Shoot that’s cool. How does one sit on that thing? Lol
Also, RIP his solar, he’s got a shadow on the front trailer panel, any shade over the panels practically kills all production.
1 Like
On my solar front, I’m still working out the details. So far I haven’t gone a week without charging from the grid at work, but I feel like I’m close.
I’ve added 2 more panels bring the system spec to 2.6kw, but it feels more like 2kw looking at the power curve.
I also screwed up my power station’s arguments yesterday. I put in “if over 80% then AC power on” then I set the battery to stop charging at 80%… 80% is not more than 80%, so it didn’t turn AC power on, thus no charging for me today.
Averaging 2.7-2.8 miles per kw on my drive to & from work which is about 60miles all at 70mph with my missing bumper. Little research suggests I should get over 3.5 m/kw @ 70 mph, so this missing bumper seems to really hamper efficiency.
2 Likes
The seat is really low in the frame, maybe 12” (30cm) from the ground. I’m not sure where he would put his feet unless he is really short. You can see the backrest easily but the seat is easy to miss.
1 Like
Yeah, I’m curious where he puts his feet/knees. I’m guessing not on the pedals, so probably on those yellow square frames
1 Like
I love this! I own two Bolt EVs and I work at a used EV dealership where I see a ton of Bolts. These are great, easy to work on cars. Dead simple. I salute you for trying to rescue this one.
Your efficiency will definitely improve with the proper aero. Also the tires really matter for these cars. With the right tires you can get 3.7-4mi/kWh. Also there is a huge delta between 60mph and 70mph if you can stomach it and it’s safe/legal to do so, 60mph is way more efficient. Especially behind an 18 wheeler, lol.
I just drove 200 miles in my Bolt tonight after work, after I drove 40 miles to work this morning, for a total of 3 hours of driving today. The car has more than enough range for even excessive driving, I feel like it’s actually oversized for the average commuter.
1 Like
Speed limit is 65, but any less than 70 and you start becoming the problem on this 2 lane country highway o7
TBH I’m not chasing efficacy and like you said, range is a non-issue.
First time out giving it the shakedown I drove 80miles running errands & when I got back I still hadn’t even used half the battery despite the aero handicap. I was very impressed.
I actually landed on this car due to it’s affordability & range to get me to my parents without stopping 2hrs away. We’ve certainly come a long way since my Leaf & Spark EV.
That’s a perfect use-case. And yeah, the brilliant thing about this is the Bolt is ancient tech nowadays and it’s still just so good. I think it’s the perfect first EV because it just does everything right without doing too much. The one-pedal is dialed in perfectly, the regen paddle to add in that extra 20kw of regen is super fun on downhill mountain curves and for timing stops, and it even pretends to be an automatic with crawl and all if you want it to, for people who can’t adopt to change. Also buttons for climate control and the screen is for infotainment primarily, can be restarted while the car is driving without affecting anything. DC fast charging being slow isn’t even that bad, I’ve driven it from Charlotte to DC, Alabama, and Florida. The car is always ready before I’m ready to drive again.
FYI The back seat gets no air if you use auto-climate because auto-climate will almost always select the upper vents and not the feet ones, and the back seat does not have upper vents. It does have some hidden air ducts underneath the front seats that do push a lot of air into the back, but I literally didn’t even know they existed until like year 2 of owning the car, mine were blocked with like a glove and a bottle or something like that, the back seat just sucked. Then my friend’s kid complained when he drove them in my other Bolt and we dug under the seats and found them, turned it on feet only and turned the fan up to high, and sure enough it absolutely blows cold/hot into the back seat. Better than nothing.
My math that brought me to buying them is that I previously drove a Toyota IQ, which is an efficient little 40+mpg car, and it cost me over $14k in fuel to go 200k miles, and about $10k in service and repairs, all for a little $10k used Toyota. So that’s $34k to go 200k miles. So I got a Bolt for $14k with a pre-recall battery and had the recall done so I got a new battery with a new 100k mile warranty, so that means repairs are GM’s problem. The fuel for 200k miles in this car cost me roughly $5k, a delta of $9k. So with those savings in mind, I bought another Bolt with a pre-recall battery while they were still cheap, so that’s 200k warrantied miles for $14k + $13k + $5k and I got two cars instead of one, for less money than I spent on the one gas car, and that’s with averaging at years ago gas prices, not current.
EV vs gas isn’t just a preference, the math simply slaps you in the face and asks you if you’re stupid or not. I set the monetary equivalent of an entire car on fire in my old car. Plus, it was worthless when I finally sold it, versus my two Bolts which still have very serious trade-in value on them even with almost 100k miles on both.
1 Like
Power is cheep here at only 12¢ a kw, so it’s insanely cheap to drive EVs. Back in the day when electricity was 7¢ a kw both my Leaf & Spark EV got me to and from work (60 miles round trip 5 days a week) for less than $25 a month, and I charged at work so it was even half that.
Bolt is going to be charged off solar so even that small power cost goes away.
Pretty much no servicing, no transmission, never even needed brakes. They certainly are cheap to drive and own.