The Chevy Bolt

[Yuriman]

4 miles per hour? How slow are these chargers?

The (last gen) Nissan Leaf's EPA rating is 30 kWh/100 mi combined, it has a range of 84 miles, and a battery size of 24kwh. 30kWh / 100mi is 300 watt hours per mile, which means the car is charging at... 300 watts on what is probably a 15 amp breaker? You could easily do 5x that.

 

[Brovane]

4 miles per hour? How slow are these chargers?

The (last gen) Nissan Leaf's EPA rating is 30 kWh/100 mi combined, it has a range of 84 miles, and a battery size of 24kwh. 30kWh / 100mi is 300 watt hours per mile, which means the car is charging at... 300 watts on what is probably a 15 amp breaker? You could easily do 5x that.

That is L1 charging, basically about 1-1.5 kw/hr. The Leaf has a 6.6kw charger and the Bolt looks like it will have a 7.2kw charger. Having access to a L2 charger is essential if you are going to be putting a lot of daily miles on a EV.

 

[Yuriman]

I posted that late last night, and apparently couldn't brain. The math checks out for ~4-5 miles of charge per hour.

 

[Mandres]

Why does it seem like Tesla are the only ones trying to make the vehicles look good? This is exciting, disruptive new technology. It should be sexy, it should be cool. Every other manuf. is styling their EV exactly like their cheapest little throwaway econobox with no sex appeal at all. I don't understand that.

 

[Kaido]

Why does it seem like Tesla are the only ones trying to make the vehicles look good? This is exciting, disruptive new technology. It should be sexy, it should be cool. Every other manuf. is styling their EV exactly like their cheapest little throwaway econobox with no sex appeal at all. I don't understand that.

I agree. What's interesting is that the Teslas are stealth-attractive. I mistake them for Ford Fusions & stuff all the time. The trouble is that if you go too far, like a BMW i3, the styling can turn a lot of people off because it's a little bit too Jetsons-ish. I liked the prototype Bolt's styling a lot more than the actual one...just looks like another Nissan Versa or Honda Fit.

 

[Brovane]

Why does it seem like Tesla are the only ones trying to make the vehicles look good? This is exciting, disruptive new technology. It should be sexy, it should be cool. Every other manuf. is styling their EV exactly like their cheapest little throwaway econobox with no sex appeal at all. I don't understand that.

Some manufacturers are just building compliance cars, so they could car less about how good they look. Nissan with the Leaf built a in-expensive econo-box city car, which means you need to maximize space on a small chassis. It appears that GM did the same thing with the bolt, trying to maximize internal space on a small chassis. Which probably means aerodynamics have suffered, I will be very interested to hear what the drag co-efficient of the Bolt is.

 

[Yuriman]

"Chevy Bolt EV is ‘a disaster for aero’ says lead designer, has a drag coefficient of 0.32"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/electr...of-0-32/amp/?client=ms-android-sprint-mvno-us

0.32 is not bad for a 15-20 year old gasoline-powered sedan, but considering the greatly reduced cooling needs for EVs allows the ability to practically eliminate front grilles, completely eliminate exhaust and seal up the bottom of the car, 0.32 is inexcusable.

 

[Brovane]

"Chevy Bolt EV is ‘a disaster for aero’ says lead designer, has a drag coefficient of 0.32"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/electr...of-0-32/amp/?client=ms-android-sprint-mvno-us

0.32 is not bad for a 15-20 year old gasoline-powered sedan, but considering the greatly reduced cooling needs for EVs allows the ability to practically eliminate front grilles, completely eliminate exhaust and seal up the bottom of the car, 0.32 is inexcusable.

Thanks that will mean with that bad of drag coefficient that high speed freeway driving 70mph will impact range much more than a car with a lower drag coefficient. This means that despite the long range this car is more of city car.

 

[Mursilis]

Why does it seem like Tesla are the only ones trying to make the vehicles look good? This is exciting, disruptive new technology. It should be sexy, it should be cool. Every other manuf. is styling their EV exactly like their cheapest little throwaway econobox with no sex appeal at all. I don't understand that.

Most manufacturers aren't even building dedicated EVs - they're just yanking the gas engine from one of their cheaper cars and adding a battery pack and electric motor (see the Focus EV, Spark EV, and e-Golf). The last figures I saw indicated EVs were still only about 1% of the entire market, so you really can't expect them to receive much R&D cash from the big manufacturers until that changes.

 

[NutBucket]

Thanks that will mean with that bad of drag coefficient that high speed freeway driving 70mph will impact range much more than a car with a lower drag coefficient. This means that despite the long range this car is more of city car.

Which makes perfect sense since that's how most folks see EVs.

 

[Brovane]

Which makes perfect sense since that's how most folks see EVs.

Which means that 200+ mile range is less relevant than people make it out to be. Since having 200+ mile range doesn't matter much if you are just intending to use the Bolt as a city car. I think some people are going to very surprised when they get this thing on the highway and find the range significantly reduced at 70-mph.

Looking over the Bolt specs a little closer, the Leaf which to me is a small car is bigger than the Bolt. The head room, leg room, cargo volume is all more. I will be interested when I sit in a Bolt to see how the interior space feels on the car.

 

[NutBucket]

I don't disagree the range is less relevant but it's all mental. I know 70 miles is plenty for my daily commute but I'd gladly pay more for a Bolt with 200+ miles than a Leaf with ~100.

 

[Yuriman]

One of these days I'm going to drop a Bolt (or similar) drivetrain in my Insight, and get 3-400 miles out of it, in addition to insane acceleration.

 

[NutBucket]

I think you'd have a better chance of fitting an Insight body to a Bolt chassis. They're just completely different!

 

[Brovane]

One of these days I'm going to drop a Bolt (or similar) drivetrain in my Insight, and get 3-400 miles out of it, in addition to insane acceleration.

This guy hacked a Tesla drive-train from a wrecked car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu7c3gbVJCc

 

[Yuriman]

I think you'd have a better chance of fitting an Insight body to a Bolt chassis. They're just completely different!

Even if I have to use a 3rd-party motor controller, it's not too complicated. The worst part will be mounting the electric motor and getting CV axles that fit.

EDIT: The battery assembly apparently weights ~960lbs in the Bolt, while the Insight's battery weighs ~75lbs.

The Insight's engine / motor and transmission weigh about 215lbs dry, and probably close to 240lbs with fluids. If I were to guess, the Bolt's motor assembly probably weighs about 85lbs, adding a total of ~730lbs (give or take) to the car, bring it up to ~2600lbs total, about a thousand pounds lighter than the Bolt. Drag area is probably around half, so 400 miles on the highway doesn't seem unreasonable. I dunno what the 0-60 time would be in a car that weighs about a third less. Drag would go down considerably because I could mostly seal up the front and bottom of the car.

 

[NutBucket]

My thinking is how do you fit a huge, flat battery pack?

 

[Yuriman]

Over on InsightCentral there's a group working on putting a Leaf battery into the car to use with the existing motor. These batteries can be partially or fully disassembled; ultimately, they're a bunch of cells in a cooling enclosure.

 

[Yuriman]

It really doesn't look too hard to fit in the car, even left intact.

The hatch area is about 4ft wide at its narrowest point, and almost completely flat once you remove the old hybrid system. It's only about 4.5ft long, so it might require stacking one more of the battery modules, but upon looking at it closely, I'm thinking it won't be too difficult.

 

[LTC8K6]

Thanks that will mean with that bad of drag coefficient that high speed freeway driving 70mph will impact range much more than a car with a lower drag coefficient. This means that despite the long range this car is more of city car.

There are plenty of reviews of the Bolt though, and highway driving doesn't seem to cause it any range problems.

 

[Brovane]

There are plenty of reviews of the Bolt though, and highway driving doesn't seem to cause it any range problems.

I am more interested to see what the INL finds out when they get their hands on a Bolt and tests it and get the same type of data for the Bolt as is below for the Model S.

https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/fact2014teslamodels.pdf

 

[Yuriman]

If you can trust published drag numbers (which will be different for each wind tunnel the car is tested in), had Chevy lowered the Cd to ~0.20, they could've had 30% more highway range. And, while 0.20 might seem really low, consider that Tesla gets near this number in a car with hugely increased cooling requirements (~3-4x the power) and wide wheels, which are responsible for a very large part of the drag in most vehicles.

 

[rh71]

Why does it seem like Tesla are the only ones trying to make the vehicles look good? This is exciting, disruptive new technology. It should be sexy, it should be cool. Every other manuf. is styling their EV exactly like their cheapest little throwaway econobox with no sex appeal at all. I don't understand that.

Weight & size = less cost = more efficient which they presume is what people in this segment want more than anything else?

 

[Pantoot]

Weight & size = less cost = more efficient which they presume is what people in this segment want more than anything else?

I was always more conspiracy theorist…
In the case of the i3, they didn't want to steer 3 series drivers away from their bread and butter, if they would have made it look like a regular car it could have cannibalized.
By making it look like it did they ensured that nobody would cross shop the 2.
Of course, that's just like, my opinion, man.

 

[Pulsar]

The problem with Tesla is that GM has much more experience with everything that customers want beyond the drive train. And even the drive trains will be moot points for these two cars. GM will kill Tesla in terms of giving consumers what they want.

Yes and no. Tesla is the Apple of the car world. They provide boutique cars for boutique prices.

Why folks would compare the two is somewhat of a mystery. And electric vehicle chargers are every where around where I live. All the malls, my work place, and a number of grocery stores have them.

I wouldn't be charging it anywhere but home anyway with that range. I'm not taking it on a 200 mile road trip. This thing is a daily driver - to work etc.