Chevy Bolt EV Winter Performance

Also, _thank you!_ for taking the time to make sure all your videos have good captions. :) I use them regularly and they're helpful.

‘Leigh

Can't wait for a summer video. Here in central GA, a 20 degree night is COLD. We are pushing 80 degrees (Highs def in the 70s) mid-February. Though I suspect we would see the same hit you seen from the cold, from our 90-100 degree heat.

Christopher Bassett

Great video! What's putting me off about getting an electric car is that you have to wait for it to charge. It takes a couple hours and that's kind of a problem if you regularly drive ~500km on a single trip. It's a lot faster to just go to a gas station and fuel up your car than it is to drive somewhere to charge it up again. Another problem I have is that electricity around here is REALLY expensive (around 30-35 cents a kWh) so to be honest it's just not that cheap to maintain an electric vehicle around here. However, those problems are manageable. The real problem is that there's not like an equivalent to a gas station to charge up your vehicle. If your battery pack's depleted well then good luck finding somewhere to charge. I like electric cars but at least around here they're just not viable.

Thanks for including metric conversions for the temperature - very useful for us across the pond. One of the things that I've always wondered about is how EVs (or more importantly, charging infrastructure) would cope with longer journeys - longer than the one you covered. Most of my driving would be fine with an EV, but a few times a year I need to cover 250 miles or more. It's a lot quicker to top up a tank of diesel (hey, it's popular over here) than spend an hour or so charging.

John M

Well, thanks a bunch! I certainly understand the battery life concern. Myself (and now my parents) are certainly pioneers in the EV realm and are taking part in a massive beta test to see how long these battery packs last. One can hope, however, that the thermal management onboard most EV's along with computer monitoring at the cell-level will extend their life. If, and that is a big IF, the Bolt's battery pack is able to survive 2,000 complete charge/discharge cycles (which is what LG, who made the battery quoted) it should theoretically make it to 400,000 miles. But that will likely take 10 to 15 or more years to accomplish, so by then the age will be a factor as well. For the record, this car isn't leased, it was purchased, so it should be in my family for the next 10 years or so. I guess we'll find out how it does!

Technology Connections

another great video - you seem to have a knack for picking interesting subjects - from Christmas lights to electric vehicles, so I am upping my Patreon to $10/month - here is my issue with electric cars - I have a real problem with the warranty on the battery pack, this is the equivalent of the gas tank on a regular car - lithium ion batteries wear out (lose capacity) (as you know from your past phones and laptops), and imagine if you went to the dealer to buy a new Toyota Tundra, and they said, "Your gas tank is covered in the 8 year warranty, but after that it will need replacement, and that replacement tank will cost you many $1000's of dollars :-o

Bill Basch

Very interesting Alec. I mentioned before we have a 24kWh Leaf with no battery conditioning. We generally get around 3.8 miles per kWh in the winter and maybe 4.2 - 4.5 in the summer, so 70 - 90 miles per charge. It's really good to see other people's / other vehicle's 'real life' usage.

Stephen Bell

And then I remembered EVs have no engine :P

Jason Wellband

I always thought heat was just hot air being passed over the engine haha

Jason Wellband

One might think that like with SSDs, you want a car with significantly more range than needed, so that battery will degrade significantly slower.

Greetings from your neighbor in Wisconsin! As an electric car enthusiast, I was wondering about this! Thanks for making this video