Chevrolet Bolt EV First Road Trip

Overture

“We could drive the electric car over to see Kevin and Elizabeth but it we would have to charge it while we are there and that would be a nuisance so why would we?” I opined.

“Mmmhmm. Anything you say, darling,” Candy replied.

12 hours later:

“I’ve been thinking: We could drive the electric car and I think we should,” I opined.

“Whaaaaa?!!!!?” quoth Candy.

Such is the life I lead. Perhaps if I didn’t change my mind so much. Nah. It can’t be my fault.

Planning the Trip

I have a Chevrolet Bolt EV and have been absolutely delighted with it for the last 44,500 miles and almost 2.5 years. Other than a factory recall for a software update to the entertainment system, my only maintenance has been tire rotations, wiper blades, and a couple of cabin air filters. Range has never been a concern. I simply drive where I want, plug the car into the charger in the garage after my last trip of the day, and the car is ready to go again in the morning.

This trip would be different, though. In the summer, the Bolt EV can go about 230 miles between charges. In the winter, I only get about 170 miles from the car. The cold temperatures make the battery less efficient and I use the cabin heater, which sucks up a lot of juice. The round trip to Kevin’s house would be 200 miles so, somewhere along the way, I needed to add at least 50 miles of charge (since I wanted a bit of extra reserve when I pulled into the driveway at the end of the trip).

The My Chevrolet app has an “Energy Assist” feature which helps with trip planning. Basically, it knows how much charge there is in the battery and, after you tell it you want to go, it evaluates whether you need a pit stop to complete the trip. If you need a stop, it helps find a charging station. The app suggested a level 2 charger near Kevin’s house, which would have required 2+ hours. That would have been OK but I was feeling adventurous; I wanted to try one of the DC fast chargers that can give the Bolt EV about 90 miles of range in 30 minutes.

I found a ChargePoint DC fast charger in a grocery store parking lot about 35 miles from my house. Unfortunately, there were no more fast chargers closer to Kevin’s house. It was not ideal but it would give me a chance to try the charger. If it did not work, my fallback plan was to use a level 2 charger near my son’s house.

Next I planned the trip back home. I would be starting with roughly 50% battery, not quite enough to get all the way home but enough to get back to the fast charger.

This would be dicier. Instead of pulling into the charger with a battery 82% full, I would be arriving with just 10% of the battery, less than 20 miles of range. But, as I noted above, if the DC charged did not satisfy me on the trip out, I could fully recharge the battery before starting home and then I would not need the second stop at the fast charger at all.

The only downside to planning was that I had to create an account at ChargePoint and link it to my PayPal account. Why I could not just slip a credit card into the charger, I do not know. But setting up the account was quick and easy and, once that was done and I had downloaded the ChargePoint app to my phone, I was ready to go.

Driving the Trip

Driving to the DC fast charger was easy, of course. Google Maps took us straight to the grocery store. The comments in the My Chevrolet app said that the charger was on the south side of the lot and, indeed, it was right there and easy to find. There were a pair of fast chargers and another pair of level 2 chargers.

I tapped my phone to the front of the charger and, after a few seconds, it told me that I should plug the cord into my car. I did.

Inside the car, the dashboard displayed this helpful graphic.

I had forgotten that, as a battery gets closer to 100% charged, it charges more and more slowly. After 20 minutes, I lost patience, unplugged the car, and headed for Kevin’s house. The battery was about 90% charged.

Candy and I drove the rest of the way to Kevin and Elizabeth’s, had a nice visit, and got in the car to come home. The dashboard said that we had 84 miles of range and Google Maps said that the fast charger was 63 miles away.

An hour later, we arrived back at the fast charger with 19 miles of range. Another tap of my phone and I was OK-ed to plug the cord back into the car. While the electrons did their charging thing, I went into the grocery store to pick up a few items (and a box of Thin Mints from the Girl Scouts outside, of course!). When I returned 20 minutes later, the car had soaked up 14 kWh of energy, 23% of the battery, or about another 40 miles of range (59 total). That made the remaining 35 miles to home a no-brainer.

Epilogue

The hurdle for me was not the logistics of planning the trip. The hurdle was getting over the emotional barrier of OMG! I am going to drive my electric car out of range of my home!! The turning point was realizing that I frequently drive gasoline cars out of range of my home. I don’t worry about that; I just find a gas station and “fill ‘er up.” I can, and did, do the same with my electric car.