I switched to Electric!

There had recently been some life changes that made me re-evaluate some things. Decided to recently get rid of the Escape, then shortly after my commute changed drastically. I left Toyota and was offered a job by Tesla Motors and accepted. Great company to work for, but that's a different story for another time. My commute to work is about 8 miles each way, mostly city driving. I was tired of wasting gas and the technology and products at work really made me want to switch to electric. Did a lot of research in the entry to mid level EV market and the only viable options, that I could afford and had a good combination of range, power and options was the Chevy Bolt EV!



This car was rated Motor Trend 2017 Car of the Year. It can get 238+ range on a single charge, has the electric equivalent of 200hp and 260tq. I test drove and was sold. It is the HOT HATCH of EVs. If you haven't driven an electric car, I highly recommend trying it if you get a chance. Instant power, very tight body and flat handling since the battery pack is mounted along the underside of the body.



The charge port is located on the front left corner, meaning you have to park face-in on your driveway. Not a big deal in my case since my outlet is located in the front left corner of the garage.



Front end looks great, a mix of sharp and sleek. Headlights are very nice with the LED DRLs and D3S HIDs.



Funky looking but it definitely has hot hatch styling.



It has an ass that only a mother could love. The tail lights have little streaks in them. Cute.





Hop inside the spaceship. Dashboard is multi-colored with a gray that meshes into white and mixes of chrome trim. The white is very "snow camo" and is a flat color, bordered by some gloss white trim pieces. The quality isn't any better or worse than my base Fiesta ST.



Instrument cluster shows speed, battery range, brake regeneration, trip, vehicle info like TPMS, electric efficiency, current music playing, etc.



The infotainment system is great! Allows Apple CarPlay or AndroidAuto, 4G LTE, WiFi hotspot, also can analyze energy stats, program a battery charging schedule, optimize for off-peak electricity prices, vehicle programmable settings like door lock operation, remote start, media gallery. Oh yeah, traction control and SPORT made. Yes, you can easily chirp the tires and be spinning for a few seconds. 260tq at 0 rpm and LRR tires allow no traction LOL.



The shifter is like a Prius, sort-of. It's weird at first but you get used to it very quickly. No physical handbrake lever, only an electronic switch that locks the back brakes. It sounds like a planes landing gear when it deploys. Put it into L for one-pedal driving. It sounds weird and un-intuitive at first. You let off the gas pedal, the car slows down on it's own. In the process that energy you generated from slowing down goes back into the battery. It does this so well, that it feels like playing a video game. I use it almost for every stop around town and hardly have to use my brake pedal.



Decent seats with ok bolster but you may be uncomfortable if you're anything but average size. Plenty of headroom but seats may pinch you eventually. I'm 5'11" and 160 lbs, I fit like a glove with about a foot of head space to spare.



Back seats that actual, real-life size humans can fit into! I tested it and even with my seat adjusted, I had about 4-5" of knee room to spare.





LOTS of trunk space with a drop-down trunk area. Seats fold flat, includes a courtesy cover for your stuff like the FiST.



POP the hood! Nothing here, bro. The car does use a few fluids but the car is virtually maintenance free. Chevy says rotate the tires once a year, do the coolant at 10 years or 150,000 miles. Brake fluid every 50,000 miles. The brakes last forever thanks to regenerative braking doing most of the work for me.



I've already put LED reverse and license plate bulbs on. Will be getting 35% 3M tint installed next week, and have these Chevy Sonic RS wheels coming in for my new Hankook iPike RS performance winter tires. I'm going to try to have some fun with this thing.





Now before people go talking badly or poorly about EVs, I realize they are not for everyone. Not everyone lives in a situation ideal for using electric vehicles, and that's cool. This car works great for my daily 16 mile city commute, great for zipping around town, can fit other people comfortably and electricity is cheap. It may cost me about $5-$10 per month to drive about 500 miles. If you like hot hatches and debating electric, I seriously urge you to consider this car. You'll be surprised, I know I was.

Awesome little car man! Great write up. Congrats! Any thoughts on the escape?

Escape was a great car, very quick for what it was, lots of features, comfortable, quiet but too soccer mom for me.

Great write-up my bother in law who lives in CA just recently bought a Bolt as well. While he complained of the driver seat not being as comfortable, he really loves the car overall.

Thx for sharing. I'm actually excited for the electric car revolution to get going already. instant torque. low maintenance. I'm getting really tired of leaking fluids, vacuum leaks, gaskets, radiators, timing chains, etc, etc. time to simplify.

and if go solar panels on my house ever, free fuel. Tesla has proven electric can be stink fast and ur new friend there proves they can cheap and practical too. I can't wait until they're mainstream.

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"Hop inside the spaceship. Dashboard is multi-colored with a gray that meshes into white and mixes of chrome trim. The white is very "snow camo" and is a flat color, bordered by some gloss white trim pieces. The quality isn't any better or worse than my base Fiesta ST."

Considering this car is close to $40k, I would have expected the interior to be slightly better than a Fiesta.

The tech definitely makes up for the decent material quality.

Sharp car. Also, congrats on the job with Tesla.

I'm a bit of a lead foot but it generally doesn't cost anything durability wise as long as the RPMs are kept down.

My concern with EV in that regard, was in severely impacting battery durability? Traditionally, the more current you draw from a battery, the quicker they degrade over time.

Personally could care less about cooling, though that's not true for most people. But none the less, I'm curious how EV handles the power-expensive creature comforts of cooling (dehumidifying) and what I'm more interested in, heating? De-icing and unfogging the interior windows?

Awesome write up and congrats on the new job, I was wondering how well the heat and a/c work?

Good write-up. Thanks for sharing.

Congrats on new ride and new job. Please keep track and update how much electric cost. I am always curious but never got a definitive answer.
Now the big question is are you going to track it?

Wow, not bad. I wonder how this compares to the Tesla Model 3. Might be worth looking into in a few years once availability isnt a problem..

I have a love/hate with EVs. Teslas are some of the nicest cars around that just happen to be electric and they are loaded to the gills with cutting edge technology. But cars like this and the Nissan Leaf leave a lot to be desired as far as being an actual car goes. They have solid tech and usable EV range, but even with tax breaks it's hard to lay down $30k on a car that's built about the same as a $15k Fiesta SE. Congrats on the job though!!!

I'm waiting for an EV that you operate with a joystick!

Don't know about you guys but I love driving stick. Even in LA's notorious traffic I get bored driving automatic transmissions...this won't work for me. I'm driving manual till they don't make them anymore...then I'll probably go retro or move somewhere else where manuals are still king.

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I agree with this. The other question that always comes to my mind though is this. What do we do with all these dead li ion batteries down the road? While everyone hopes on the EV is great it's clean bandwagon no wants to listen or discuss the dirty little secrets. It takes more energy to make these batteries which is done by fossil fuel burning plants. The batteries are un recyclable and basically landfall material . Which translates to massive amounts of ground waste.
Stick your head in the sand it's true.
A better way to go would be to do what Mazda is doing with ICE. A better way to would be Hydrogen fuel cells which only put out water vapor for exhaust. Ya Honda and Toyota are looking into this.
I am sorry but while the Bolt is a cool little car do not fool yourself it's far from the answer as are Tesla's.

As with any vehicle, driving with a heavier foot will reduce range. But I've seen people get 250 miles out of it while at 80+ MPH highway trips. I personally drive in Sport mode around town in one-pedal driving mode.

As far as durability, these particular HV batteries are liquid cooled. Some of the early EV cars had air cooled batteries like in the Nissan Leaf and degradation was common in extreme cold and heat climates. Tesla and GM wised up and use liquid cooled batteries with have little to no degradation loss. Battery technology has significantly improved in the last 5 years and will be even better 5 years from now.

Concerning climate control, using heater/ac and defrost will reduce range as well but you learn to manage it. I actually precondition (remote start) the car about 10 minutes before I leave in the morning while the car is plugged in, so I take care of the energy intensive defrosting ahead of time to not affect my range, though my commute is so short anyway that even if I lost 10 miles on my range it wouldn't affect me in any way.

There are people that have autocrossed it, GM ran marketing events at set-up courses to promote the car. Many people were surprised.

Someone is also in talks with SCCA about allowing them to compete but have no idea what class they would be allowed to compete in because instant power and regenerative braking creates an unfair advantage.

There are people that have autocrossed it, GM ran marketing events at set-up courses to promote the car. Many people were surprised.

Someone is also in talks with SCCA about allowing them to compete but have no idea what class they would be allowed to compete in because instant power and regenerative braking creates an unfair advantage.

Here's an article about the Bolt against a GTI on an autocross course.

https://electrek.co/2017/09/05/chevy-bolt-ev-autocross-event/

Also...
[video=youtube;ocRbLDF6vgk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocRbLDF6vgk[/video]

Very nice write-up, sharp looking car.
I don't think the ass is that bad, but I'm not an ass-man
Congrats on both car & job!