EV Nuts & Bolts

All plug-in vehicles, hybrid or full electric, have a meter on your dashboard that shows the current level of battery charge and an estimated number of miles you should be able to drive.  In this picture, my Bolt's battery is fully charged (indicated by the green bars on the left) and I'm estimated to be able to drive 265 miles. My Bolt also offers me a minimum and maximum range. To understand what these range numbers mean and how they are calculated, you need to know a few things: Range is estimated on your driving habits and conditions that the car has learned over the past few trips . For example, if you have been driving on the freeway a lot, it will likely calculate a lower mile range because driving at very high speeds is less efficient (much like when you drive your gasoline car at very high speeds and your miles per gallon goes down). Conversely, if most of your driving has been around town at 30 – 50 mph, it will calculate a higher range. Climate control setti...

We’ve been a two plug-in vehicle household since 2014. 
In late 2013, I bought my first new car (ever) and it was a Chevrolet Volt. I knew I wanted some kind of electric vehicle, but at the time, I was still leery of going all electric. The only all-electric vehicles available in our region at that time were the Tesla Model S (way beyond my price range) and the Nissan Leaf (its then 80-mile battery out of my comfort range).
 The Volt plug-in hybrid seemed like a great compromise with a 40-mile battery range and a gas backup engine. It proved to be a great choice. With my 20-mile daily commute, I was able to drive completely on electricity for nearly all my travel needs. If I wanted to head out of town, it was not a problem – just hop in my car and go. I never had to worry about finding a charging station. Once the battery ran out, the gas generator would kick in and I could drive it like any normal combustion-engine car. When I returned home, I simply plugged it into the charger i...

Range anxiety is not something I experienced until today. It was our first long trip with our new Bolt (and no backup gas engine). We would need to plan this out. We decided to travel from Minneapolis to Duluth – a 150-mile trip from our house. We knew there was a new DC fast charger along the Canal Park in Duluth, so the plan was to drive up there, recharge the car for a few hours while we ate lunch and visited some of the shops, then drive back. While we knew our 200+ mile range battery should get us up there just fine, we were still a little paranoid. What if the only fast charger in Duluth wasn’t working, or what if a gasoline vehicle was parked in the spot so that we couldn’t access it? (Sadly, this happens quite a lot at charging stations, but more on that topic later). Our backup plan was that we would be resigned to using a Level 2 charger (there were several of those), which would mean spending an extra 4-5 hours in Duluth. Not a bad proposition on a lovely summer day. Anot...