Does Everyone Need A Fast Charging EV? 2022 Bolt EUV 0-100% DC Fast Charge Test

Today we are talking all about the chevrolet bolt euv and how it charges its charging curve, and i think the important thing to discuss here is this is really the only weak link of what otherwise is a pretty good car. I really like the bolt euv um, especially for its price point, with the new, updated pricing and uh. I really dont think you can go wrong with going with one as long as you dont have to take long road, trips and thats. What this video is about were talking about. Do you even need fast charging for a lot of use cases and then im gon na show you how well or how poorly the chevrolet bolt euv charges from zero to one hundred percent, which is something youre never going to do in the real world? But this way we can log the entire curve. You join me at wide open throttle in the bolt it says: low battery does 29 miles an hour. However, it says two miles of range remaining and this ones gone all the way out. So i dont know we kind of drove it hard down low to drain the battery bms might be up, but basically im not taking my foot from full throttle. We are making it to this charging station and its only doing four kilowatts so lets test. The handling of the bolt euv as we come through here it says one pedal driving out of energy charge vehicle now.

Zero miles range remaining im literally to the floor, were gon na make it to this charging station. I swear we will we got this guy right over there? Okay, sorry, for coming through, like a crazy person, but we literally have no energy. It will not output any power so have to skid through the parking lot and were gon na. Oh, we are just gon na im, literally floored, and the things dead, all right, which charger is going to work, which charger is going to work. This one says available on that side, so ill just pull up a little janky. Will it even back up at all? Should we even try no thats floored its dead thats, what i call a zero to 100 charging test, its out of energy. Do fast charging evs, even matter im, going to let the bolt euvs charging curve play along. In the background, you can certainly stop and look at it throughout any time you want, but the thing is, i recorded a zero to 100 dc fast charging session on this car. Also, i think its funny how the first plug in didnt work. It was the only available ccs plug at the entire electrify america station in loveland colorado at the time, and so i was like. Oh no. If this one doesnt work, it was literally the one out of eight plugs. It was the only one listed as available, and i was like. Oh were screwed because i pulled in at wide open throttle on this thing.

Uh completely dead on the battery pack. To do you know a full dead to full curve and um. It also had some bms calibration issues. I dont think this car has ever been drained that much because it went from like two percent, then one zero and its like good luck. Getting there thats on me, i should have calibrated the bms beforehand. Maybe ill make another video on that before or in the future. I should say, but anyway after we made that you know what the heck is going on with charging infrastructure in america, video that went live last week, where you know we discussed some of the challenges of dc fast charging. All the charging companies started to call – and you know their excuse here – this excuse there and yeah at the end of the day, its just like okay, but now our station in loveland is working. Surprise, surprise. So now we got more plugs up and running at that station. The next day they actually started coming online. So pretty interesting to see. Okay lets talk, do you even need fast charging and the context of this is the bolt euv. The bolt duv has a roughly 65 kilowatt hour battery pack, almost all of its usable. You can set your charge limit, i think, from 40 to 100 in five percent increments, which is great um and heres. The thing the bolt euv went from being a not so highly recommended vehicle because they didnt have the tax credit and a few other things too.

Now, with the new pricing starting under 30, 000 u.s, at least for when this video was made, its a high recommend for a very certain type of person and thats, where we bring up this question, which is, do you even need fast charging? And the answer here is for many people. No many people do not need fast charging. Some stats on this particular car. Just to put it in context. It took 45 minutes to get from zero to 50 percent in the bolt euv. Now my friend tom also did a charging test of the bolt duv. I think he started a little bit higher state of charge still at zero, but not totally drained, and he got 40 minutes zero to 50 and he had a couple kilowatt higher peak than we saw here. You know were, were you know going at the you know? Picking at straws, basically but uh, we saw a peak of i think 52 or 53 kilowatts and he got the full. I think 54 or 55. nears makes no difference. In my opinion and um. You know 45 minutes to 50. The porsche ticon, which is a larger battery pack, went from zero to 50 percent in 10 minutes flat, and so that is the difference were talking about here. This car from 50 to 100 percent takes an additional almost hour and a half, maybe even a little bit more to go from 50 to 100 percent, whereas the the ticon can go zero to 100 percent in uh under an hour so um.

You know this is just putting it in context for everyone. I understand different cars, different price categories, but many people dont need the fast charging of uh porsche tycon or a lucid air or a tesla model 3 or model s. They just need the good range to get to their office, maybe on a long commute and home charging, and this bolt has good range. Weve done a 70 mile per hour. Highway range test of it and it has really good single charge range. It also is extremely comfortable and it doesnt look so bad its not a weird car. Its got a great sound system when you option the bose with the sunroof. Somehow those are connected – the sun and sound package and its like a really nice car, but then the blatant oversight here is just the charging peak of 55 kilowatts. Now i once when i reviewed this car for the first time was over a year ago, and i was talking to one of the gm engineers and he was so excited to tell me all the changes they made because they also refreshed the bolt regular hatchback at The same time and hes like we added a washer level sensor here, and we did this little thing here and im like, but what about the charging and hes like? Oh wish, you didnt bring that up im like yeah. I know but youre its me so yeah. My understanding is its actually the cabling from the dc connection input to the high voltage battery pack.

That is the main limiting factor for high charging current, and i think it only does about 125 amps. Maybe it does 150 amps. I dont actually know i havent done the math, but its somewhere around there really low input, power and um. You know. Basically, i asked him like why didnt you just change the cabling and hes like well, we wanted to, but i couldnt remember the exact reason it was. I wish i knew it i did know at the time i was accounting or something you had to re engineered. This but it was like its not a major technical problem to overcome the slow charging of the bolt, but chevrolet chose not to do it for whatever engineering or budgeting reason they had and for many people it doesnt actually matter. I have. We have bolt owners in the audience who will be watching this video. That theyll be saying i drove my 2017 bolt across the country and it was totally fine. It wasnt an issue its like okay. Yes, you can go across the country in your bolt without major issues. I agree, but youre going to be spending rather than 10 or 12 minutes at a charging station 40 minutes to an hour per charging station. And so, if you have the time, then who cares? Go for it thats fine! You can save a lot of money on the upfront purchase cost if most of your charging is done at home, youre totally fine and you know so thats thats option a this car has a high recommend if you dont need to do a lot of long trips Or you need to do the occasional trip where you dont mind, sitting at a charger for a long period of time which youre looking at now.

In the background, its just chugging along, you know, im sure under 30 kilowatts or around there, which would just drive me insane. Then comes the other flip side of this, which is its 2022. You have a really good car, its very nicely engineered from a drivetrain perspective. Its its like a really solid package, the bolt, in my opinion, yes, i know they were catching on fire – that problems been solved, theyre, replacing the battery packs in the early ones um. You know that. Never really bothered me too much, which is why i never went big into that coverage. Im just like yeah its an issue. Theyll fix it. They did. They replaced the batteries and youre good to go um, but the thing is its 2022 were coming up on 2023 model year. Cars now and you know, even the cheapest id4 will still charge at 130 kilowatts with the mid battery pack. I think i tested that battery pack here in europe at 137 kilowatts and this bolt, which is only a couple thousand dollars less, is you know right in there at basically less than half, and so is that acceptable and my personal feeling is no, i think its. The big and only major oversight on this entire vehicle, however, for many people like i mentioned just doesnt matter so there you have it also by the way, if youre a bolt owner – and you do, plan to use charging quite often and youre going to be going To these charging stations and juicing up and all this stuff like really, this is the problem.

We have a charging station throughput issue, and so, if you do plan to road trip a lot and you care about the greater good of the e mobility industry, its better to drive a faster charging ev because you can get in and out of the charger faster. Maybe youre not in a rush, but the person waiting in line behind you might be in a rush. This is becoming more and more common, of course, so there you have it the baltius charging curve. I wont even plot it out or do anything basically 45 minutes to 50. I want to say two hours, 10 minutes to full, plus or minus something like that. It delivered a little bit more energy than whats in the battery pack uh. You know full to dead thats, mostly because theres losses with dc fast charging any kind of charging, of course, but the higher the power level, the more losses. So there werent too many losses in this particular test. Again, the car went from fully shut off dead to completed at 100 and um yeah, basically poof. This is not a vehicle. I would want a road trip in for too long, but again, if you keep it between lets, just say five and 55 percent on a road trip, its not the end of the world. I actually think itd be kind of fun to drive one across the country and just prove that its doable. We know this, but i think itd be fun to make a video im sure theres other youtube channels who have done this um.

So there you go bolt the uvs charging, the only downside of the car, otherwise great car high recommend uh. If you dont need to do a lot of dc fast charging, do you even need fast charging for many people? No, i do like that. You can at least still charge it at 55 – kilowatts, if needed in a pinch thanks for watching another out of spec reviews video, i promise we have much faster charging cars coming to the channel more interesting coverage and i think theres one more video to come after This on the bolt euv, which is the super cruise test, which i have not seen yet jordan – did that test, but im really looking forward to seeing how it did in the hog back driver assistance challenge thanks.