2023 Chevy Bolt

[englishteacheralex]

We always charge our Nissan Leaf at home, but two nights ago I forgot to plug it in and had to find a place to charge it while I was at work. What a nightmare. For the first time in the year we've owned the Leaf, I was cursing our decision to buy an EV. The infrastructure is definitely not there yet. Renting an EV would be a disaster. At this point they only seem like a viable option if you have the ability to charge at home.

[K_in_the_kitchen]

We always charge our Nissan Leaf at home, but two nights ago I forgot to plug it in and had to find a place to charge it while I was at work. What a nightmare. For the first time in the year we've owned the Leaf, I was cursing our decision to buy an EV. The infrastructure is definitely not there yet. Renting an EV would be a disaster. At this point they only seem like a viable option if you have the ability to charge at home.

We’ve had our Nissan Leaf for 14 months now, and we have only ever charged it at DH’s workplace because it’s only 15¢ per KwH, which is far cheaper than our second tier electricity rate.  We haven’t even put in a charger at home yet (that’s part of a future plan to install a solar electric system, battery storage, and a panel upgrade).  But it isn’t our only car, so we only drive it if we know we can make the round trip without charging.  Eventually the home charger is going to have to be a must have, and from your experience, we’d better make sure we are charging at home nightly, as CHAdeMo is likely to be phased out at some point.

[BuffaloStache]

I agree and echoing all others on this topic.

I've gotten a Tesla Model 3 and a Chevy Bolt EUV as rental cars for business trips before, but both were very quick (~2 days) trips where I didn't need to charge for the entire duration of the trip, and both were in Southern California. Hertz (my company's preferred rental company) charged $35 for "battery charging" on lieu of paying for gas, and would charge it to anyone who brought back an EV under ~80% SOC. I'm lucky that my company's policy is such that they just paid that charge, and so it really was super convenient and worked for me. However, I do think it's important to note that the Model3 did not come with a Level1 charger included, but the Bolt EUV rental car did come with Chevy's Level 1/2 combined EVSE Charging cable in the sub-floor of the trunk. So if I was at any standard house while on my trip, I could have plugged into a standard electrical outlet for slow/trickle charging.

I understand that both of my expriences are extremely limited use cases, and my own attempts to use supercharging networks with my Bolt EUV have not all been great (evGO, a ChargePoint, and Electrify America). But I continue to believe that the Bolt/Bolt EUV remain the best value EVs if you have the opportunity to charge at home or at work, and your commute is well within the range of those vehicles.

[BuffaloStache]

Just reporting in to say that yesterday was my 1 year anniversary of owning my 2023 Bolt EUV. Just over 15k miles of fun driving and still enjoy the car as much as the day I got it!

I haven't noticed any significant battery degradation yet, but I'm not blind enough to think that it'll never come. My lifetime efficiency is currently sitting around 4.4 mi/kWh.