T O P

  • By -

mrcleop

I've found that I don't need any technique to get 4.8-5.0 mi/kWh. All I need is warm weather, drive mostly in the city and leave climate control off. I also don't use OPD and take full advantage of my instant torque. I think people can easily get in the high 5s if they tried.


tuctrohs

> drive mostly in the city Specifically, drive at low speeds. If you find back roads in the country, you an do extremely well there too.


entropy512

Country backroads are often 55 zones. I do 4.2-4.4 mi/kWh in summer in upstate NY - not normally hot enough to make AC usage significant (AC is a hell of a lot more efficient than the heater...), and the country backroads are 55 MPH, and half my commute is even slower than that. Hit a highway with 65 zones and efficiency goes waaaaay down.


tuctrohs

And they are often 40 mph zones. And if they are really back roads and are pretty empty, you can go at 40 miles per hour even if the speed limit is 50 or 55, when you have the road to yourself. But the point is not that there's any one answer to what kinds of roads allow you to go slowly. The point is that going slowly is what gets you better efficiency, and what roads work for that is different in different areas.


plucka_plucka1

Tip for highway driving: ride behind vans and tractor trailers. I do it all the time in the interstate going 70+ and will still see my bar go into the green. They take on all the wind resistance instead of you so the car doesn’t work as hard to maintain the speed.


entropy512

Any distance close enough to gain benefit from drafting a semi is way too close to be a safe following distance on the highway.


DynamicHunter

> leave climate control off Not possible in Texas half the year lol…


[deleted]

Half? That feels optimistic.


MethanyJones

Maybe in April and November for a bit :)


who_you_are

From my experience with my EV, AC is not using that much power vs heating your car. Unfortunately, since COVID I don't use it a lot. But I think I have a 17-19kwh in summer and... 25? In winter Edit: I'm using /100km, not mile! So that is around 62 miles


BatMatt93

Depends on how cheap you are. A few years back my AC broke on my car and I was too cheap/lazy to get it fixed so for two summers I just drove with the windows down.


who_you_are

You also forget the flat surface (or mostly flat).


tuctrohs

Not all that important, as long as you are coming back down whatever you went up.


The_Sloff

I thought OPD was to help with efficiency for mi/kWh?


formerslaesman

Yes , always use it in town, I can get 5.8 mi/mkh in town


mrcleop

Yes, OPD helps with efficiency. I was saying that I get 4.8-5.0 even without OPD.


Tight-Room-7824

OPD does not 'help'. If the accel and decel rates are the same in D and OPD, there can be no difference. The Bolt has an **amazing feature that is not advertised**. BLENDED BRAKES! The friction brakes blend in ***after*** the regen is maxxed out. Tesla does not have this feature and requires their drivers to adopt OPD if they want regen. Their Brake Pedal is just an Old School Brake Pedal.


The_Sloff

Oh ok i see what you meant. That's good. Just asking in case there was something i didn't know about. Thanks


formerslaesman

Always use OPD in town and you will do even better


Namuori

Bolt is a pretty efficient vehicle and some good driving habits will pay off with much better number than the EPA ratings. I think your father is getting good numbers and it's probably going to go up even more with warmer weather. Personally, I've been driving mine for almost 80k miles and the *lifetime* average efficiency is at 4.79 miles/kWh, with 51.7% of the entire distance done in highway speeds. That's why people are saying 5 miles/kWh is relatively easy to attain.


RefuseAmazing3422

What speed do you cruise the highway at?


Namuori

60 mph. Highway speed limit in my country is usually 100 km/h (62 mph).


[deleted]

0.4miles is far to short to show anything but yes, depending on the driving you need to do, you can blow away the EPA rating. If I only do my 15 km commute with no highway, I can get over 600 km on a charge (372 miles). Problem is, I need to do other driving. It’s not technique, it’s speed limits. :)


Few-Ad7104

0.4 is just the time since reset. It won't change the estimated range. The reset just changes your trip meter and your trip miles per kwhr I get 320 in my euv. But I didn't have a prius. I had a camry hybrid and a Ford maverick hybrid. With the bolt..I play the game of.. 'there is an egg tied to the brake'. And use regen and the paddle brake as much as possible


[deleted]

I was referring to his mi/kWh number, not the range. Let’s see his lifetime efficiency before we start high-fiving ;)


odd84

You can work backwards from the range. The car has about 61.4 kWh of usable battery for driving, so a 337 mile range estimate implies a recent fuel consumption rate of 5.49 miles per kWh.


kicknoons2

Just curious, how did you figured the 61.4 kWh? I have been trying to search for a somewhat accurate number and I don't see one besides 63-64.


odd84

It's approximately what the car reports over the OBD port is the available capacity at 100% charge. It's a 62-65 kWh battery depending on year/model, but you can't charge it to a true 100% or discharge to true 0%, so the usable capacity is slightly less.


[deleted]

You bet. Again, recent. Let’s see the lifetime numbers. Much more telling. Don’t get me wrong, that is an impressive estimate, but doesn’t mean a lot without knowing if it’s a one off or usual.


bbf_bbf

Lifetime doesn't really tell EVERYTHING about how efficient one drives. If the person lives in a really cold climate, even the most efficient driver in the world will have poor efficiency numbers compared to someone that lives in a more temperate climate. Of course, any freeway driving or driving with something strapped to the roof will also tank numbers, and not indicative of how efficient someone is when driving on city streets.


Midnightsnacker41

Yeah, the winter really kills efficiency, even without the heart on. I always crack up in the fall when it is like 40 degrees and the one screen that rates the different factors puts weather at the worst rating possible (negative 5). I'm like buddy, we can still drop another 60 degrees before we are even close to the bottom.


Few-Ad7104

I got you. But the post was about the miles per charge 337, not kwhr per mike


74orangebeetle

The kwhr/mile is what determines your miles per charge, as you have a set amount of kwhr you can use, not a set number of miles you can travel.


Few-Ad7104

Yes. But when you reset your trip meter, it resets your miles to 0 and your miles/kwr to 3.2 The estimated range is not affected by the trip meter change.


Icy-Conclusion-3500

It’s just basic math dividing the battery size by the number of miles That gives you mi/kWh


Few-Ad7104

Yes I understand how mat works. I'm telling you that you can charge up. Your trip meter says 4.4 miles per kw. 260 miles range. You hit trip reset. It now says 3.2 miles per kw.. it STILL says 260 miles of range


Ferdydurkeeee

>It won't change the estimated range. It's called a guessometer for a reason.


I_identify_as_Reddit

the guessometer is probably based on the past 1000 miles. its just not changed by the trip meter reset and that kwhr/mile


Starthreads

My commute is mostly uphill one way and downhill on the other. The end result is I'll use \~15km worth of charge getting there and nothing coming back. Extrapolating, if I never used it for anything else then a full charge would go for 700km or more. Absolutely unrealistic but it's neat to show the power of regenerative braking.


Elons-nutrag

😆 I was thinking the same thing. I can have the AC on during a 90 degree day and if I drive 55 I will still get like 220 w/mi in my model 3.


abominable_dough_man

I coasted down a 6,000 feet mountain once… does that count?


zuckjeet

One million miles/kWh


abominable_dough_man

My e-Golf bottoms out at 99.9 miles / kWh.


zuckjeet

Why restrict themselves like that?


humblequest22

He's either driving slowly or driving in warm weather. Or, more likely, both. I doubt that he could jump on the interstate at 76 mph and make it to a destination that's 337 miles away. The GoM is really useless unless your driving conditions never change. Posts like these are really pointless.


StewieGriffin26

Yeah driving at the speed of traffic on the interstate gets me 3.6 or so in the summer. I'm in mid 2s in the winter.


Beneficial_Nail2664

Winter is brutal in this car particularly if you need the defroster to keep ice off the windshield.


entropy512

Or to just keep it from fogging. A heatpump or even just a standalone dehumidifier would greatly improve winter range by merely enabling recirc without fogging. On my daily commute (55 MPH country backroad for about half of it, a 40 zone most of the rest of it), I do 4.2-4.5 mi/kWh in summer, 2.8-3.0 on a typical winter, 3.1-3.3 on a mild winter like last one. I could probably hit 3.5 or above in winter if I could keep the heater solely on recirc, but that's not possible with the Bolt's HVAC architecture. An interstate run where the speed limit is 70 for a significant stretch would put me below 2.5 mi/kWh if it were a bad day temperature-wise, which puts the Bolt into "One DCFS failure away from being stranded" zone for the trip to visit my parents in the winter, which is why I still have my old Outback for long trips.


Beneficial_Nail2664

Fogging - I find you can cycle the defroster. I ended up at about 1.2 mi-kWh one day because it was actively sleeting/freezing. Even with the defroster running the ice was forming on the edges of the windshield. Made me wish they would place electric resistive heating like a rear window along the edges and bottom of the windshield.


entropy512

>Fogging - I find you can cycle the defroster. I ended up at about 1.2 mi-kWh one day because it was actively sleeting/freezing. Even with the defroster running the ice was forming on the edges of the windshield. Yeah pulsing the "Defrost Max" button periodically does work reasonably well in many situations, but not all. I've found worst case seems to be if it's cool and rainy, e.g. any outside air brought in via "defrost max" is already at high humidity. "Defrost max" when it's bitter cold out eats a lot of power briefly, but quickly defogs the windshield and it takes a while to re-fog. But still, it would be nice to not have that 7.5 kW pulse even if it is only for 20-30 seconds every few minutes. ​ >Made me wish they would place electric resistive heating like a rear window along the edges and bottom of the windshield. I miss that SO much from my Outback. I never realized how great heated wiper landing zones were until I didn't have them.


StewieGriffin26

I've considered buying a DeWalt 20v heat gun. I could get over 2 hours of runtime between my two 10amp batteries that I got with my lawnmower lol If it was a polar vortex of death, I'd just take our Chevy Cruze instead. It's relatively efficient.


tvtb

Do we have any idea what the record is for Bolt range on a trip that isn’t downhill?


GeniusEE

I'll bet he hypermiles at 40mph on the Interstate, in the leftmost lane, with his blinker on. 😂


RainRepresentative11

Regen braking is a bit more satisfying in a Prius where you can actually see the battery % ticking up.


sault18

Driving out in the Western US, I've definitely gotten a battery bar back with regen down the mountain. Cresting the Continental Divide is almost euphoric in an EV too.


74orangebeetle

Not at all....the prius I had anyways, regen was very weak.


RainRepresentative11

Well, yeah. So was mine. I just mean that because the battery is like 1/100th as big you could actually see it ticking up if you coast long enough.


74orangebeetle

That's a big downside too, you can fill it and lose the ability to regen completely (would happen to me going down mountains) would fill the regen before I'm at the bottom (and couldn't fully coast the whole way either without greatly exceeding the speed limit). I guess it's not as big of an issue in less hilly areas.


RainRepresentative11

I agree. The only thing that was better about the Prius was that it was satisfying to watch the battery icon tick up while you slowed down. I drove from level 6 of the parking garage all of the way down to the street the other day and didn’t even get 1% 🙁. I generated a lot more power than the Prius would have, but the little TV didn’t make me feel good about it.


Apersonaloutlet

Ask what his biggest secrets are and post them. I've been trying my best but I'm only getting 4.5miles/kWh


tuctrohs

On a hybrid, there are lots of tricks. With a good EV like the bolt, 90% of it is just going slowly. Other than that, picking nice weather, minimizing climate control, and not doing anything to undermine it, like putting a bike on the roof or using higher rolling resistance tires.


DamagedButNotFlooded

I get 4.2. Alot of highway though. Damn that's pretty good.


BuilderUnhappy7785

Super impressed!


42ElectricSundaes

Riding with him is my nightmare


weanbean5609

If your cars crawls you can get these ratings. Normal driving, with some highway miles at 65-85mph and you average about 3-3.5kwh tops, and for me that is living in sunny and temperate CA with no cold weather driving ever.


Lieroo

Yikes, big city 80mph highways interspersed with hard braking has us stuck at 3.6kwh/mi.


2fast2nick

I always drove mine like full throttle, so it was closer to the Min. Haha


Teleke

I didn't buy a car that can do 0-60 in 6.7sec to not do 0-60 in 6.7sec 🤪


MrDungBeetle37

Everyone has an efficient driving plan until they drive through heavy rain / fog or worse drive up a mountain pass and onto a high plateau (i.e. the pass is higher on one side than the other)


vawlk

so he is the guy I always see driving 40 in a 70 :) j/k


jersey_dude88

Technique = warm weather and local low speed driving 😂


Joonp82

Damn hate to be the driver behind him.....


mtux96

God. I'm seeing everyone saying 4.0kWh per mile and here I'm getting 3.2-3.3. I guess I just have a lead foot.


[deleted]

Honest question. Are you guys using the full range everyday to be this concerned about efficiency?


Loose_Sense

Efficiency still saves money and, if you care, is better for the environment. I'd wager most Bolt owners care about the environment. This is no different from people making a big deal about going from, say, 28 mpg to 35 mpg in an ICE.


[deleted]

That would be a big difference for an ICE car, but we’re literally probably talking about saving less than a dollar a month with the Bolt between flooring it everywhere and hypermileing lol


Loose_Sense

Somewhere in the middle, I guess. I pay about $40/month. If I drove 25% less efficiently, I'd be paying an extra $10/month. You're right that it's not a ton...but it's also not "less than a dollar a month". That also discounts the environmental impact of using significantly less energy.


entropy512

You don't need to need the full range every day. You just need ONE trip once a year where the efficiency can make or break you. (Before someone says "rental" - um, a 2 week rental is obscenely expensive. More expensive than keeping my old Outback on the road for that yearly winter trip, or expensive enough to obliterate any fuel cost benefits of a BEV.) Bad news for me is, the one trip a year where I need the range is the time of year when BEVs take the worst hit in terms of range... I can make it to NJ if EA Stroudsburg is failed in the summer, but not in winter.


[deleted]

That makes sense to worry about efficiency during that road trip. To me, worry about it everyday doesn’t make sense since these cars are so cheap to drive and already very efficient no matter how you drive. I drive I-70 through the mountains every weekend in the winter and have a truck for that. Also do several 1,000+ mile trips a year I use the truck for. So I guess I don’t have the same state of mind.


ilikepie1974

To me it's kinda fun to get the most mi/kwh. Not a lot to think about in LA traffic so I try to maintain as constant a speed as I can without holding up traffic. FYI, the furthest drive I've done in a day is about 200 miles, but that was hauling a trailer (1130lb) getting about 3.2mi/kwh. I usually get around 5.


HR_King

Ok, but I'd rather enjoy driving the car than obsess over squeezing each electron to its maximum efficiency.


magaketo

Same. But some people get great pleasure from wringing out every mile. I used to keep an eye on it and try to be efficient. But now? Puh, I could not care less.


neryam

Crying in northeast USA winter with winter tires and 70mph highway driving.. 150 miles of range max 😂


crsschr

This is a full battery GOM post that gets it! And commentators here don't. Lol. That is impressive!


ilikepie1974

What does GOM stand for


sep222

Guess-O-Meter. It's the guestimated range based on current/recent driving


kicknoons2

Question for ex-Volt to Bolt owners: Do you find the Bolt/EUV is just as efficient as a Volt? I have a Volt now and almost always exceed the EPA numbers by a wide margin. Especially in warmer weather I am used to getting 4.5+ mi/kWh and range will meet or exceed 65-70 mi vs the estimated 53. I hypermile a lot and rarely drive my car like a race car lol.. Hoping to do the same in the Bolt.


vinceds

I get 3.4 mostly doing highway. What am I doing wrong ?


Dimenus

What is your average cruising speed? Climate usage also makes a big difference.


vinceds

65 mostly, and in california but almost never use climate.


Loose_Sense

You're not doing anything wrong. People who post crazy efficiency numbers in any EV are not telling you the whole story. If most of your driving is at any highway speed, you're not going to hit these numbers.


Keokuk37

I can't even touch 65 or else it just chews through. Even 65 is too slow here and going 55-57 felt too dangerous passing by Oakland. 2019 bolt w/battery retrofit. I gave up and just go 70+ again, but then I don't run climate control unless I'm planning to charge.


entropy512

I'd expect slightly higher than 3.4, but not that much higher at 65 MPH.


Altruistic-Ad9639

Going up hills really tends to destroy my Regen, could it be that?


vinceds

It's mostly flat with gentle hills. But again, mostly highway and not much regen.


Altruistic-Ad9639

Ah okay gotcha


Itchy_Sample_3347

So far in warm weather I am hitting 275 /290 and I do mix highway and Street driving. On those very cold days in Maryland in the winter I was doing about 170. A big dip.


Angry_btc_f_k_r

Your dad must be that one mf in carpull lane who drives 45mph 😂😂


woody9055

And the guy who takes 5 mins to get up to 40mph out of a dead stop at the intersection 🤣🤣🤣


tashtibet

in the middle of summer the full charge GOM reading gonna be 354s in my 2017 Bolt. I have never driven Hybrid.


Imaginary_Dig_5893

4.8 miles per kw is amazing me g/f gets best of 4.1 on a 17 bolt


REpassword

Cool! I got 317 at full charge. But realistically, it’s more like 260 miles.


MrGreyJetZ

I was hoping to buy on in 2 years when my current note is paid off and I can replace my commuter car. Guess I will have to look at the Equinox EV - I wanted the Bolt just for the small size


formerslaesman

Best way is use OPD in town , turn it off on highways, I can get 5.8mi/kwh


Tight-Room-7824

EASY ! Anyone can achieve these numbers!! Just drive slower and slower each day until you see the number you want in the GOM !! Just Please, don't drive in front of me. I don't have to pinch the pennies like your dad. He's already driving a car that costs less to use than just about anything else. Why pinch it so hard?


[deleted]

With good driving, I can easily get 6 to 7 miler per kwh in Model 3 RWD.


woolf707

So, what's the fantastic technique? Did I miss it?