Maybe on some road trips, but many EV drivers do most of their charging at home (try that with a gas car) and say it takes "seconds to refuel / recharge" since you just plug it in and walk away. But I expect most people on this forum already know all that. Just reminding that there is a good rebuttal to that concern that gas car drivers can bring up.
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Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)
- Thread starter FredTMC
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Maybe on some road trips, but many EV drivers do most of their charging at home (try that with a gas car) and say it takes "seconds to refuel / recharge" since you just plug it in and walk away. But I expect most people on this forum already know all that. Just reminding that there is a good rebuttal to that concern that gas car drivers can bring up.
Both you and McRat missed the point of scaesare's search. It wasn't to look specifically for seat issues, it's to find what people talk about when you mention their seats.
Google's page rank prioritizes the number of references as well as frequency of clicks. So people just aren't looking for honda fit seat issues as often as Bolt ones. I make no judgement on the bolt seats, since I haven't sat in one, but I did sit in a honda fit, and I thought those seats weren't very comfortable.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I saw it. Can you say with any confidence that the groups are similar ? A Google search has about the same utility as a survey.
ymmv
mtndrew1
Active Member
Yes, searching for seat problems with any car will turn up people who find the seats in nearly every model uncomfortable. Searching for seats alone will turn up people aching in the Bolt.
The seats in my Kia are kind of mediocre at best (to me) but man they felt like a million bucks after getting out of the Bolt's torture devices. The Bolt's seats are in fact a new design where plastic sheeting is suspended between two mounting points and are, by design, unusually thin and narrow. The results speak for themselves.
In any event I've learned from McRat that everything GM touches is magic and highly engineered. It's not like they'd highly engineer themselves into bankruptcy or anything.
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SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
As someone who very much appreciates the convenience and coolness factor of home EV charging, I'll point out that the convenience argument for EVs is fairly weak because people tend to value their time on long car trips much higher than everyday, and routine fill-ups of an ICE are mostly at a person's discretion when they choose, which is much less the case on trips.
In short, it is an apples to oranges comparison.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
That's only because those same people don't realize how much time they typically spend per stop. Nor do they understand just how much more convenient it is to charge at home, as they've never experienced it.
It's really just a matter of ignorance.
If you search for a negative phrase of course you'll get results for that. You probably don't want me to base my opinion of GM on the search results of "GM crap cars".
My point is to do a neutral search for the subject in question, and then tally up the number of negative versus neutral or positive hits. That gives you an idea of general publicly posted sentiment on the matter.
I think gas station convenience would depend on where you live, what time of year it is and whether you're doing the pumping.
Around here, gas stations are rarely busy. Sometimes more cars in and out for the convenience store than the pumps.
A lot of people will spend much more time waiting in the Dunkin' Donuts drive-through line than filling up at a gas station. I'm not really surprised that they don't find it inconvenient.
PS I must remember to time my next fill-up just to see how long it takes.
I think a lot of people also don't factor in how much extra time (and fuel) they use to drive out of their way to get to the gasoline station.
Some people don't have a gas station conveniently in their normal driving path.
mtndrew1
Active Member
I do see some validity to the Bolt design with your example. In my Volts and in my Soul EV I went/go straight from P to L ("B" in Kia parlance) and leave it there. If one were going back and forth frequently between L and D the Bolt's shifter is uniquely adept at that with a flick of the wrist.
That said, the same functionality could be accomplished with a PRND design where once it's in D you bump it backwards to pop between D and L and this would eliminate the goofy Reverse contortions.
Again, not a deal-breaker, but I don't see how the Bolt's shifter adds anything to the design of the car. I guess could get used to it but it's not a design I would seek out as a selling point.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Maybe, but I think it is very rare that there is an effort for a recall campaign on seats as soon as the car is released. Also there is a dedicated page to seat comfort on the Bolt, on the EV wiki (you can see the other EV pages and they don't). So this appears to be beyond just your typical variation in opinion on seats.
Chevy Bolt seat and seat frame discomfort - Electric Vehicle Wiki
Objectively the Bolt's seats are unusual in that they are much thinner than typical seats, so there is a rational explanation for such complaints.
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The seats in the BMW i3 look similarly thin and maybe felt somewhat wider and a little less firm. I'm not sure how the i3 seats are constructed.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
A GM recall would be flavored by politics and marketing, and a wiki is hardly an objective measure.
I'm not voicing an opinion about Bolt seats, I'm just suggesting that social media not be turned into a pseudo-science.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
I was more talking about when taking a trip. For instance, when we're (wife and kids) traveling the stop ends up taking at least 25 minutes if we're getting gas, using the restroom, etc....and this doesn't include the times when we allow the kids to take a walk just to get out some energy.
It obviously takes more time to recharge from an SC than people typically take stopping for gas...but we're talking 20 extra minutes or so.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
If true, it is because it does not bother them -- unlike the case when they are taking a long car drive
I'm not necessarily a GM hater, every car I've owned before my current one was a GM product. When I started car shopping, I did look away from GM because their recent designs aren't great IMO. I looked at the LaCrosse, but it only has 13 cf of trunk space. My old Buick had over 20.
My SO's shares a law practice with someone who has a Silverado pickup and we needed to borrow it a few weeks ago. I drove it home from their house and my SO's ex drove it the next day. On the way home I thought I had just been spoiled by my Tesla, but I found I could not trust the pickup even after I got up to speed on how it ran. However, my SO's ex who drives a Ford pickup owned by a friend a few times a year thought the Silverado was the squirrliest pickup he's ever driven. He felt he had to constantly watch what the truck was doing and anticipate what it might do next whereas with other vehicles, once he gets a basic feel, he can relax a little on the highway.
The Bolt has some nice features. My SO's biggest criticism of my Model S is it's a "moose". She drives an Impreza hatchback now and used to drive a 1st gen Outback. She found the Bolt smaller than her Impreza, but in overall usable space it's about the same. It had decent leg room for me, which is rare in a smaller car, but the lack of power seats would be a deal killer for me. I've found on long trips I get horrible sciatic pains if I can't adjust the seat right and manual seats just don't have the positions that help.
I consider Tesla's charging setup and infrastructure vastly superior, but if I had to, I could make it work with the Bolt. CCS charging infrastructure will probably improve over the next few years, who knows if it will ever approach the convenience of superchargers. Tesla set a very high bar there IMO.
Sitting in the seats, they felt convex to me. Normal car seats are somewhat concave, they kind of hug your body in one way or another. Sitting in the Bolt's seats was like straddling a padded log. I could tolerate it for short trips, but I think it would become very uncomfortable over a long trip.
The Bolt does have better head room than the Model S, but it isn't a problem for me in the S because all my height is in my legs. My SO is average height for a woman and she has no issues either. The lack of handholds in the S does make getting out tough for our friend with fibermialgia. The Bolt is a little higher off the ground and has handholds so I think someone with mobility issues would probably find getting in and out easier.
The higher regen braking and the paddle shifters to adjust regen on the fly are positive features of the Bolt. I have seen some people complain about the camera mirror and the model we looked at didn't have it, so I'll reserve judgement on that feature. It is an option that can be turned off in any case.
In conclusion, I think the Bolt is OK and has some unique features, but on the whole, Tesla does it better. The Bolt is the first sub-$50K production car to get more than 200 miles on a charge, but it still isn't the first mass produced sub-$50K EV to get more than 200 miles on a charge. That hasn't been done yet.
My SO's shares a law practice with someone who has a Silverado pickup and we needed to borrow it a few weeks ago. I drove it home from their house and my SO's ex drove it the next day. On the way home I thought I had just been spoiled by my Tesla, but I found I could not trust the pickup even after I got up to speed on how it ran. However, my SO's ex who drives a Ford pickup owned by a friend a few times a year thought the Silverado was the squirrliest pickup he's ever driven. He felt he had to constantly watch what the truck was doing and anticipate what it might do next whereas with other vehicles, once he gets a basic feel, he can relax a little on the highway.
The Bolt has some nice features. My SO's biggest criticism of my Model S is it's a "moose". She drives an Impreza hatchback now and used to drive a 1st gen Outback. She found the Bolt smaller than her Impreza, but in overall usable space it's about the same. It had decent leg room for me, which is rare in a smaller car, but the lack of power seats would be a deal killer for me. I've found on long trips I get horrible sciatic pains if I can't adjust the seat right and manual seats just don't have the positions that help.
I consider Tesla's charging setup and infrastructure vastly superior, but if I had to, I could make it work with the Bolt. CCS charging infrastructure will probably improve over the next few years, who knows if it will ever approach the convenience of superchargers. Tesla set a very high bar there IMO.
Sitting in the seats, they felt convex to me. Normal car seats are somewhat concave, they kind of hug your body in one way or another. Sitting in the Bolt's seats was like straddling a padded log. I could tolerate it for short trips, but I think it would become very uncomfortable over a long trip.
The Bolt does have better head room than the Model S, but it isn't a problem for me in the S because all my height is in my legs. My SO is average height for a woman and she has no issues either. The lack of handholds in the S does make getting out tough for our friend with fibermialgia. The Bolt is a little higher off the ground and has handholds so I think someone with mobility issues would probably find getting in and out easier.
The higher regen braking and the paddle shifters to adjust regen on the fly are positive features of the Bolt. I have seen some people complain about the camera mirror and the model we looked at didn't have it, so I'll reserve judgement on that feature. It is an option that can be turned off in any case.
In conclusion, I think the Bolt is OK and has some unique features, but on the whole, Tesla does it better. The Bolt is the first sub-$50K production car to get more than 200 miles on a charge, but it still isn't the first mass produced sub-$50K EV to get more than 200 miles on a charge. That hasn't been done yet.
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