Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)

[techmaven]

For the vast majority of commutes, the ~30 kWh BEVs have more than for more than enough range at 125 miles. Therefore, it really isn't useful to talk about commuting energy usage for long distance BEVs.

Instead, there really is only one case where range for a long distance BEV really matters. That's long distance highway driving. And for the vast majority of the highways in the U.S., that means traveling for 90+% of the time at speeds between 65 mph to 80 mph. And that's precisely where the aerodynamics of the Bolt would make its range suffer. This does not show up in the EPA testing.

That's what makes the design choices for the Bolt particularly confounding. It has enough battery capacity, and therefore expense related to that capacity in terms of both weight and cost of materials to be a real long distance BEV. And yet, they chose to put it into a body design that clearly disadvantages it as a long distance BEV where it counts the most. If you were to make this kind of vehicle for 2017 from a clean sheet, it probably should have something like 45-50 kWh of battery for this body style. Further, without fully addressing DC charging in both the speed and the availability, choosing to put in such a high battery capacity doesn't make much sense. It would be cheaper to make, it would fit all the right use cases that the Bolt has today, it would be even more efficient, and it would suffer in the same ways in highway range and recharging capability. The only thing it wouldn't do is hit 200 miles of UDDS range for enough ZEV credits. Basically, the design engineers at GM were given the Buick Encore basic design and told to make a BEV that would qualify it for 4 ZEV credits for a little R&D money and as short of a development time as possible. And we get the Bolt as a result.

The Bolt does not solve the primary thorny issues related to long distance BEVs other than battery capacity. It does not address aerodynamics, fast DC charging, and the availability of such fast DC charging.

It's a great achievement for GM. Maybe it will move the needle in terms of its brand perception in its fight against Toyota. Clearly, though, they did not line up all that much production capacity for it at the moment as they still have to figure out the demand. And one of the problems is that without solving the long distance BEV problem, demand may be impacted. But maybe buyers can be tricked? After all, EPA testing is terrible at highlighting the issues of long distance BEVs. It isn't representative of the actual cadence of people making, say, a 300-600 mile journey.

 

[Saghost]

No, I'm correct about aero losses. While they increase geometrically, they do not discern between CdA values when it comes to percentages. A dirty car takes more power geometrically, and so does a streamliner.

The aerodynamic drag loads themselves are proportionately greater for a given air speed on any drag level, yes - a car with 5 pounds of drag at 25 mph will experience 20 pounds at 50 mph and 80 pounds at 100 mph And a car with 50 pounds will see a matching percentage increase to 200 pounds and 800 pounds.

The rest of your conclusion doesn't follow, however.

We've been told that for a typical modern car the drag induced load is about equal to the rolling resistance load at around 45-50 mph.

That's close enough to the speeds under discussion that you really can't neglect the effect it has, and those loads increase linearly with speed, so that you pay the same amount of energy per mile for them at any speed. (There's a third category, things that cost you the same regardless of speed like HVAC and keeping the computers awake. These cost less energy per mile at higher speeds, but they are typically fairly small in the automotive scheme of things.)

As a thought experiment, let's take three cars - one that's heavy with high rolling resistance tires but very aerodynamic, one that's typical and one that's light with very low rolling resistance tires but an aerodynamic brick, and look at their efficiency at three speeds to get a sense of how things change.

For convenience, we'll use the doubling scheme above, and all three cars will have the same efficiency at 50 mph - call it 250 Wh/mile.

The heavy aerodynamic car is spending 150 Wh/mile on rolling resistance at 50mph, 50 Wh/mile on aero, and 50 Wh/mile on HVAC and computers (I guess it's a very hot day - but mostly I wanted round numbers and big enough to show the differences. )

The middle car is spending 100 Wh/mile on rolling resistance, 100 on aero, and 50 on HVAC

The light brick is spending 50 Wh/mile on rolling resistance, 50 on HVAC - but 150 on drag loads.

Three cars, all getting the same efficiency at 50 mph - close to where much of US highway ratings are measured. All with the same range at 50 mph.

Now watch how it changes.

At 25 mph, the heavy car is still spending 150 Wh/mile on rolling resistance, but now has only 12.5 Wh/mile of drag losses. However, the HVAC load per mile doubles, since you're using the same AC but going half as far - now 100 Wh/mile. So in this case, the heavy car is actually less efficient at low speeds because of the HVAC - it needs 262.5 Wh per mile at 25 mph.

The middle case car still need 100 Wh per mile at 25 mph for rolling, and the same 100 Wh per mile for HVAC as the heavy car; the drag on it is now only 25 Wh/mile. So it's a little more efficient at 25 mph, needing 225 Wh per mile.

The lightweight brick still needs 50 Wh per mile for rolling, and pays the same 100 Wh per mile for HVAC as the other two at 25 mph. The drag force on it is now only 37.5 Wh per mile. Thus, it is much more efficient at 25 mph - 187.5 Wh per mile.

100 mph reverses the cases, though:

At 100 mph, the heavy sleek car still needs 150 Wh/mile for rolling loads, and the HVAC usage is halved - the same energy per unit time, going twice as fast - to 25 Wh per mile. The aero loads quadruple, to 200 Wh/mile. So in total, this car needs 375 Wh per mile at 100 mph.

The middle case car has the same 100 Wh/mile rolling loads at 100 mph, and the same 25 Wh per mile HVAC as the other two, and now needs 400 Wh per mile to overcome drag. So it needs 525 Wh per mile at 100 mph.

The lightweight brick still needs 50 Wh per mile for rolling loads at 100 mph, and shares the 25 Wh per mile 100 mph HVAC. It now needs 600 Wh per mile for drag loads, though. So it needs 675 Wh per mile in total at 100 mph.

Does it make more sense now?

All three cars had the same efficiency at 50 mph, and all three experienced a quadrupling of drag induced load as the speed doubled - but one of them needs nearly twice as much energy as the other to drive at 100 mph.

To really evaluate the cars you'd need to know how the three factors play out on each car - and city stop-and-go brings in more factors with the mass of the car and regeneration efficiency (which favors the lightweight brick again,) but the EPA city and highway ratings give us some notion of how it'll play out.

The middle case is close to what we've been told a typical car is; the model 3 is presumably more like the heavy aerodynamic car and the Bolt is closer to the lightweight brick (though neither is probably as extreme as my examples.) They'd both get similar "highway" ratings since I'm told the average speed in that test is 48 mph - but the Bolt is a much better city car, and the 3 likely is a much better high speed car.

 

[McRat]

There is a litmus test in place already. The Model S vs the Model X. The CdA is not the same. Does the PERCENTAGE of range loss with the X at 85mph == the Model S?

It should.

 

[SageBrush]

That's what makes the design choices for the Bolt particularly confounding. It has enough battery capacity, and therefore expense related to that capacity in terms of both weight and cost of materials to be a real long distance BEV. And yet, they chose to put it into a body design that clearly disadvantages it as a long distance BEV where it counts the most. If you were to make this kind of vehicle for 2017 from a clean sheet, it probably should have something like 45-50 kWh of battery for this body style. Further, without fully addressing DC charging in both the speed and the availability, choosing to put in such a high battery capacity doesn't make much sense. It would be cheaper to make, it would fit all the right use cases that the Bolt has today, it would be even more efficient, and it would suffer in the same ways in highway range and recharging capability. The only thing it wouldn't do is hit 200 miles of UDDS range for enough ZEV credits. Basically, the design engineers at GM were given the Buick Encore basic design and told to make a BEV that would qualify it for 4 ZEV credits for a little R&D money and as short of a development time as possible. And we get the Bolt as a result.

Bingo

Which brings up an interesting question: Would a 140 mile range Bolt that is ~ $5,000 less have twice the sales as a 200 mile version, to reach the break-even point in ZEV credits ?

 

[3Victoria]

To clarify, increasing your velocity is a geometrically increasing progression.
Increasing you CdA is a linearly increasing ĺ.

Percentages are linear. Speed is not.

Wrong.

 

[chadever]

The drivetrain on an EV is much cheaper than an ICE. Electric motors are cheaper than gasoline engines, and there is no transmission. However, li-ion batteries are still expensive and to get any decent range, you need a lot of capacity, which costs a lot of money. That's why people talk about the tipping point is about $100/KWh. At that point the fuel system plus drive train of an EV costs about the same as an ICE drive train plus fuel system.

At the moment EVs do cost more, but the Gigafactory will be driving down the cost of batteries a fair bit. That could accelerate the arrival of the tipping point.

The Model 3 will still cost more than an equivalent ICE, but I think the other advantages of an EV will upsell buyers into the more expensive car. This will be critical for Tesla as the Model 3 will likely be the first EV road vehicle (not a conversion) sold in the US without the tax incentive.



I suspect GM drove the route with a mule before they ever did any publicity drives.

All EV makers currently (har) rely heavily on government handouts, in nearly all countries, not just the USA.

It's why some people have the mistaken illusion that an EV drivetrain is just as cheap as ICE. It's not close yet.

Yeah, let's just ignore that in 2015 big oil and auto makers received ONE TRILLION dollars in subsidies from governments around the world.

 

[Saghost]

The drivetrain on an EV is much cheaper than an ICE. Electric motors are cheaper than gasoline engines, and there is no transmission. However, li-ion batteries are still expensive and to get any decent range, you need a lot of capacity, which costs a lot of money. That's why people talk about the tipping point is about $100/KWh. At that point the fuel system plus drive train of an EV costs about the same as an ICE drive train plus fuel system.

At the moment EVs do cost more, but the Gigafactory will be driving down the cost of batteries a fair bit. That could accelerate the arrival of the tipping point.

The Model 3 will still cost more than an equivalent ICE, but I think the other advantages of an EV will upsell buyers into the more expensive car. This will be critical for Tesla as the Model 3 will likely be the first EV road vehicle (not a conversion) sold in the US without the tax incentive.

Cost is such an interesting question. Depending on your assumptions about the cost of gasoline and electricity and maintenance, and the expected resale value, EVs are already singificantly cheaper than equivalent ICE cars - from a total cost of ownership perspective for a typical 5-7 year ownership period.

The higher initial cost is compensated for by the lower running costs in both fuel and maintenance (though folks living in CA without solar have a harder time making this argument,) while the depreciation seems to be a subject for much debate depending on how you figure the tax credit and what you compare.

We're already on the tipping point, ladies and gentlemen - with what appears to be a clear path ahead to soon approach similar initial purchase prices while keeping much lower running costs.

Depreciation assumptions may rapidly become invalid as people five years from now decide they don't want a used ICE car, too...

 

[jgs]

Cost is such an interesting question. Depending on your assumptions about the cost of gasoline and electricity and maintenance, and the expected resale value, EVs are already singificantly cheaper than equivalent ICE cars - from a total cost of ownership perspective for a typical 5-7 year ownership period.

The higher initial cost is compensated for by the lower running costs in both fuel and maintenance (though folks living in CA without solar have a harder time making this argument,) while the depreciation seems to be a subject for much debate depending on how you figure the tax credit and what you compare.

We're already on the tipping point, ladies and gentlemen - with what appears to be a clear path ahead to soon approach similar initial purchase prices while keeping much lower running costs.

Depreciation assumptions may rapidly become invalid as people five years from now decide they don't want a used ICE car, too...

While I don't disagree I do wonder how many cars are sold based on dispassionate TCO analysis.

 

[Rashomon]

EV's aren't actually that good at that so far. Sustained high speeds (85+ mph) dramatically affect range both with gas cars and EVs, but gas cars start out with huge amounts of range, and refueling locations everywhere, so it's no biggy to set the cruise control at 90mph in West Texas for hours at a time. Well, except for the deer and the Troopers.

I think there are 2 kinds of "highway" in the West. Interstate (unpopulated) and intrastate (populated). The speed limits for interstate are as high as 85mph posted. Most of the intrastate is 65/70 mph. Huge difference in range.

Normally at the speeds street cars go, Range/MPG reduction from high speeds is constant, regardless of aero.

ie - If a car falls from 30 mpg at 65, to 20 mpg at 85 mph, another car that gets 60mpg falls to 40mpg.

You should lose about 1/3 range from 65 to 85 whether it's an RV or a 2000 Insight.

This is where the comedy about "poor aero" killing off the next gen of EVs occurs. All EVs regardless of CdA are affected aprroximately the same. You don't get to defy physics because a wind tunnel told you a number.

However, drivetrain losses and rolling resistance is linear. There should be a slight advantage at higher speeds for cars with less mechanical losses.

Cliff Notes: Your losses in range are a percent based on speed, no matter what you drive.

The major difference between EVs and ICE vehicles is that the internal combustion engine gains substantial efficiency as load increases; that efficiency improvement means range doesn't vary quite as closely to V-squared as it does with EVs, where powertrain efficiency curves are relatively flat. In your 65 to 85 mph example, an EV will lose almost 40 percent of its range, most ICEs much less than that, and generally less than the 30 percent you quote. In general, the more powerful the ICE car, the less fuel economy it will lose with speed because the efficiency improvement will be greater with the increasing load. Which is another way of saying running a powerful ICE at a small percentage of its power is guaranteed to be inefficient.

The reason CdA matters so much for EVs is vehicle cost; the more efficient the vehicle, the smaller the battery it can come with to achieve a desirable range. That's one of the reasons the M3 is likely to come in less expensive than a Bolt even as it offers similar range (probably better highway numbers than the Bolt, and worse city, even as the combined is close, though Tesla may or may not have been sandbagging as much as GM with the 215 mile estimate.) Tesla has already said that it will have less than a 60 kWh battery, and even at $100/kWh, the difference in cost between a battery that's 5 to 10 kWh smaller than the Bolt's is substantial, enough to effect the retail price by as much as $2000.

 

[Saghost]

While I don't disagree I do wonder how many cars are sold based on dispassionate TCO analysis.

Yup. There's certainly something to be said for that. My guess is it's about 10% - and over 90% of those to fleet customers.

I think that's why Tesla has been chasing the 0-60 and quarter mile times so hard, and probably part of the reason they've been diving into the automation side - something (anything) to get their EVs into people's heads as a cool car so they will come test drive and fall in love with the instant torque.

EV silence, EV smoothness, and EV responsiveness will sell lots of cars once people give them a chance.

 

[rxlawdude]

There is a litmus test in place already. The Model S vs the Model X. The CdA is not the same. Does the PERCENTAGE of range loss with the X at 85mph == the Model S?

It should.

Really? The percentage difference between 60mph and 80mph is the same. But the coefficient of drag is different between vehicles, such that the lower CoD will always have less wind resistance than the one with higher CoD.

Some of your assertions border on ludicrous.

 

[McRat]

Nevermind. Not switching topics to basic HS algebra. Will stick to EVs.

 

[LargeHamCollider]

... Instead, there really is only one case where range for a long distance BEV really matters. That's long distance highway driving. And for the vast majority of the highways in the U.S., that means traveling for 90+% of the time at speeds between 65 mph to 80 mph. And that's precisely where the aerodynamics of the Bolt would make its range suffer. This does not show up in the EPA testing.

That's what makes the design choices for the Bolt particularly confounding. It has enough battery capacity, and therefore expense related to that capacity in terms of both weight and cost of materials to be a real long distance BEV. And yet, they chose to put it into a body design that clearly disadvantages it as a long distance BEV where it counts the most. If you were to make this kind of vehicle for 2017 from a clean sheet, it probably should have something like 45-50 kWh of battery for this body style. Further, without fully addressing DC charging in both the speed and the availability, choosing to put in such a high battery capacity doesn't make much sense. It would be cheaper to make, it would fit all the right use cases that the Bolt has today, it would be even more efficient, and it would suffer in the same ways in highway range and recharging capability. The only thing it wouldn't do is hit 200 miles of UDDS range for enough ZEV credits. Basically, the design engineers at GM were given the Buick Encore basic design and told to make a BEV that would qualify it for 4 ZEV credits for a little R&D money and as short of a development time as possible. And we get the Bolt as a result.

The Bolt does not solve the primary thorny issues related to long distance BEVs other than battery capacity. It does not address aerodynamics, fast DC charging, and the availability of such fast DC charging.

It's a great achievement for GM. Maybe it will move the needle in terms of its brand perception in its fight against Toyota. Clearly, though, they did not line up all that much production capacity for it at the moment as they still have to figure out the demand. And one of the problems is that without solving the long distance BEV problem, demand may be impacted. But maybe buyers can be tricked? After all, EPA testing is terrible at highlighting the issues of long distance BEVs. It isn't representative of the actual cadence of people making, say, a 300-600 mile journey.

Nailed it.

 

[wdolson]

EV's aren't actually that good at that so far. Sustained high speeds (85+ mph) dramatically affect range both with gas cars and EVs, but gas cars start out with huge amounts of range, and refueling locations everywhere, so it's no biggy to set the cruise control at 90mph in West Texas for hours at a time. Well, except for the deer and the Troopers.

I think there are 2 kinds of "highway" in the West. Interstate (unpopulated) and intrastate (populated). The speed limits for interstate are as high as 85mph posted. Most of the intrastate is 65/70 mph. Huge difference in range.

Normally at the speeds street cars go, Range/MPG reduction from high speeds is constant, regardless of aero.

ie - If a car falls from 30 mpg at 65, to 20 mpg at 85 mph, another car that gets 60mpg falls to 40mpg.

You should lose about 1/3 range from 65 to 85 whether it's an RV or a 2000 Insight.

This is where the comedy about "poor aero" killing off the next gen of EVs occurs. All EVs regardless of CdA are affected aprroximately the same. You don't get to defy physics because a wind tunnel told you a number.

However, drivetrain losses and rolling resistance is linear. There should be a slight advantage at higher speeds for cars with less mechanical losses.

Cliff Notes: Your losses in range are a percent based on speed, no matter what you drive.

The drag issue has been discussed a fair, bit but the efficiency loss for ICEs between 60mph and 80 mph is not as dramatic as it is for EVs. I have the curves in this article:

The ICE vs EVs | Tesla Blitherings

There is a litmus test in place already. The Model S vs the Model X. The CdA is not the same. Does the PERCENTAGE of range loss with the X at 85mph == the Model S?

It should.

From anecdotal evidence, the Model X is much worse. There was a thread here a couple of weeks ago from a Model X owner on their first road trip through the prairie states. Driving 80mph with a bit of a headwind and the range on a 90D dropped so much making the next supercharger became a dicey thing. The guy was complaining bitterly about the poor range.

 

[wdolson]

Cost is such an interesting question. Depending on your assumptions about the cost of gasoline and electricity and maintenance, and the expected resale value, EVs are already singificantly cheaper than equivalent ICE cars - from a total cost of ownership perspective for a typical 5-7 year ownership period.

The higher initial cost is compensated for by the lower running costs in both fuel and maintenance (though folks living in CA without solar have a harder time making this argument,) while the depreciation seems to be a subject for much debate depending on how you figure the tax credit and what you compare.

We're already on the tipping point, ladies and gentlemen - with what appears to be a clear path ahead to soon approach similar initial purchase prices while keeping much lower running costs.

Depreciation assumptions may rapidly become invalid as people five years from now decide they don't want a used ICE car, too...

Have you seen the Julian Cox video where he lays out the cost of ownership between an $18K Corolla and a $35K Model 3 over 3 or 5 years (I forget the time span)? The costs are the same assuming the Model 3 depreciates at the same rate as the average car. The Model 3 will probably hold its value, so far the Model S is the only EV that holds its value better than the average ICE. (It's too early to tell with the Model X).

Most end users don't think about those things though, unless they're math geeks. However, it's part and parcel for fleet buyers. The bottom line of how much this vehicle is going to cost us over x years is a critical part of the decision making process.

That's why I think Tesla is going to aim for the commercial market first with the EV pickup. About half of the pickups on the road are owned by utilities, government organizations (from local towns to the federal government), to corporate owners. Even if bubba doesn't want an EV truck, there is a huge potential in the fleet market and bubba will eventually come around when their brand of pickup goes EV to compete with Tesla.

 

[Saghost]

Have you seen the Julian Cox video where he lays out the cost of ownership between an $18K Corolla and a $35K Model 3 over 3 or 5 years (I forget the time span)? The costs are the same assuming the Model 3 depreciates at the same rate as the average car. The Model 3 will probably hold its value, so far the Model S is the only EV that holds its value better than the average ICE. (It's too early to tell with the Model X).

Most end users don't think about those things though, unless they're math geeks. However, it's part and parcel for fleet buyers. The bottom line of how much this vehicle is going to cost us over x years is a critical part of the decision making process.

That's why I think Tesla is going to aim for the commercial market first with the EV pickup. About half of the pickups on the road are owned by utilities, government organizations (from local towns to the federal government), to corporate owners. Even if bubba doesn't want an EV truck, there is a huge potential in the fleet market and bubba will eventually come around when their brand of pickup goes EV to compete with Tesla.

I hadn't, but it sounds reasonable to me. I've seen both long discussions on Volt TCO and the discussion here on TMC about how the S cost compared to a Honda Odyssey (for someone who drove a *lot* of miles.)

 

[Az_Rael]

Instead, there really is only one case where range for a long distance BEV really matters. That's long distance highway driving. And for the vast majority of the highways in the U.S., that means traveling for 90+% of the time at speeds between 65 mph to 80 mph. And that's precisely where the aerodynamics of the Bolt would make its range suffer. This does not show up in the EPA testing.

I say there are two cases. Long distance highway driving AND commercial city use. Think Lyft and Uber drivers as well as taxi fleets. If they can use a Bolt all day long without stoping to charge, or only stopping at lunch to charge, that is a great use case for them. We already know GM has signed a deal with Lyft and that they designed the back seat with ride sharing in mind.

What if GM's real plan is fleet and taxi sales? It would still make the Bolt a huge sales hit and could really move the needle on reducing emissions in big cities.

 

[wycolo]

Look to GM to eventually spend the big bucks to create a clean, low coefficient of friction body for their Bolt. This might happen coincident with someone else's creation of a vast fast DC charging network. Meanwhile GM beats the Tesla M3 to market, suffers no EPA ratings embarrassment, and grabs the E-taxi market. A nice hat trick for GM. C'est la vie.
--

 

[McRat]

I guess Chevy is dedicating a website just to answering questions about EV ownership now:

Chevy EV Life: Driving the Bolt EV | Chevrolet

There are at least 19 DCFC sites within 20 miles of my business according to Chevy.

Still MIA?

1) DCFC max charging rate.
2) Actual pricing on options.
3) Delivery information.

 

[techmaven]

I guess Chevy is dedicating a website just to answering questions about EV ownership now:

Chevy EV Life: Driving the Bolt EV | Chevrolet

There are at least 19 DCFC sites within 20 miles of my business according to Chevy.

They are doing it wrong.