According to what I've ready, our Bolt tops out at a 100kW charge rate. To date, that's been all theory. There are no chargers on which we can test it.
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Tesla ModeModel 3 vs. Chevy Bolt
- Thread starter rachelhikes
- Start date
Glamisduner
Active Member
Interesting, when I went to look there was a line just to test drive them, it's was all everyone was at the dealership for, other than a young kid checking our a camero. I guess things have changed.
Also Bolts can stop at tesla chargers with the teslatap right?
All of the adapters I've seen are only for AC destination charging, where the signals are the same and only the connector shape changes.
Charging at a Supercharger requires much more from the adapters, which has to interpret between totally different standards as well as handling hundreds of amps at 350V safely.
It has been tested in Europe and the USA. 55 kW - 56 kW is the limit. In practice, this cuts charging time between 0% and 50% by about a third. After that the power is tapered to below 50 kW.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
When was that?
The AC Destination chargers. Assuming the property owner is cool with it, and I'm not sure why they wouldn't be, as they aren't controlled by Tesla at all.
I don't know if they can handle the 277V AC ones, though?
The Superchargers are an entirely different deal, as your vehicle needs to identify itself and be linked via a Tesla account. That'd be a hellva hacking feat and I have little doubt Tesla would be all over it like white on rice to patch/thwart. That sort of thing would have to come via a manufacturer taking up Musk on his offer of buying into the SC network.
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Electrify America locations will not have redundant charge cables on each charger. Instead, each charger will have one CCS connector and one CHAdeMO connector. If one is damaged, you won't be able to use the other one unless your vehicle has both connectors (none do).
Most EA stations will be able to charge four vehicles simultaneously, with room for future expansions, while Tesla Supercharging locations are averaging 8 or more vehicles simultaneously, with many locations having 18 or more and a couple of locations having 40 stalls.
Another consideration is the design of EA's stations. The 150 kW ones will only provide that much power on an 800 volt high voltage battery pack, as they're limited to 200 amps output. A normal 400 volt pack would only receive about 80 kW (Jag I-Pace), compared to Tesla's current maximum speed of 120 kW (or 72 kW at urban Superchargers).
The paddle just temporarily increases the baseline max regen level which can then be modulated through the accelerator pedal.
You are describing coming slowly to a stop sub-5 mph because that’s what the Model 3 is presently capable of doing. That’s very different from how the Bolt comes to a stop without the break pedal sub-5 mph.
It’s trivial today because it just takes a credit card or ApplePay/AndroidPay. They are working on having a smartphone app and that may allow for subscription plans etc.
Over the next year or two Electrify America and CCS car makers will be rolling out a new Plug & Charge capability that will mimic how you just plug in at a Supercharger and walk away while the car automatically authenticates itself to the charger.
The point is that a 4 space Supercharger setup has 1 cable at each space and one charger failing will take down 2 spaces.
An Electrify America 4 space setup has 3 spaces with 2 identical cables each and one space with a CCS cable and a CHAdeMO cable. Each space has its own dedicated charger.
Of course, Tesla Supercharger locations will typically have 2 or more times the charging spaces for the next few years.
As for charging rates, it’s clear that the Bolt DC charges slower relative to its overall energy capacity than most other cars. The Bolt is limited to a peak of about 55 kW.
The Model 3 LR clearly can charge at much higher power (~115 kW today, possibly more on the future Supercharger 3.0). We don’t know the charge rate of the Model 3 SR yet.
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ℬête Noire
Active Member
I thought those were supposed to be dual charging terminals, like an Tesla A/B pair where you split the 350kW? The 350kW nominal for the gear is based on roughly 940v battery that you're charging, otherwise it's really a 400v system that can do 150kW on 2 channels.
I've seen what was supposed to be the manufacturer's gear pamphlet, I'm not sure where though.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
That was the root of my question, if he didn't realize the paddle is binary. Turns out he was talking about the accelerator pedal not realizing Teslas are like this as well in that you control the regen through a band? The paddle isn't that much on top of "L" anyway, it's a bunch of finicky to go through that + paddle to reach into a narrow gap. If I'm feeling the need to go to that gap I'm overshooting to start with, and need it all....and if I don't pulse modulating with the paddle gets it done.
Eno Deb
Active Member
They also have dual-headed CCS-only chargers. I suspect in the end they will heavily favor CCS and only have one or two Chademo connectors per location. The main reason why they have two cables per charger is to allow cars with different charge port placement to use them while keeping the cables short and their weight manageable. Tesla gets away with just one cable because the charge port on Teslas is always in the rear left corner, so they can align the units with the parking bays accordingly.
The highway locations in the first deployment phase are supposed to have up to 10 charge units.
Interesting. I wasn't aware of the dual cord configuration plan, as I was under the impression that they were to be supporting both standards equally. I'm not really sure how having a cable on the left and a cable on the right is a better value than a longer cable that can reach both sides (perhaps 3 feet longer) and a cable of a different type. *shrug*
Eno Deb
Active Member
I think the problem is that the cables are thick, heavy and unwieldy (especially the water-cooled cables that are used on the higher power chargers). You can't just snake them around the car like the cables on a Level 2 charger.
You're right, trying to drive a Model 3 like it actually has one foot driving is stupid. I tried this as well. All it does is irritate the people behind you and possibly get you rear ended. As I said above, I think Tesla could implement one foot driving with a software update that makes the regen much more aggressive at low speeds so it actually stops the car then puts the "Hold" on.
Different tests can give different results. Would you not put your family in a Tesla Model S due to its "average" result in the IIHS small overlap crash test? We don't even know how the Model 3 will perform in that same test. It may do no better than the Model S, which did worse than the Bolt.
Overreacting to a single test result is excessive. The Bolt, Model S, and Model 3 are all well-built cars with fine safety features. None of them can keep you safe in any and all accidents. That's not how auto safety works.
I don't get this mocking of the Bolt's appearance. Sure it's far from a sexy sports car looks. But it looks like a normal hatchback/wagon to me. Not weird like the Leaf or Prius or i3. The Tesla X, on the other hand, looks like an egg, Lol. That's what my non-EV friends said when the X was first released.
woodisgood
Optimustic Pessimist
Sure you're not referring to the Volt? The Bolt and Leaf are very similar in form factor.
The Bolt looks like a Prius in my opinion. And I actually agree. The X is not the greatest looking vehicle.
The Coming Soon list only includes locations that are currently under active development (permits, construction).
Here is a map fragment showing (only) approximate Electrify America locations around Texas that are planned for completion within the next year or so:
My understanding from discussion with a GM media representative is that the patches did not actually improve the battery cell failure detection reported back through OnStar. The point of the OnStar reporting is to allow GM to detect failing cells and notify the owner for a battery pack replacement under warranty.
The patch improvements were aimed at improving the car’s behavior while driving the car.
I wrote about this issue with the highest level of detail and precision than any other coverage that I’ve seen. My writing about this was linked to by InsideEVs.
GM releases new round of updates for all Bolt EVs
I’ve taken both US-101 and CA-99. Leaving from San Francisco adds about 50 miles of distance.
I drive from SF to Pasadena on CA-99 with 2 charging stops. Driving to Irvine would require a third stop from San Francisco but perhaps not from San Jose. I drive at or slightly above the speed limit which includes long sections at 70-75 mph.
Although CA-99 seems out of the way when driving from San Jose, it is actually only a bit longer and the average speed limit is higher. Google Maps says a drive from San Jose to Irvine is only 25 miles longer and 15 minutes longer on CA-99 than US-101. The advantage of 99 is that there are many more charging locations today.
In any case, the highway charging for CCS will be much better on 101 and I-5 in another year.
The phase 1 plan is being built-out over the next year. The exact ordering of the build-out is driven by various factors. There are 3 Coming Soon sites listed in California and at least 2 of them already have charging pedestals and chargers installed but are not yet open. California will have strong coverage over the next year with about 50+ highway DC locations and another 110+ community DC charging locations for total of over 500 charging spaces.
Did you lower or remove the optional false floor covering?
At least on the Premier trim of the Bolt the rear view mirror is also camera-based so any luggage in the hatchback area doesn’t obstruct the rear view.
I think there are few 277V destination chargers and I have the sense that they may not work with the Model 3.
Your understanding is incorrect. What we have seen so far is that all of the charging spaces have charging pedestals with two identical and thus redundant cables — except for one space in which one of the cables supports CHAdeMO. This is true even on the first 10-space charging location where 9 spaces have redundant cabling and only one space supports CHAdeMO and CCS.
This is incorrect. The CCS cables are always liquid-cooled and are inherently capable of supporting up to 500A. The CHAdeMO cable is conventional and limited to 200A because there are no liquid-cooled CHAdeMO cables and connectors available from part suppliers yet.
The pattern so far seems to be that two spaces at each location typically support “350 kW” while the remaining spaces support up to “150 kW”.
Electrify America is using 4 different charger suppliers. Some 150 kW charging hardware may support current above 350A when charging “400V” battery packs thus allowing those cars to charge at up to the charger’s 150 kW overall power limit. Other 350 kW charger hardware may be limited to 350 or 375 amps even at 400V charging. We don’t know for sure yet.
No. Electrify America has chosen to give each charging space its own independent full-capability charger.
Charging providers other than Electrify America may choose to install a single 350 kW charger that can split 150 kW to each of two attached charging pedestals as you describe since some charger vendors can optionally support that configuration.
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Tesla charge ports are all on the left side within a few inches of the back of the car.
CCS ports are in all sorts of locations in different models. It's clearly extra cost, but they probably decided they couldn't cover all the options with one cable.
