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Old 02-11-2022, 12:33 PM   #2 (permalink)
JSH
AKA - Jason
 
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: PDX
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Adventure Seeker - '04 Chevy Astro - Campervan
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I decided to run the Bolt down to near 0% SOC to see how much battery capacity is left after the software recall. It is most definitely not 80% as claimed by Chevy in the recall notice. I suspected they may have capped the top level at 80% but also took some capacity from the bottom. Testing confirmed my suspicion.

This week I topped off to 80% and then started driving for a couple days to drain it to near 0% SOC.

Observations:
At 10% SOC the battery level gauge went orange, I got a warning that power was reduced, and I should charge. I laughed because I still had almost 30 miles of range left which was about 1/3 of the total rated range in my Spark EV.

At about 5% the car stopped showing estimated miles remaining and just said LOW. I found this REALLY annoying because the time you really want to know your remaining range is when the battery is almost dead. (The MyChevy app still showed estimated range and even added tenths of a miles)

Capacity:
In the end I drained the battery from 80% SOC to 4% SOC. The app showed 8.7 miles remaining. I drove 160.1 miles, used 40.1 kWh of electricity, and efficiency showed 4.0 mi/kWh. So that math checks out.

The capacity doesn't check out though. According to the SOC meter I used 76% of the battery capacity. However, 40.1 kWh = 67% of the rated usable capacity. So Chevy is holding back 9% SOC at the bottom - or my battery has massive capacity loss in only 35k miles of driving.

Looking at it in miles: 80% of the battery is 48 kWh. At my 4.0 mi / kWh I should be able to go 192 miles on a charge. So Chevy is holding back 23 miles of driving range.

I'm not a happy customer - but I have no recourse besides getting my battery replaced. (Which is likely Chevy's plan all along)


Charging Efficiency:
My charger showed it took 42.7 kWh to charge back to 80% so that is 6.5% charging losses.
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