Published on September 26, 2024 1:40 PM GMT
One thing I like about renting cars when I travel is that it's anopportunity to get a sense for a car that's a lot more detailed thanwhat you'd get with a test drive. Traveling to DC for work a few daysago, I took the opportunity to rent a 2023 Chevy Bolt. This is thesecond time I've rented an electric vehicle, and overall it was theinverse of my experience renting aTesla:
With the Bolt, everything was fine except charging.
With the Model 3, the only good part was the charging.
The car acted like a car, which is what I want. No overly minimalistdesign where I can't find anything, no automatic wipers that fail todetect spray from the road, and especially no too-smart cruise controlwith phantom braking. Just a car.
Charging, on the other hand, was terrible. Part of why I got anelectric car at this time is that I knew I was going to have a lot ofextra time on the way to the airport. I stopped at an ElectrifyAmerica station, but while it showed up on the map as having multiplespots empty when I started driving, when I got there they were allfull. I downloaded the app while I was waiting, which showed a spotempty because someone who'd finished charging was still hanging out inthe spot (after disconnecting). When a spot freed up, though, Ipulled in. I used the app to start a charge, plugged it in, andwaited. A lot.
It was a good thing I only needed to put 5kWh (7%) in to get the carback up to 75% for the return, because after spending ages in the"initializing" state it took 13:12 to put in 5.09kWh.
The charger was marked 150kWh, but my understanding is the best theBolt can do, in ideal conditions with a battery below 50%, is 53kW.And the 23kWh I saw is abouttypical for a Bolt getting to 75%:
If I was going to be able to keep the car somewhere I could plug it inovernight, and rarely drive it enough in a day that I'd need torecharge while out this would be fine. Not a great fit for needing tocharge back up to return a rental, though. Since moving electricityto a car is a lot easier than moving gas to a car, it seems like theway this should work is rental companies setting up their garages forcharging and advertising that you should just bring the car back atwhatever level is convenient.
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