News Coulomb is a channel devoted to providing first-hand accounts of life with renewable energy technologies. My goal is to provide education on strategies and techniques that will empower people to transition away from non-renewable, unsustainable energy sources and to build self reliance.
Welcome back, thank you for your post. Condolences for your loss, look forward to your next video. Hope that the charge point won't get that site running in a reliable fashion. I have a friend that lives pretty near there. I'll have to check in with them and see if it's a site that they have used and if they have seen it to be regular or not. They went from a Subaru outback to a review R1S earlier this spring. I need to check in with him and see how it's going.
Express plus needed to ramp up at all cost…4 sure. It a great charger… we need them everywhere. And their app map needs the ability to filter and search the express plus units exclusively
Thanks! Cold PSI tends to be different than actual PSI. The placard calls for 38 PSI, which tends to be a generic number (1 PSI for every 100 lbs of vehicle weight). I usually inflate to 42 PSI cold pressure, which improves efficiency and reduces tire wear. The max cold PSI on the tire sidewall is even higher; however, while driving or in hot weather, that pressure can reach the high 40s or low 50s PSI.
Eric - regarding the broken Redding Turtle Bay Chargepoint dispensers impacted by the Rivian. I know people at REU and talked to Redding Electric Utility's EV charger coordinator. He blames Chargepoint and their electrical sub for a botched repair and then abandonment. He said the sub that showed up didn't seem to know much about electric chargers, and came prepared to replace two dispensers and repair the conductors to one dispenser, but found out the impact had disrupted the conductors connected to the second one, too. He left and no one from Chargepoint has ever returned. REU's staff sings nothing but praises for Tesla's teams that coordinate installation + do on-site servicing. Organized, efficient, prompt, professional. Explains the rapid installation of the 44-V3 dispensers at the Holiday Inn on Hilltop just across I-5 from Turtle Bay.
Yes, I figured it was a botched repair, but in terms of the subcontractor, I wonder what they reported to ChargePoint. They might have told ChargePoint a very different story about REU, so I would hope that the REU EV coordinator reached out to ChargePoint directly. So far, what I've seen in Northern California hasn't led me to trust the utilities much, either. The Pilot-Flying J site I visited in Weed was completed the exact same weekend as the V4 Supercharger site in Weed, and the power drop for the PFJ site had already delivered to the utility. Somehow, though, the Supercharger site is already up while the utility still hasn't turned power on to the PFJ location, which indicates to me that the utility themselves are the issue. I don't know whether palms are getting greased, but Tesla certainly seems to be getting much better treatment and support from the utilities than other the charging providers, including those who have proven themselves competent in the past. Heck, even Electric Era (which is a CPO started by former Tesla employees who worked on the Superchargers) is months behind schedule on all of their Northern California builds.
Different world up there, I guess, when you see how much infrastructure is between Sacramento and LA. This sort of reminds me of the Portland, ME to the mid-Atlantic situation. We take for granted that there will always be an option on I-95, but if you're heading to northern Maine/Canada, that EVgo membership and ChargePoint app is going to be a lot more useful than an Electrify America plan.
Definitely. The combination of geography, size, and sparse EV charging makes this area very challenging for EV owners. I've been hoping to start offering updates on BP Pulse, Electric Era, and Pilot-Flying J, but even the opening of new charging stations seems to take longer up here.
Long time EV enthusiast but first time owner (since Jan). Bought a 2019 Bolt with the replaced battery. I’m surprised the number of (non-Tesla) EV owners that don’t know about PlugShare or ABRP. I stopped at an EA and chatted with another Bolt owner who has had her car for 3 years and was getting ready to trade for a PHEV because she hated how long it took to charge to 80% on DCFC. I recommended instead she look at an EGMP car if she road trips a lot but seriously consider ABRP. I rarely charge my Bolt past 60% on road trips because that’s usually enough to make it to the next charger with about 10%. I’ve been following your vids on and off for a while so I know you’ve had GOM issues since having the battery replaced. Personally I have put 10k miles on my Bolt in 7 months driving all across the western US (even through Yellowstone!) and haven’t had an issue. I’ve had it at 100% and “Propulsion Power Reduced” but never had that sharp drop off like you experienced here. I wonder if the dealer didn’t update the software on your car? Or maybe there is some underlying difference between the 2017 and 2019. I have noticed my car must have a fairly large top buffer because even at 100% SOC I can still get about 15 kW of regen but when it hits population reduced it’s practically dead. Also just curious: when the 2017s and 2018s got their batteries replaced, did GM also swap hilltop reserve for target charge level? I never found out.
Thank you! Yes, I think people who travel a lot might not want the Bolt EV if they are only looking to limit their charging time. E-GMP is a good recommendation for them. To answer your question, no, they didn't add Target Charge Limit. I wish they would have, but we still have the original Hilltop Reserve even after the batter replacement.
@@newscoulomb3705 It wasn’t a deciding factor for me but I’m glad to have Target Charge. Overall I love my Bolt, it would take a lot for me to buy another vehicle. Out the door (with the used credit) I paid $16k for my 2019 Premier with LKA and Bose with 45k miles, one owner (not leased) and dealer maintained. Used Bolts are an insane value right now.
No. Obviously, this was a bit of a thought experiment because having a backup vehicle is basically a requirement for rural folk, so I could have taken one of two other vehicles. However, we have almost none of the public services and support that city folk take for granted. That includes no cabs and no public transportation in this area of Northern California. Especially none that would drive 170 miles (or possibly 340 miles if the power never came back on), and any that you might find would be extremely cost prohibitive.
We'll see. They say soon, but the nearest Superchargers that will open to non-Teslas would have still been at the farthest edges of this trip. Realistically, I could have probably stretched it to one of them, but I would have been really pushing it. The first town I charged in still doesn't have a Supercharger because Tesla stranded $1.6 million in public funding earmarked for chargers because Tesla stated that it would be impossible to install equipment that met California's regulatory requirements for the price Tesla quoted (the underbid several other prominent public charging providers to win those grants).
Right now in California the large majority of Tesla superchargers do not support other vehicles. There are just a handful around and for me none of them have been convenient. We have a Model 3 and an ID4 and thought about getting an NACS adapter for the ID4 but then looked at the charger map. Not worth it. I don't know what Tesla's plans are for changing or upgrading but as of now the regular superchargers are not equipped to handle other cars.
@@EPeltzer Yes. They only have a few Magic Dock locations. Luckily, Tesla only recently started supporting Northern California, so most of the Superchargers up here are less than 4 years old. So they are mostly V3, which should eventually be open to non-Tesla EVs with an adapter, but that process is taking a long time.
@@mewtwo255200 Yeah, me too. I'll be doing some more testing soon. I don't think it's a bad cell based on my recent capacity test. It seems more like a calibration issue.
I'm surprised you don't know this being such a veteran Bolt driver (at least didn't appear to when looking at the DIC) but the way the battery bars are displayed on the Bolt, each "bar segment" is worth 5% and the Bolt "rounds up" to the nearest 5%. As soon as it "ticks down" to a given number of bars, the battery is at exactly 5% * the number of remaining bars and will remain that way for the next 5% of the battery (visually "over-estimating" remaining percentage slightly). You were showing three bars when you pulled in to charge, which meant you were somewhere between 10% and 15% when you plugged in. The Chargepoint display corroborated this when it reported 14% once the handshake completed. The only ways to get an accurate read (closer than 5%) on the battery when _not_ plugged into a DC fast charger (that I know of) are to use an OBD reader to pull the percentage or to query it via the mobile app (if you still have an active plan).
@@siberx4 I'm not sure what you are saying I didn't understand about that? I'm aware that each bar represents 5% battery, but I use the DCFC for an exact SOC percentage. Rounding to the nearest 5% would increase the variance by a lot. In terms of OBD2 readers, that is a possibility; however, they sometimes include gross capacity, which can also throw things off a bit.
Eric, I’ve been watching and learning from you for years. Thank you for the lesson in humanity. I knew I could trust you before but now it reinforces that instinct even more strongly. ❤️
Hi Eric, I was at that Black Bear in Willows almost 2 weeks ago, and Nixon wasn't working, so I called it in, but there was a car plugged into the other charger, not charging at all, so I was forced to go to the Berry Patch restaurant in Orland. Anyway, I'm glad EVgo fixed Nixon. Hope your cat is ok.
Thanks. Yeah, I saw some check-ins that made me wonder, but it looks like they've been able to fix the Nix. Orland (Blue Plate now) needs to get better, but I've just lost faith in that older BTC Power equipment.
@@newscoulomb3705 Absolutely, only one of the chargers was working, and it only charged at 19kw. but i had to stay there since i arrived with 4% battery, and since it was 113 degrees, I went inside to have some lunch. :)
Yeah. I'm in the process of setting up off-grid EV charging, but it's not set up yet. Plus, this was just an opportunity to play into a scenario for someone who doesn't have charging at home (in particular, rural EV owners).
Eric, glad your cat was able to receive the medical attention needed during a crisis. Hope things continue to improve. As far as the EVgo site near a future PFJ, I saw in Knoxville, TN the last Leaf era station close only a few months before the PFJ project opened two in the vicinity. There may be some non-compete clause. I do not know for sure, but I do not think you will see both PFJ and the older EVgo station get ReNew attention. Thx for the video. I enjoyed watching.
Thanks, Walter! The non-compete clause is interesting. The EVgo site is a California Energy Commission (CEC) grant-funded site, so I think EVgo is required to maintain that site for some time into the future. Even if it stays 50 kW, I think that's fine, but the BTC Power equipment has proven to be unreliable.
I’m curious- in a situation like you saw with your Bolt, would a full charge on slow charging help calibrate things or would you need to drain the battery low to get improved estimates?
I have the same questions. I'm starting to think that it might recalibrate simply by running it that low. In retrospect, the lowest I took the battery was 14% when I did the battery capacity test, and that's very close to the point where my Range Estimator started to lose track. I've also only charged to 100% a couple of times in the last few months, so that could have contributed to the issue.
It's holding up great. I'm still on the stock brakes and rotors. At this point, I'm getting worried about the brake fluid and lines more than anything else.
Eric, the low output power on the ChargePoint charger you observed may very well be due to hot weather: I ran into a similar situation in 29 Palms, CA. It was mid morning and the ambient temperature was already about 100F, but I couldn't get more than about 18-20kW out of the charger. Yet, I have been there in the afternoon on hotter days and have been able to get the full 55kW (for my Bolt). The culprit I believe is that the charger is on the east side of a building and the hose gets full sunlight all morning (and gets too hot to touch). In the afternoon it's in shade. That spooks the charger controller into derating the power. Or, maybe it's something else entirely...
I have a bolt. I live in an apartment without L2 access so i only DCFC right now. Take time to get familiar with the infrastructure in your area. Give up the L2 for a month and go out and rely on the fast chargers. This will build your knowledge, familiarity and confidence in the network. You'll know where to go, when to go and best of all where not to go.
Even if not an emergency, I simply do not have time to deal with outages like that. We have a model 3 with chargers everywhere here but if that wasn't the case I would have to pass on EV for now. Should improve (I hope).
Yeah. Tesla finally started improving their coverage in Northern California a couple years ago, which is good because it means that when they eventually open the Superchargers, most of their sites in Northern California will be available to non-Tesla EVs (they are mostly V3 and newer sites). There are still some major gaps in the Superchargers (for example, neither of the towns with the EVgo chargers I used have Superchargers), but it still isn't bad. EA is the one that needed to handle their build out better. They should have already had at least two more sites open on I-5 between Willows and Yreka, so when they took the old Anderson site down for hardware replacement, it would only be a minor inconvenience as opposed to the major impact it's currently having.
Flaw in that narrative is if your ICE vehicle is out of gas or very low in a power outage you're just as screwed. Lots of fuel in stations all in underground tanks. That's one of the reasons I switch ed to a Jeep 4Xe plug in hybrid.
Eric, at 9:35. You say those batteries are for battery back up. I was wondering if you know that to be the case. I would assume they are purely for Peak shaving and if the site lost power, those chargers would not be operational. Having it due actual battery back up can be substantially more Electronics and high power inverters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great thing to keep their costs in check and not create excessive load on the grid.
@@newscoulomb3705the peak-shaving thing blew my mind the first time I heard it. Some systems are just designed to optimize for demand charges not for grid independence.
Hi Eric, That took a fair bit of effort, to say the least of testing the Bolt Battery. Maybe in the future could you drive as you did for this test, but detour to Willows and use the Thunder Hill racetrack for the last 25-50 miles? that way, no worries about running out of juice out on the road.
Thanks for the suggestion. It might take a bit more to get access to Thunderhill, plus, that still leaves me miles away from the nearest public DCFC. Heading into Northern California is always a gamble because of the weather, driving speeds, elevation changes, etc., plus the chargers up here are just spread farther apart. Heading south, it would be much easer to home in on a site where I consistently arrive with <10% battery. In my experience, there's no real reason to go below 5%. The difference in data points is maybe only +/- .1 kWh below that SOC.
Sorry for your loss Mr. W … Hope you and people in her orbit are ok considering the circumstances. Your videos and education pushed me to commit to EVs and my son drives a Bolt EV and I got a Bolt EUV last year. I just returned from a 3200 mile road trip over 2 weeks and have put almost 32000 miles in my car (90 mile round trip work commute) … you took away my fear of traveling with this car specifically and showed me how this could be done with the Bolt. I can’t thank you enough for what you ( and the boys on Coast2Coast EV) have done for the community and people like me entering this space hesitantly … you are appreciated and I hope all is well
What your not Kim Java or Out of Spec. LOL they make money. At least with the stuff I see it looks like it. Hoping you get an Equinox EV to see what you think compared to Bolt. Curious if they will build and ultium Bolt and if it will be low to mid 20s with 300 miles of range
Hah! If the channel pays for itself, I'm happy. I plan to reach out to GM soon to see whether I can get some of the newer Ultium EVs for full reviews. I also need to do a video on Ultium fundamentals because I think a lot of people have missed some key details (both good and bad). Unfortunately, I don't think a 300-mile EV in the low to mid $20k is in the cards just yet. I'd expect the new Bolt EV to be very similar to the outgoing Bolt EV/EUV, but with significantly faster charging. So probably 250 miles of range and DC charging from 0% to 100% in ~1 hour (it should be LFP).
Eric, you were the one single person most responsible for my purchase of a 2019 Bolt EV Premier (Black). My wife just recently bought a used 2020 Bolt EV Premier (White) for $10,000, after the point of sale EV rebate. So now we have two Bolt EV's in our garage. The cherry on top of it all is here in Central Texas our power company plan provides us with free electricity at night (from 8pm-5am). Thanks for your RU-vid channel and your passion for Bolt EV's and GM EV technology!!!!
You're one of those unsung heroes on so many levels. Much appreciation! Looks like there's some big changes in the near future for NorCal along I-5 for CCS. I hope you got the chance to check out the future sites and get an impression on what's to come. Absolutely unacceptable for Chargepoint to have just 20% of chargers working at a station! Regardless if it's the site hosts responsibility or Chargepoint, they need to do something to get the uptime up. Plugshare shows it's been weeks with just one working charger.
@@newscoulomb3705 if the new Shasta charger is anything like the planned Yreka site from ElectricEra, we’re looking at potentially 16 more CCS chargers in the region.
One trick I use to approximate my car's battery capacity with only 20-30 miles of driving: 1) Start charged to whatever you like (e.g. 60-80%). 2) Drive until the battery meter drops one bar. Remember the total energy used, according to the display screen, the instant the battery meter drops. 3) Keep driving until you drop one more bar. Note the total energy used again. 4) Subtract the number in step 2 from the number in step 3. Then, multiply the difference by 20 (since a full battery is 20 bars). That is your approximate battery capacity. Yes, this approach is probably not as accurate as driving all the way from 100% to 10% or less. But, my experience on long trips is that the number of kWh per "bar" is remarkably consistent, from full, at least down to 5% (I don't have enough experience driving below 5% to comment on what happens there). So, assuming nothing is seriously wrong with the battery, taking the energy consumption from one bar and multiplying by 20 is, practically speaking, good enough, even though it is not perfect. The key to making this work is to make sure that the energy measured covers the full "bar". For instance, if you tell the car to charge to 80%, the actual state of charge might be 78% or 81%, so measuring energy used from when you start the trip to when you lose one bar is not accurate. Measuring the energy used between losing the first bar and losing the second bar avoids this problem, and is much more accurate.
Wanted to ask you, I see you have your rear seat headrests in place. Why not remove them to get rid of blind spots behind you? I put mine in the charger bag in the trunk and pull them out if needed for rear passengers (rarely).
Missed your content but totally understand. Not something I'd wish anyone having to do, but you did do it, well done. Welcome back to your EV insights and I'm sure you have a lot of ideas for new videos upcoming!
I only used battery down till orange light turned on. and I have charged to 100% at home with level 2 charger in winter when I am taking long trip to see family
Wonderful to have you back on the road but I'm sorry for the circumstances around your return. We're lucky to have you as a voice in the EV world and can't thank you enough for the continued coverage.
Eric, I’ve been to that charge location, and ChargePoint is actually upgrading that location. It used to have only 1 of the older Tritium chargers, so it’s a possibility that since they are doing an upgrade, maybe they haven’t gotten around to activating all of the towers yet. Safe travels. Glad you’re back.
Thanks! They've had these units in for a long time now, though, which is why it's a bit disappointing. These should have been online nearly a year ago.
@@esteven38 No worries. I've been following this site really closely since the Express Plus unit went in because I haven't been able to test one yet. Even the Express Plus unit at ChargePoint's headquarters wasn't open to the public. Luckily, it looks like Mercedes is sticking with ChargePoint for their Starbucks partnership, so we should start to see these Express Plus units going live on I-5.
Eric, I’m so sorry for your loss, my condolences to you and your family. I started following you and your channel in 2019, and in July of the same year, I bought my first Bolt EV. GM bought it back because of the battery. I missed my Bolt, so in 2020, I bought another one, then had the battery replaced. Anyway, enough of my rambling, and I will continue to follow your channel. God Bless.
Eric, I’m so sorry for your loss, my condolences to you and your family. I started following you and your channel in 2019, and in July of the same year, I bought my first Bolt EV. GM bought it back because of the battery. I missed my Bolt, so in 2020, I bought another one, then had the battery replaced. Anyway, enough of my rambling, and I will continue to follow your channel. God Bless.
Eric.......do you have any relatives that lived in the coastal area of Beaufort, NC or Morehead City, NC ? I have a friend whose mother was born with your last name. Many of the male members of the family are doctors and lawyers. I think they originally came from a more northern area of the USA and I would guess probably from England originally. Nice to see you back....I was wondering why your content had gone down so much.
