We Do Not Recommend DC Fast Charging Your Chevy Bolt in Sub-Zero Temperatures 

Congrats on your new house! Don't forget that the home charging station qualifies for a Federal tax credit too, which I think is 30% of the installation and buying the charging unit, up to $1000. You'll want IRS Form 8911. Some history behind this particular EA station They actually finished building it sometime in August 2022. But then only had it go live near the end of 2023 for some reason. So those charging stations had been sitting around for nearly a year and a half before they were active, which helps explain why the connectors already look/are beat up. I remember stopping by here from time to time, and seeing those cords still in the plastic bags which inevitably collected rainwater inside of them. You guys also demonstrated why so many other automakers are switching to Tesla's NACS (North American Charging Standard), with how unreliable CCS1 is. Plug and charge is so convenient and I'm surprised they haven't made this standard on every EV yet. Definitely do another video at this particular site once you guys get a NACS adapter so you can see how the Bolt and ID4 will charge at a Supercharger vs an EA station. If you want to manually preheat the battery, you should also utilize the "yo-yoing" technique as demonstrated by Bjorn Nyland and Kyle Conner from Out of Spec. Basically mash down on the accelerator ("up to the speed limit" for legal purposes), then let regen braking kick in, then repeat for a mile or two. The repeated transferring of electricity to and from the battery should help heat it up considerably faster, which will help the car to get a faster charge when DC fast charging. Just be careful doing this around other drivers as it will confuse the heck out of them, making them think you're crazy or constantly brake-checking them. And for some, they may assume you're trying to race them, and they'll end up yo-yoing their gas car, putting more unnecessary wear & tear on their engines and brake pads.

And the really frustrating thing about charging in the cold in Wisconsin is that they charge by the minute instead of the kw, so the slower the charging the higher the cost for the same power.

the time it took to plug the car in I filled my gas guzzling truck and drove away. Thank you for buying an electric vehicle and keeping the lines down at the gas station. Happy non charging.

I would have already filled my Jetta with Diesel fuel long time ago and left. Those things are a disaster.

Just don't own an EV where you get REAL winter.

I turn my heater on high and fall asleep in my warm car when I use a Level 2 charger away from home. Who cares how long it takes? 😁

Congrats on the new house! In my experience, the Bolt needs to have the battery temperature above 70°F to get maximum charge speeds. The ~2.5kW battery heater takes a while to get there. When you plug into Level 2, it will warm the battery to about 45°F. Haven't experimented with L1. Thanks for braving the cold and reporting your experience ❄️

I have a black 2019 LT for my daily. This is my first Michigan winter with it, and I've been very happy with its performance. I cover about 45 miles per day. Plug in at home. Even in the recent arctic blast with similar conditions to what you're experiencing here, it tanks right along with winter tires on. Would I road trip in winter? NO. But, like you, I find it to be a great commuter all the same.

At least you guys are having fun with a terrible EV experience. Goes to show everyone is in control of their own fun.

Once you have level 2 charging at home this will not happen again, wake up at 80% chargers even on the coldest day.

The bolt DOES show the charge percentage in increments on 5%. each of the bars represents 5%.

7:44 “super easy” lol, after all that. I have been there myself

My biggest frustration with the Bolt was charging speed. In 2017 it ramped pretty quickly from 45kW to 35kW and then to 25kW well before 80% SOC. Otherwise with normal Level 2 charging, its a great car - just don't take regular trips. You'll be frustrating people at the Tesla Supercharger because you'll stay 3-4x longer than any Tesla for the same amount of charge.

2023 Bolt EUV level 2 charger, very happy with Charge Point flex, plug in model.

Typical ccs charging experience -

The Bolt can not pre-condition, its a great priced car for EV and will fit lots of peoples needs, but if you plan on road tripping and do not have lvl2 at home you'll be disappointed with cold weather charging (Tesla SC or not), at least the first couple times charging, it gets better after multiple charges on a long road trip. The tip I have received is keep your distances short and charging stops short, don't let the battery cool off while driving, keep the car between 20%-60% SOC. If you plug in a OBD adapter, you can see how much energy is being drawn to try and warm up that battery. best you can do is plug in a lvl2 (which you said you didn't have yet at your new home), set your departure time and it will pre-condition before you leave and you'll have better charging speeds. And this applies to all EV's, not just the Bolt... Its just some (more expensive) EV's have the ability to pre-condition the battery before you arrive at your charging destination.

A lot of EV videos are like vegetarians wanting to pretend they are eating meat. I don't eat fake meat because it costs more, has more sodium, and doesn't taste as good. Likewise, public charging costs more than twice as much as home. If you have a solar home, it can be infinitely more. So many videos about public charging when most anyone who will buy one has a home. I think there are also too many range test videos. My ICE vehicle has a 300-mile range. I have never driven it down to E to test it. I drive less than 20 miles per day and when I get my Bolt this summer, I will charge it once a week on Saturday mornings at home. Even in winter, this will not deviate. Even if I didn't have level 2 at home, I wouldn't deviate. I've seen videos of charging everyday on level one, although at 20 miles per day, I wouldn't need that, just as with my current ICE vehicle, when I go on long road trips, I will rent. I have driven EVs before, and some of the videos I see play on the fears people have about EVs. For instance, I've only seen two videos that even addressed people with solar roofs and charging at home driving for free or nearly free. I even know people who live in the sticks who charge their Teslas with outdoor solar. I can't wait to never have to pump gas again, especially during flu season. I've seen so many videos about broken chargers, but not a one about a gas station with 20 pumps and 12 of them having yellow plastic bags over the out-of-service pumps.

Winter road trips in the Bolt are painful! It is probably my biggest disappointment with the car. Summer time road trips are acceptable and not really a huge problem for regional travel. Winter DCFC is a slow affair in the Bolt. The cold soaked battery is bad. Even plugged in on a L2 the heater will only keep it in the 40's and 50's so range and charging times are still impacted. Plugging in on DCFC it takes like an hour just to get the car battery heater to bring the temps up enough to charge at something closer to normal speeds. It is only like 2-2.5kw heater so it takes a while to be able to bring the temps up to something useful. By the time that happens the car is getting pretty close to time to leave. The second stop at a DCFC on the trip it will charge faster, but not full rated speed from my experience. Expect an hour+ stop in the winter even with a warmed battery. All EV's struggle in the winter, but the Bolt really was not designed to address the DCFC challenges of the winter since it has no battery preconditioning functions at all and what heater is has is rather inadequate for that function.. New EV owners need to understand what to expect for winter time EV use and range. It isn't nearly as simple as an ICE. That rated range for the EV is going to be dramatically affected in the winter.

Because the Bolt doesn't have battery conditioning, I recommending doing some fast acceleration and heavy regen during the mile or so before reaching the charging station.

Hi Kaitlin. Take a look at the Paris-Rhone Charger. It's a very impressive unit and at $270 it can't be beat. I have one.

Nice honest video about cold weather charging a Chevrolet Bolt EV. My current EV is a 2020 Chevrolet Bolt EV Premier. I still have yet to try road tripping in it and using any public DC fast charging. Right now I charge my Bolt off of a 110 volt outlet in my car port here in Medford Oregon.

I have the Chargepoint L2. Love it.. works great for everything I need. I have an Ioniq 5 and I pull 11.3 kW routinely.

Watching this 4 months later and the weather's in the 90s =)

Dah... batteries need conditioning first. Yeah

As a long time Tesla owner, this is what scares me the most about Tesla opening the super chargers to all the inferior designed vehicles and uneducated EV owners. I travel 3000+ miles per month and I can hit 250kW speeds at any temperature when I precondition. I typically depart a station once my charging speed drops under 90kW. I can see Bolts and ID's just clogging up the pumps while trickle charging for hours. I'm putting my faith in Elon that they can provide a scheme that allows other vehicles to use the super chargers under the condition that Tesla drivers will always have access when arriving fully prepared to have a 15 min session for a 150-180 mile range boost.

Having owned the Chevy Bolt for 3 years in Minnesota I'd recommend never charging the Bolt at a public DCFC because it is the slowest charging EV on the market and Bolts are clogging DCFC chargers 1-1/12 hours . Its a fantastic City ev as long as you have home charging .

@9:14 You go from day to night and you barely charged anything. WTF is wrong with people accepting this nonesense? Complete clowns. 😂😂😂

Congrats, but you need to precondition the battery. A cold battery charges extremely slow. I don't recall if the Bolt allows for preconditioning, but you do need to get that battery warmer to receive faster charging.

The Ford Lightning owners manual states that DC fast charging will cause the battery pack to deteriorate faster. They recommend using the supplied AC slow over night charger to get the maximum service life out of the battery pack. !

If they went down to the Tesla Supercharger, they would see how charging is supposed to be done. So easy.

I also have an ID.4 (with an EA free charging plan) and a Bolt EV. And like you I am not trying to "game the system" when charging my Bolt at EA. But I have not found a way to add another EA charging plan to my account in order to charge my Bolt. When I contacted EA support, they were unable to help. Seems to me like EA didn't consider someone owning 2 EVs that may require 2 different plans. Let me know if you see a way to set up another plan on your EA account, but unfortunately I don't think it's possible. Thanks for the video!

Hi, I have a '23 Bolt euv Lt in western Canada. In the recent cold spell here, I noticed that the little clip on the top of the charge port stops pivoting down in the cold, not locking in the charging "nozzle". I realized I could reach in and pivot it down manually, letting the charge occur. Charging speed's no better with my '23 with a N2.2 battery (which is probably the same as your replacement battery). I set my Bolt to not lock in the charger, so no damage happens if someone forcefully takes the charger. I can see the battery percentage on the infotainment screen when I connect to the my chevy app through android auto in the car.

YOU GUYS ARE WARRIORS! Great report for those in The Frozen Tundra! (Not ME!) New BOLT in NM.

The owners manual of of my Leaf says not to fast charge in freezing weather. Tesla manual doesn't recommend it without precondtioning. I would expect it would be the same for other vehicles. Fortunately it doesn't get that cold in Oregon, so not an issue here. At least not where I live. Welcome to the adventure.

When you are capable of charging at a Tesla Supercharger, you will be pleasantly surprised. The Tesla cables will not accumulate snow like the EA charge cables do and your adapt will be in reside in the car, protected from the elements.

9:58 What makes you think this should be charging faster because it is winter? Sure, the cold air will remove charging heat faster in winter, but charging such cold batteries at high speed is extremely bad for the battery.

Nice job 👍. I now have an ID.4 for road trips. But I have done many in my 2020 Bolt LT. Even with the 80% software limit. It's rated 55 as the highest level, but I have never seen more than 52kw. Compare that to my ID.4 which can get 180kw. But I love it and my daughter drives it to college. And my wife drives an even slower charging car, a Nissan Leaf.

The car would have charged faster based on what the EA station said if you turned off the heater. Just mentioning that for future, but I know it was super cold.

I have a 2019 Bolt with a new battery. It sucks to fast charge any time of year. Most I've ever seen was around 43kW in the spring/summer. It's great if you can charge at home. For road trips though it sucks.

I'm keeping my gas fueled minivan.

Yeah, I'm up for a new car, and want either a Bolt or Bolt EUV as they seem to be more reasonable used now in my area (22' EUV LT for $20k, '20 Bolt Premier $18k before the tax credits if they apply). I don't really care too much about the charging speed as long as it has some sort of level 3 charging capability as I'm with you guys where I'd use it around town or to commute, though the biggest road trip would be 45 miles to my sisters if we did that. Otherwise I could probably get by on the L1 or L2 since I mainly WFH and go in once-ish a week. I wouldn't mind a ID4 for the little bit bigger size, but they're also about 10k more used around here soooooo....

What good is putting the car on a level 1 charger? US level 1 charging is very, very slow due to out lower voltage of 120v. These things can't deliver more than about 1.5kwh per hour of charging.

I just found you. Just subscribed. Thank you for the content. I also watched the magic dock id4 video. I live in North Carolina and we own an R1T and Ioniq 6.

If you have an iPhone you can see your battery percentage in apple car play, in the my chevrolet app. I like it a lot but I’ve been hearing on my channel that android auto does not have it, which is sad. I like looking at the battery percentage. Good video guys.

Each section of the Gussometer is 5% thats finer than you get with the 1/8 marks on an ICE gas guage

I really don’t understand how or why any manufacture would release a ev without preconditioning and even the option to manually start it. Proper pre conditioning of the battery woulda a avoided slow charging.

You really should not ever charge an EV in such cold weather.

I spray a little WD40 on my Bolt charger port. I make the EA charger plug slide on and off really easily. (Never gets stuck!!!)

Truth be told, I just use a level 1 charger and get along just fine over time. Some days I eat into the battery more than others but over the course of the week I net more charging the battery than I will every use in daily driving around town. I have a level 2 I took with me when I moved to my new house but never hooked it up since I just don't need it.

@4:05 A woman calling for help to plug in her car. Can’t even plug in an appliance without a man stepping up. How’s that equality going? 😂😂😂

Geezus. Ef this. I can just pull up to a gas station, use the pump problem free and only spend 5min to FILL UP, then go across the street and eat dinner, then drive home all while these EV's are STILL sitting at the charger.....L O L

Does this limitation also constrain normal cars? Do we need to put gas in the tank more slowly when it gets cold out?