Today I’m taking a trip to Glenpool, Oklahoma to pick up a Bolt EV for a client of mine. The normal way to swap vehicles includes a driver service, allowing me to stay at work and potentially sell another vehicle. However, our driver service no longer goes over 150 miles to pick up a Bolt EV because they’ve been burned in the past, by dealers who did not make sure the EV was fully charged.
Fortunately, the dealership I’m heading to is Mark Allen Chevrolet, who is a part of the family of dealerships to which Classic Chevrolet belongs. These dealerships all have Classic Chevrolet’s owner, Tom Durant, as a partner.
I ran a route on PlugShare and found another of Tom’s dealerships along the way, Classic Nissan of Texoma, so I knew I could charge at their level 2 charger, but I prefer a DC fast charger for the convenience of a quick charge. I found one, in of all places, Durant, Oklahoma!
That has to be fate!
I’ll let you know how it goes…
***UPDATE***
Shortly after leaving DFW, I reached the end of the audiobook I had been enjoying, “A History of Britain, Volume 3” by Simon Schama. After 57 hours of non-fiction, I decided it was time to switch to fiction for a bit, so I started Stephen King’s “The Outsider.” If interested, it was a great book for the first 10 hours I’ve experienced, so far.
I picked up the Bolt EV in Glenpool, Oklahoma around 4PM. The guess-o-meter was showing 220 miles of range, so I thought it had been charged fully. I forgot to check “target charge level” in the settings. When I checked later, I found it had been set to stop charging when 90% full. I thought it would be smart to plug into a Level 2 charger to precondition the battery and passenger compartment. The drive back was going to be 260 miles. The temperature was much colder in OK than it had been when I left my dealership, in the DFW area, and the wind was really blowing! The tire pressure for all four tires was 32 PSI, which is lower than I prefer, but I was anxious to hit the road, so I left them as they were. It was off to Durant, Oklahoma and a DC fast charger.
Just to be extra careful, I turned off the cabin heater and turned on the heated steering wheel and driver’s seat (highest setting). Other than my feet, I remained comfortable through the drive to Durant, even after sunset.
Once I arrived at the charger, the wind was blowing and it felt bitterly cold! I had about 50 miles of range left, but 116 miles left to go, so I decided to put in 100 miles of range to give me a safety margin. I had started with 200 miles of estimated range, driven 147 miles and had 50 left, so the guess-o-meter had been 23 miles overly optimistic. The charger was not cooperating.
I swiped my credit card but got no response. The charger network was one I’d never heard of (Francis EV Charging). Fortunately, the company support line was shown on the display, so I gave them a call. By this time, I was freezing. They were trying to start the charge session remotely and asked me to unplug the Bolt EV and plug it in again. My hands were shaking so much I could barely do that!
Finally, the charge session started and I decided to find a place to have dinner.
A quick iPhone search located a place called CraftPies, which served pizza. It was two blocks south and one block east, so I walked there, becoming colder and colder, as I went. I could smell the pizzas about a block before reaching the restaurant and it smelled wonderful. One of the pizza makers named Chase helped me through the ordering process and I sat down and waited for my food.
The pizza tasted as good as it had smelled, so I was in heaven. I had selected a spicy meaty pizza drizzled in Sriracha to help fend off the cold. Honestly, it was one of the best (if not the best) pizza I’d ever tasted! I asked if there were any other locations, and it turns out there is one in the DFW area, in Flower Mound, a suburb that is a neighbor of Grapevine, the town in which my dealership is located. New lunch idea!
When I returned to the car and charger, it had not added enough miles for me to be comfortable driving home. I started listening to my book as I sat in the car with the heater running and set to 77 degrees. Finally, I was thawing out. Once the guess-o-meter showed 150 miles of range, I disconnected and resumed the drive back, with the heater running this time. The dealership was already closed, so I decided to take the car to my home to charge overnight there. After the 116 mile second leg of the trip home, I had 20 miles of range left, so the guess-o-meter was off by only 14 miles. My charger is an old Blink charger, specifically for the Volt, so after 9 hours of charging, the Bolt EV only has 160 miles of range. It had averaged 15 miles of range for each hour it was plugged in. I’m going to have to upgrade my charger, when I get my next EV!
Once I got to work, I plugged the Bolt EV into our DC fast charger and filled it up. As it turned out, there was no reason to have range anxiety. A little planning made sure everything went smoothly.
Lessons learned: 1) Check target charge level in settings to make sure the battery is completely full and 2) inflate the tires to 40 PSI for more range.
