Cold Windy Day, Less Driving Capacity

As promised, we will be revealing everything we learn about the electric driving experience.  So far, my experience is, it is a really fun car to drive.  I'm definitely used to bigger vehicles. ( I really liked my Ford Taurus and the roominess and comfort level.  And my personal F-150 Regency Series is a major man ride.  Grrrrr.)  But the Chevy Bolt is quickly growing on me.

I've been watching fuel usage closely over the past month and it has been fairly consistent at about 3.6 miles per kWh.  But Oklahoma's winter weather changed yesterday exposing something I'll have to watch very carefully.  I had a meeting in OKC on Dec.7th which meant I would be driving 53 miles north into a 25 mph icy cold head wind.  The morning low was about 17 degrees, so cabin heating was a necessity.  Remember, there's no engine heat to produce cabin heat which means the car interior was heated with electric heat using the battery, and it ain't a geothermal heat pump.

To bring all this to a point, the same drive on a calm mild day would normally use up about 53 miles of battery capacity, but the windy cold weather turned a 53 mile drive into a 105 mile drive.  Yep, that's the energy that was consumed due to those two factors.  So, even though it was still cheaper for electricity for yesterday's fuel, the cold and the wind almost ate up the savings.

Now, that's just one day and obviously the average of day will be much better , but there are obviously many things left to learn.  Stay tuned!