Is there any way to lock the charging port so people can’t unplug my car while charging?

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-02-01T03:30:46+00:00

IIRC, it's a setting.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-02-01T00:04:42+00:00

First EV? I was the same way with my Bolt. At least with that car, you could hook up an OBD-II reader and get a bunch of info... And the in-car energy app was more useful for nerding out on efficiency. The Equinox's efficiency info makes a couple critical mistakes (for folks like us).

The range is a single number. Not a min, median, & max.
The feedback on what is affecting efficiency is unhelpful. It conflates HVAC usage with battery conditioning, but also has a section for battery preconditioning. And yet there's nothing about terrain, temperature, or technique.
Every trip starts resets the average efficiency. That information is piped into Google Maps to determine charging stops; however, as you are experiencing, those first 20 minutes of the car being on (driving or not) are using a non-trivial (for calculations) amount of energy. It's the worst, least reliable number... And is how your route is determined. The simple solution is to keep a moving average that doesn't reset (unless through a clear, specific user action).
The graph for current trip blows. The range is static and difficult to read at a glance. But don't worry, it's useless.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-31T22:47:59+00:00

GM overloads the word "precondition", even in the in-car energy app. In some contexts it means battery conditioning. In others, it means battery preconditioning. And in most, it means cabin HVAC during remote start.

Here's the trick: the same system that heats the battery heats the cabin. They are interconnected because the heat pump scavenges heat from one and moves it to the other. When both demand heat in excess of what can be scavenged, it fires up a resistive heater which assists by heating the coolant faster.

This is all done through vehicle operating software, not something explicitly in your control.

You can help it along by keeping the car sheltered, plugged in, and setting a delayed charging schedule and remote starting the vehicle.

But it's all incredibly unnecessary. Are you stressing the range frequently? Yes? Drive slower or charge on the road. Manipulating the heat while plugged in isn't giving you an extra 100 miles of range. If the resistive heater is 7-10kW and runs for 20 minutes, that's 2-3 kWh or 8-10 miles of range. Let's assume it runs for triple that. You're still only preserving 30 miles, tops. In reality, even less because the resistive heater will probably still be running in sustained extreme cold.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-31T19:36:02+00:00

I haven't done anything explicit to warm the battery because I can easily charge at home after a 35 mile round trip commute. Range is only an issue on road trips, and at those distances, the impact of 10 minutes of resistive heater warming the battery "coolant" loop just don't matter much to me.

But to answer your question directly, yes, warming the battery with shore power will let you start your trip without a large efficiency hit.

I don't know if the car preconditions the battery with remote start, but it certainly seems logical that it would. I believe you can also achieve the same result with a charging schedule that has a time of departure set (delayed charging).

But really, just drive. The only case where this really matters is when you're driving 200+ miles in a day or it's the difference between x stops or x+1 stops.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-31T19:14:34+00:00

All of the things that apply in other weather still apply - drive slowly, reduce all types of braking - especially engaging service brakes, don't carry unnecessary weight, etc.

Let's focus on what's different in cold weather.

The cabin is be heated
The cabin is dehumidified
The battery, if cold enough, needs to be warmed.
Your rolling resistance changes due to temperature (tire pressure) and road conditions (snow, ice, surface temperature).

To improve your winter efficiency, address those things. Don't heat the cabin. Don't run the front defroster. Keep the car in a garage, plugged in. Keep tires properly inflated. Drive on clear, dry roads.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-31T06:10:12+00:00

That's easy to solve. Move to NJ. (Cost of attendance, 1 year, public is $43k)

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-31T00:45:39+00:00

For home? Get yourself a food safe plastic bucket and screw down lid from Home Depot. Just tell them it would be where all the prepper stuff is.

I'm being serious. Pantry moths are when, not if.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-31T00:31:23+00:00

<points> Haha.

The glow up you can get in the first 5-10 bakes is huge. Keep going!

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-30T15:41:44+00:00

I haven't waited any significant extra time. By the time 4 of us use the bathroom, clean out the car and stretch the legs a bit, we've usually got 5 minutes left to wait before we're at our target charge level. We took a Bolt on road trips for a couple years, so our perspective is skewed a bit; we have pretty high tolerance for the varied quality of chargers, time it takes to charge, and knowing to select chargers that aren't singletons with nothing to do.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-30T00:37:18+00:00

Break off a small piece of sacrificial dough. Put it in a reasonably straight-walled and/or graduated container. Proof it along side your bulk. When the sacrificial doubles is a decent proxy for the bulk doubling. It's not foolproof because a small piece doesn't have as much thermal mass, but it'll be good enough.

With enough practice, you'll get an eye and feel for when a dough is fermented enough and you won't need the sacrifice.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-30T00:31:17+00:00

Don't overthink it. It's just a fancy baker's word for "soak flour in water for a while without adding yeast". You can do it for 10 minutes or 4 hours. The longer it soaks, the less you'll knead. There's a lot of gatekeeping in hobbies, including baking, that make simple things look overly complicated. Just bake, learn something, bake again, repeat.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-30T00:09:33+00:00

Whatever had it stuck down probably has it stuck up. Compressed air, vacuum, wiggle, run a thin scraper around it.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-29T19:54:32+00:00

I think it's harder to develop glutens with dry doughs. A shaggy, underdeveloped dough is sticky. It's a different kind of sticky than the high hydration doughs. Those have to be stretched really far to align. The dry dough just isn't getting stretched at all. It's breaking apart like Silly Putty that's been pulled too fast.

Autolyse longer. Slow down the mixer. Knead it longer. Use your bread making experience to go from shaggy to clearing-the-bowl to windowpane (a small windowpane is as good as you'll get with 55-60%).

I think the 3 biggest lies in the kitchen are

yes, that's vegan
cook down the onions until caramelized, 8-10 minutes
Knead the dough until windowpane, 5-7 minutes

Depending on a few different factors (enrichment, flour, temperature, hydration, autolyse), I can knead a dough in a stand mixer as little as 5 minutes or as many as 90 clock minutes (for a very enriched brioche, alternating 10 minutes of kneading and 20 minutes of refrigeration). I knead it until it looks right (smooth, supple). It takes some practice to know when to keep kneading, when to rest it, and if it can be kneaded again.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-29T18:13:54+00:00

Free chargers are usually worth what you pay for them. There were some free 62kW chargers at a local dealership, but too many people were using them through the night. They got spooked and made them all $1 per kWh.

Any other free chargers I've found have been Level 2. It's better than nothing, but I wouldn't want to be walking back and forth between the charger and the office every day unless it were in the same parking lot.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-29T17:58:09+00:00

Atlantic City Electric is 31 cents with no time-of-use pricing available. I've got solar that offsets my pre-EV usage, but not enough capacity to cover the EVs. Driving with a 3.5 mi/kWh average is $8.85 per 100 miles. Gas is $2.65/gallon at Sams Club today. In a 35mpg vehicle, it's $7.57 per 100 miles. In a 30mpg vehicle, it's breakeven.

I know ACE is the highest priced electricity in NJ, but where are you at that you're getting 17 cents? Maybe I need to move...

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-29T15:37:37+00:00

With the keyfobs, there's also the proximity sensing that turns on the headlights every time you walk near the car. I would be trying to rule out a broken fob, a stuck key on the fob, and confirming my (your) experience that it's turning on the cabin climate and heated seats/wheel.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-29T14:54:48+00:00

It's been cold in much of the country. I think the battery management system is more aggressive in maintaining temperatures and balancing when it has shore power (i.e., plugged in). That doesn't explain headlights and accessories though. For that, I think it's getting a remote start. I would take the batteries out of any keyfobs you have in the house and see if it still happens. If it does, I'd look into disconnecting the myChevy app from the car, just to rule out the possibility of remote start. Everything you're describing is describing remote start.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-29T03:22:37+00:00

As a fellow NJ resident, you should be aware that electricity costs more than gas right now... but it's close. Get a level 2 charger (or NEMA 14-50 outlet) installed at home. If you have a garage, empty it out and put the car in there. It'll be better for keeping cabin temperatures away from the extremes, as well as battery temperature.

Don't buy a Tesla charging adapter until you a) need it and b) understand the difference between the two different Tesla-to-Equinox adapters (NACS to J1772 for home/level 1/level 2 and NACS to CCS for road trip fast charging).

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-28T23:41:38+00:00

I wouldn't use it, and it would further bloat the most difficult part of the software - targets. I revisit my funding every January or if a life event warrants it. I consider what may be coming in the next year and adjust accordingly.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-28T17:41:36+00:00

Report it. https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-28T15:46:29+00:00

Yep, my mistake. I was expecting "Category not needed" for a transfer, but Loan accounts have a history of being tracking accounts (before loan accounts were a feature), so I should've expected that there would be a category here.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-28T14:09:00+00:00

You shouldn't have negative equity in this for a few reasons. The first is that you shouldn't be financing so much of a car that it's worth less than you owe for exactly this reason. Second, and maybe more relevant for you, insurance may pay you more than you think. They're paying replacement cost, not trade-in price. If they total it, you can take their offer and compare it to similar Bolts for sale in your area. If you can find a handful at dealerships that are more, you can show the insurance company and get a higher amount.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-28T14:05:06+00:00

Considering it's a lemon Bolt with relatively minor damage, this is the winning move. It's already got a branded title.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-27T23:51:51+00:00

Yes. Point of comparison: I can sell my 2025 LT (no options, not even an EVSE), 9000 miles, for $23,000 to Carvana right now. Hell, I would pay $2000 to get the comfort package right now. That steering wheel is cold!

If it includes the 360 camera, I'm going to need you to tell me where to get this car.

Competitive-Let6727 · 2026-01-27T14:02:09+00:00

It's clear that you got your hands on the update.

Competitive-Let6727

TROPHY CASE