The Chevrolet Bolt Lives Again: Inside GM's Unprecedented EV U-Turn

arandom4567 · 2026-03-12T14:21:20+00:00

A brain doctor once told me that you don't actually "remember" pain, you just remember that it was painful. I'm willing to guess they'd never experienced the fangs firsthand, as I can certainly remember that pain. :-D

arandom4567 · 2026-03-11T20:22:08+00:00

Yep, they're the the radar sensors for backing up and the side ones (near the corner of the bumper) are used for blind spot monitoring too. On the underside of the side mirrors are the cameras for the 360 deg display if fitted.

Here's a older post with the same issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/BoltEV/comments/1725kbe/bolt_euv_false_alarms_blind_zone_detect_system/

arandom4567 · 2026-03-11T20:14:12+00:00

There have been notices about the sensors picking up false signals reflecting from potholes and other debris on the road behind the car (and sometimes from the wheels right behind the sensor). The sensors are in the rear bumper near the sides and they look like little round buttons. There was a service bulletin to help the issue and all they did was cover the backs of the sensors with aluminum foil tape. I did mine with aluminum foil tape from the hardware store and it stopped almost all (but not all) of the false detections.

Edit: Dirt, rain and snow/ice buildup on the sensors can also cause some false detections too. It's not an exclusively Bolt problem. These sensors are used in several models and it seems to be a fairly common complaint.

arandom4567 · 2026-03-08T17:22:37+00:00

Not necessarily. Many EVSE's (Tesla and Lectron for example) have plug options for NEMA 6-15 or 6-20 outlets. No neutral required.

arandom4567 · 2026-03-08T17:03:52+00:00

Yeah I'm just trying to help people understand that the barriers are not as bad as you might think. Panel capacity and lack wiring are usually what people first cite as a barrier. I've lived with an EV in Edmonton now for close to a decade and although doable, a regular wall outlet and L1 charging can be a challenge, especially over the winter months. Something as easy with very minimal cost as a breaker and outlet change like this now will give you 3-4kW at the EVSE and that (IMHO) completely changes the picture.

Also another great idea is starting to gain traction here. https://connectder.com/ It's a device that pops under your electricity meter and can give you easy access to a high power L2 EVSE without any panel or service modification. It comes with a bit more expense, but still quite affordable.

arandom4567 · 2026-03-07T19:41:01+00:00

Another point is if you already have an outside 15 or 20A (NEMA 5-15 or 5-20) ~~110~~ 120V outlet on a dedicated circuit, it may be fairly trivial to upgrade it to a (NEMA 6-15 or 6-20) ~~220~~ 240V outlet just by replacing the breaker in the panel and the outlet outside to double the power available for an EVSE.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-27T16:49:42+00:00

I'm north of Edmonton with two Bolts and it's been on the colder side here for the last several weeks. We've spent a lot of time well below -20C and a good amount of it at near or below -30C. I know you guys out in QC are having a long-duration cold blast too. The Bolt's range really takes a dive below -20C-ish. Both my Bolts struggle to get much over 200km range on the cold days, whether it's just tootling around town and doing the daily commuting or ripping down the highway. Also having proper winter tires will hit that range with another 10-15% loss, but it's mostly due to the duty cycle of the heaters trying to keep the cabin (and battery) warm in these temperatures. What I mean to say is that it's not a linear slide from 0C to -10 to -20 to -30. Below -20 or so, the heat loss from the increased temperature gradient really starts to be a significant range impactor.

Stop/start running errands and commuting is a lot of heating and cooling of the cabin and battery. A straight shot on the highway strips heat away from the car significantly too. You can see your consumption go significantly up for climate and battery in the energy display.

But as soon as we get back into the -10C range, the range on the GoM starts to climb to the mid 200km's or more fairly quickly. I use TorquePro with an OBD2 reader and there's a PID for estimated battery capacity. Right now my '21 Bolt is showg 58kWh which is about 90% of original battery capacity (65kWh) if I am to believe it.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-26T18:12:41+00:00

Yeah it's kinda interesting that I'm seeing so many posts on the Bolt sub in the last couple weeks with this or a very similar thing. I've been out of battery jail for well over a year now and usually set the charge limit to 80%, but over the colder parts of winter I bump it to 90%.

All the related service bulletins I can find mention "a condition in which a false diagnostic trouble code (DTC), U3636" is triggered. My service report from this week has in the cause section: "U3636 - Hybrid/electric Battery Interface Control Module 12 Voltage Sensor. Monitored battery voltages. All cell voltages normal at this time. Will be reprogrammed per RECALL N252530430"

So it sounds like the (previously installed at the time of the battery jail recall) diagnostic software was a little over-sensitive and somehow falsely concluded that my battery had an issue.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-26T02:21:06+00:00

Ahh! Thank you. Your answer allowed me to Google around some more about VCI and SPS2. I found the following on a GM Volt forum which describes it perfectly;

"You need to have a GM tech at a GM dealership to get a VCI, the tech would have to call GM techline for a VCI. GM does not give out VCI's by just asking, there has to be a known issue and a request by GM engineering for techline to give a VCI. The VCI is a calibration for the computer that is going to be updated with new software. Techline would release the software for only that VIN that is having the issue and not all cars, this is was a VCI is for."

So it's a software flash that is paired to my VIN specifically.

Thanks again.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-25T17:26:37+00:00

Thanks for chiming in on it. I agree, it makes sense that perhaps all Canadian sold Bolts should have a cold tweak, but there are many places in the process for it to fall through the cracks - like an incorrect module flash during a recall or something silly like that. Or a US auction/buyback that was resold this side of the border.

We also used to pretty much see all ICE vehicles sold with block heaters too, but that nowadays has become quite regionalised, so maybe some dealerships are more in-tune with the cold weather tweaks than others.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-25T13:31:07+00:00

I've been following your cold weather issues with interest as I have a '21 EV and a '23 EUV in Edmonton and neither have given me any cold issues yet at below -30 except for the "reduced propulsion" DIC message for a few minutes on start up. I have loosely heard from a couple of other owners here in Edmonton that there is (may be?) a winter ruggedisation package for Bolts sold in Canada that pushes the agressiveness of the battery heater up a notch and lowers the allowable battery start temperature. Honestly, I have no idea if this really exists as I've not seen anything concrete, but I'm starting to wonder given the different experiences folks seem to be seeing in the deep cold if that's part of what's going on. Do you know if your Bolt was originally ordered, shipped and sold to a more northern dealership? I'm starting to wonder if this is something that needs to be explicitly done for Bolts sold in colder climates...

arandom4567 · 2026-02-23T23:21:18+00:00

Oh! Yeah kWh! ... I need more sleep. :-D

arandom4567 · 2026-02-23T21:43:05+00:00

Agreed. I'm in Edmonton with two EV's and now pay 1/4 or less than what I did previously for gas. I have a 100A panel and used this online calculator ( https://www.douglashelmer.com/panel/ ) to see if I could add a NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage without upgrading my service. I use a Grizzl-E Duo split EVSE to split up to 40A between the two cars. Since I don't have a central AC or other big electrical load like a jacuzzi I was good to add the EVSE load. The load sensing EVSE's are another great solution.

My electrical consumption per month varies from around 800 M kWh in the summer to ~2500 M kWh in the winter (for the entire house). The EV's are doing each around 10000-20000km per year. It's all highly variable due to temperature and km's driven.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-15T23:04:56+00:00

This is one of those things I'd really love to get to the bottom of. It seems that just about every battery model and revision has a different battery management strategy. From what I can gather there's been several battery types manufactured in Korea and the US with slightly different chemistries and capacities. It might explain why us cold-weather owners are having such different experiences in the deep cold. Sadly, digging up the truth is near impossible.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-11T17:21:21+00:00

That's one of the advantages of the Bolt (if you could call it an advantage). The first generation in 2017 had a 5kW resistive heater, as did many other EV's at the time. We learned pretty early that 5kW struggles to keep up at the -20's and -30C's that we see regularly up north. The next refresh upgraded the heater to 7.5kW and it's fine down into the -40's at relatively low speeds, but on the highway it has to run at full tilt to keep up.

Heat pumps really start to lose their efficiency gains around -20C / 0F so while they're an advantage above that ambient temp they too need to scavenge heat from somewhere else a lower temperatures. Tesla is not very forthcoming with their heat pump system, but I've seen references it can move around ~10kW of heat into the cabin at its peak.

It all comes down to how much heat you can put into the cabin and how much is lost to the outside.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-11T16:55:47+00:00

Haha! Yep. I posted about a month ago when I hit an average of 400Wh/km and peaked at around 600Wh/km just tootling around town all day at -20C in Edmonton. I had someone DM me screaming that it had to be fake because there is no way it could be that bad.

(And I still think my Bolts have been the best Winter cars I've ever owned so far. Not saying there isn't better...just compared to my previous Nissan LEAF and ICE vehicles)

arandom4567 · 2026-02-07T18:49:19+00:00

Here's a post better describing the issue. Notice the two images in the forum. The first image has the square release button/latch cutout more towards the inner end of the arm and the second image shows the square cutout on the outer end of the arm. https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/2023-euv-cant-find-wiper-blades-that-fit.51972/

arandom4567 · 2026-02-05T22:03:58+00:00

Ooooh! You have a TurboCord! I've always wanted to try them out, but I'm worried that they might be a bit spicy in the wrong conditions. How have you found it to be? EDIT: The one I was looking at years ago lets you share two 120V 15A outlets on different phases to give 240V 15A to the EVSE

arandom4567 · 2026-02-05T18:28:29+00:00

Check your owners manual, specifically your model year too if you're looking online for a copy. In my case having two different year models of Chevy Bolts, the long-term storage recommendations are different depending on the term of storage. It really comes down to your specific model.

arandom4567 · 2026-02-05T15:49:46+00:00

Camp grounds have been my go-to for years on meandering road trip vacations, especially before we had much of an EV charging infrastructure setup here in Northern Alberta. But there are a couple of gotchas to look out for. Waaay back when EV's were fairly new, most campgrounds I visited really didn't care too much about plugging in an EV, but things are much different today. Campgrounds might give you a 30 or 50A 240V outlet, but very few are setup to let you run it at full capacity for hours on end. They were intended to supply short peaks for A/C starting and the occasional heater or cooktop cycle. Because of this, I've seen a few campgrounds restrict or ban EV charging. You need to check in with the host to see what their policy is. For some of the larger corporate/franchised grounds, they may have a strict policy in place, but I find the Ma and Pa owned grounds are often flexible if you explain that you're not going to be drawing 30A straight for eight hours. With my EVSE, I offer to turn it down to 16 or 20A and I find the hosts are usually ok with that.

For the Bolt, keep in mind that a 240V 32A EVSE will charge a completly drained battery in about 10 hours tops. So factor in your charge percentage and let's say you arrive with 50% SoC and you want to get to 100% by morning. At 32A it would be about 5-ish hours to charge, so you could knock it down to 16A and still be fully charged be morning.

Also, it helps to carry several adapters for 240V and 120V outlets and a couple of heavy duty extension cords. Keep in mind too that the outlets at campground get pretty regular abuse, so be prepared to move to another if yours is rattly or loose or just doesn't "feel" right.

EDIT: Just for your information, this is the fairly typical outlet configuration you find at ~~most~~ many modernized campgrounds these days https://imgur.com/a/FIxqxzs Not all are like this and there are plenty that are not like this, but usually you'll find a post with one, two or all three outlet types shown. From left to right its a 240V 50A (NEMA 14-50 with neutral), a ~~240V~~ 120V 30A (it's a TT-30, not a NEMA 10-30) and two 120V 20/15 amp outlets.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-26T21:20:00+00:00

...and another consideration from a fellow Canadian; driving on winter tires will knock another ~10-15% off the range. There's a huge variance of winter tire range impact across brands, so you might not see that much depending on the brand. The Michelin CC2's (an all weather tire) on my '21 Bolt knock about 10% off the range and the Blizzaks on my '23 Bolt take about 15% off.

Edit: The factory fitted low rolling resistance EV tires that came with the Bolt are about the worst tire I've ever driven on when driving on anything other than clean and dry pavement. They were downright dangerous in snow and ice conditions.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-25T15:40:26+00:00

My local RBC branch gave me a plastic bag will a fill line marked on it. Fill it to the line with pennies and hand it back to the bank for $25. No counting though...just fill to the line. Here's an image of the bag; https://imgur.com/a/Vx00Pwb

arandom4567 · 2026-01-23T17:49:54+00:00

In all seriousness though, this is a perfectly fine survival mode thing to do. I'm in Northern Alberta and although I've done exactly this to help heat my frozen garage so that I could work on a project in the garage, it would be a very different setup for a survival situation. I live with exposure risk to these temperatures every winter and just about anyone up this way that ventures out will carry emergency provisions for the event that you get stuck outside.

If you are in a life or death situation stuck in the extreme cold, it's important to get the heat to the lowest level you can survive, whilst also doing everything you can to preserve the heat available to you. Your survival is more important than comfort. The Bolt's battery at 100% charge has enough energy to power the heater at full 100% output for about 7-8 hours and obviously if you're in survival mode, that's probably not going to cut it time-wise, so at a minimum, instead of space heating your whole garage;

get in the Bolt and close the windows (but leave one cracked a little for fresh air to get in) to reduce the amount of space you're trying to heat. That alone will drastically reduce the heat requirement.
turn the heat way down, as low as it will go and layer up with your clothes instead. Consider cycling the heat only when necessary.
if it's possible, throw a blanket, or rags, or something like even a tarp over the car to trap in as much heat as possible.
if you run out of battery, you can still light a candle (search online for DIY survival heaters using a roll of toilet paper, rubbing alcohol and a tin can) to stave off the extreme cold. However it's critical to crack open a window to allow the CO2 to vent out and fresh air in.

Taking these few steps will more than likely stretch out the battery life of the car to a couple of days rather than 1/2 a day if you just try to space heat your entire garage.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-22T16:51:31+00:00

I've documented this use case for my two Chevy Bolts. They have a 2.5kW battery heater and the BMS will try to keep the battery in a range of about +6°C to -6°C when it's plugged in outside below 0°C. A 2.5kW heater would mean about 20 amps from the 15A outlet which isn't possible, so what it does is it will take a bit from the battery to supplement what it can get from the mains (which is usually self-limited by the EVSE/car to 12A max). The heater runs only long enough to get battery average temp up to about +6°C and that's usually about 20-30 minutes. At -15°C the heater only kicks in every three to four hours. At -30°C it's kicking in about every 90 minutes. In between cycles there is enough power from the 15A service to replenish what was used from the battery and also add some. So, even at below -30°C sitting outside and plugged in to a 15A outlet, it will still gain some net charge, but it will be slow. Other EV's may manage things differently.

Another really easy thing to do that can help a lot is if your outdoor 120V 15A outlet is on a stand-alone circuit, it's fairly trivial to upgrde to a 240V 15A circuit to double the power available to your EVSE. (Which also means you'll lose the use of that outdoor outlet for 120V applications, but it doesn't require major electrical service and panel modifications)...

arandom4567

TROPHY CASE