BOLT

[CaminoRacer]

66 miles round trip.  I get <50 miles of range a day from the level 1.  If we go anywhere on the weekends, or even a short trip to Costco yesterday costs me range and precious charge time.

GM has a free 240 volt install with the purchase of a Bolt.  Submitted the form this weekend, electrician just reached out, and they have me down for an install on Friday.

I considered buying a level 2 charger to hardwire, but I don't really know the benefit?  The car included a charger you can plug into 120 or 240 volt.  It won't be a full 50 amps, but should be plenty.  I guess people like to keep the included one in the car or something?  Seems like a waste of $700.  I can just unplug and take the included one if I foresee any situation where I might need to plugin on the go, but I can't think of when I would ever do that?

Yeah I guess you're right over the threshold, while we're right under it.

The dual charge cord does 32A, right? Seems like plenty. 7.5 kw is about what the chargers at my office are.

[Soup DeVille]

If we'd listened to Thomas Edison we could have had DC in all its glorious purity delivered straight to our homes and our cars. Instead we have to mess around with all this confounded modern AC nonsense. I don't want my DC adulterated by these wretched inverter gadgets.

And we'd have a miniature coal plant on every street corner in order to offset the transmission losses.

[MrH]

Yeah I guess you're right over the threshold, while we're right under it.

The dual charge cord does 32A, right? Seems like plenty. 7.5 kw is about what the chargers at my office are.

Yeah, I think so.  25 miles/hr of charge, full charge in 10 hours.  I guess I could pay the $700 to get 48 amps (37 miles/hr, full charge in 7 hours or so).  Doesn't really seem worth it to me.

Do you have the same dual cord EVSE that I have?  Now that you own a house, it might be worth getting a level 2 plug installed.  It's relatively cheap if you already have the bandwidth in your breaker.  GM gives $1000 credit, but I've heard if you pay out of pocket, it can be as cheap as $400-$500.

I'll just set the max battery charge to 80% and charge every night.  If I'm going to roadtrip to Columbus or Northern Kentucky, I'll set it to 100% the night before.  That should cover all my use cases just fine.  Anything further than Columbus and back, we take the RDX basically.  Only time that would really happen is if I was visiting my brother in Pittsburgh.  The wife can figure out how to use the Bolt for a few days in that case

[CaminoRacer]

Mine came with a base L1 charger. Technically I can change the plug and connect it to 240v (same as the European L1 cords), but it's still only 8 amp or 12 amp.

I'm gonna call an electrician at some point to take a look at our house. The garage has a sub panel with a few blank spaces left, but the main panel looks full. I could install a charger in the garage or right at the meter and charge on the driveway. I won't do anything right away, since I also want to look into solar panels and that might change the ideal set up.

[Eye of the Tiger]

And we'd have a miniature coal plant on every street corner in order to offset the transmission losses.

I volunteer to turn my house into a miniature coal plant. Miniature coal is the future!

[Laconian]

Dedicated chargers can coordinate with the utility, apply a charge timer (if your car doesn't have one already), and track usage patterns over time.

Get the Emporia. It's like $350 and totally fine. I use it for 48A charging with no problems.

[MrH]

Mine came with a base L1 charger. Technically I can change the plug and connect it to 240v (same as the European L1 cords), but it's still only 8 amp or 12 amp.

I'm gonna call an electrician at some point to take a look at our house. The garage has a sub panel with a few blank spaces left, but the main panel looks full. I could install a charger in the garage or right at the meter and charge on the driveway. I won't do anything right away, since I also want to look into solar panels and that might change the ideal set up.

Does your state have big incentives for solar or something?  I've never seen where they make sense financially at the home.

[CaminoRacer]

Does your state have big incentives for solar or something?  I've never seen where they make sense financially at the home.

Utah's tax credits are phasing out at the end of this year, but Federal is 30%. We have like 50 more good days of sunlight than Ohio so it makes more sense here.

Our power company does rebates for battery storage, although that means they can use the battery to power the grid.

[MrH]

Utah's tax credits are phasing out at the end of this year, but Federal is 30%. We have like 50 more good days of sunlight than Ohio so it makes more sense here.

Our power company does rebates for battery storage, although that means they can use the battery to power the grid.

Isn't a solar installation typically $25k+???

I don't think there's a payback scenario where that makes sense with the price of electricity here.  Once you factor in even the most modest cost of capital, it REALLY doesn't make sense, and that's not even including battery storage

[CaminoRacer]

I think it's usually closer to $11-15k after tax credits, unless you get a ton of panels.

[Eye of the Tiger]

My mom got solar panels on her roof. She claims the monthly payment on the panels is cheaper than the electric bill was. That's all I know.

[CaminoRacer]

My mom got solar panels on her roof. She claims the monthly payment on the panels is cheaper than the electric bill was. That's all I know.

That's an option too. I've seen some good financing deals. Over 20 years you save less than paying up front, but you're not tying up $10-15k in cash.

[AutobahnSHO]

The home solar installs wouldn't make sense financially without gubment subsidies......

[veeman]

The issue with financing solar panels is the solar company owns those panels and it becomes harder to sell your house with basically a lien on those solar panels.  Potential new home owners don't want to have to deal with that (assume the loan for the now older solar panels and the lien associated with it).  I know of a few house sales in our area that were shelved because the new potential owners didn't want anything to do with that. 

If you don't plan on moving or you have the ability to buy the solar panels before putting your house up for sale, it makes a lot of sense.

[Laconian]

House-mounted solar doesn't make much sense in cloudy climates. We have solar subsidies in Washington but there are a lot of yuppies west of the mountains installing them. It's a bad use of taxpayer money. If we want more generating capacity with a bigger impact on lower income populations, we should subsidize the panels more heavily for people east of the mountains (or wherever some kind of sun exposure metric exceeds a certain critical threshold).

Really, this is something where inter-state optimization would make a lot of sense. We have some states that are absolutely sun-baked and states that are covered by clouds 60% of the year. Perhaps the subsidies could be allocated to grid regions and optimized based on the needs and goals of that grid.

[CaminoRacer]

The issue with financing solar panels is the solar company owns those panels and it becomes harder to sell your house with basically a lien on those solar panels.  Potential new home owners don't want to have to deal with that (assume the loan for the now older solar panels and the lien associated with it).  I know of a few house sales in our area that were shelved because the new potential owners didn't want anything to do with that. 

If you don't plan on moving or you have the ability to buy the solar panels before putting your house up for sale, it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I wouldn't do the loan unless it had no early-payment penalties.

[Laconian]

Do you guys have the ads where a woman says "if you have one of THESE" (points to an electric meter) "then you qualify for solar!"

Who doesn't have an electric meter? She might as well say "if you metabolize oxygen".

[Eye of the Tiger]

Do you guys have the ads where a woman says "if you have one of THESE" (points to an electric meter) "then you qualify for solar!"

Who doesn't have an electric meter? She might as well say "if you metabolize oxygen".

I get those ads next to the 600 pound woman waddling through her hallway telling me to eat just one gummy per day.

[AutobahnSHO]

The issue with financing solar panels is the solar company owns those panels and it becomes harder to sell your house with basically a lien on those solar panels.  Potential new home owners don't want to have to deal with that (assume the loan for the now older solar panels and the lien associated with it).  I know of a few house sales in our area that were shelved because the new potential owners didn't want anything to do with that. 

If you don't plan on moving or you have the ability to buy the solar panels before putting your house up for sale, it makes a lot of sense.

After big storms this year a lot of people had roof repairs done. Across the street person I assume was solar installer came and moved the panels off the roof, different crew came to do roof, installer came back to put the panels back up....

[MrH]

They never make sense without massive subsidies and big loans.  The last thing I want is a big solar and battery loan tied to my house.

[r0tor]

Panels are around 6 year payback in northern PA.  Battery storage of course is optional and then balloons that payback, but of course the benefit of battery storage is more of dealing with power outages

[Morris Minor]

Panels are around 6 year payback in northern PA.  Battery storage of course is optional and then balloons that payback, but of course the benefit of battery storage is more of dealing with power outages

The battery storage also makes sense if you have time-of-use tariffs. So you use the juice stored in the dead of night to power the HVAC etc during waking hours.
There's no off-peak tariff structure here so not applicable to me.

[MrH]

The battery storage also makes sense if you have time-of-use tariffs. So you use the juice stored in the dead of night to power the HVAC etc during waking hours.
There's no off-peak tariff structure here so not applicable to me.

Same here.  No off-peak rate structure in place.  No need to set delayed charging schedules.

[Laconian]

My utility asks nicely but there is neither carrot nor stick to make it happen.

[r0tor]

Once I get more time to engineer things I'm looking at doing 6 or so panels as a ground mount.  Basically behind my pool is now a bit of a worthless slope that is southwest facing.  Could easily put 6 or so panels there basically completely out of site from the house.  Not sure if I'd go batteries right away as they are still expensive.

There are some hybrid panels out there that do heating and electric in one panel.  Perhaps a solar pool heater and electric generator .. hmmm

[AutobahnSHO]

Once I get more time to engineer things I'm looking at doing 6 or so panels as a ground mount.  Basically behind my pool is now a bit of a worthless slope that is southwest facing.  Could easily put 6 or so panels there basically completely out of site from the house.  Not sure if I'd go batteries right away as they are still expensive.

There are some hybrid panels out there that do heating and electric in one panel.  Perhaps a solar pool heater and electric generator .. hmmm

That would be tasty!

[mzziaz]

Congratulations!


Our Bolt is reaching 200k kms, and has been the most reliable vehicle we've ever had.

[MrH]

Is the Bolt the new Miata for the forum?  We've got quite a few now.

- Me
- Alex
- Mzziaz
- Heeltoe still have one or not?
- ChrisV

[Eye of the Tiger]

This is too many Bolts. Not enough nuts.

[CaminoRacer]

Is the Bolt the new Miata for the forum?  We've got quite a few now.

- Me
- Alex
- Mzziaz
- Heeltoe still have one or not?
- ChrisV

Nomis had one too before getting a Model 3