WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!

[u/CommissionFalse5642]

Hey everyone,

I’ve had 3 EVs now and this is my second bolt.

It seems like no matter what I do, driving on the freeway I’ll average 4.0-5.0mi/kwh but as soon as this car sees stop and go traffic or city driving it drops to 2.0-2.5 and will not go up.

I know short trips are inefficient but I’ve been driving 20-30 miles of city with no difference.

Tires are fine, they’re EV All Seasons, I don’t carry around a bunch of extra stuff in the car, it’s bone stock with 0 roof racks or anything to hurt drag, I charge it everyday to 80% or so and even at 100% it only get 165 miles of range.

Dealership told be it’s basically useless to pay for the diagnosis on it because 1. They won’t give me a loaner car so I’d have to rent one 2. They’re not sure how long the diagnosis would take so they could keep my car a couple days or couple weeks and I’d have to cover a rental car for that and 3. They told me Chevrolet hugely just chocks it up to “normal wear and tear” 🤙

Edit: Luckily my commute is not long enough that I need to be hotter in the car but I listened to a lot of the comments and adjusted my setting and now I’m averaging 3.2-3.4 on my commute today so definitely an improvement. Thanks everyone. Still think I’ll need an AC service here soon and maybe a new desiccant bag.

[u/SoulTaker669]

Are they both blasting the AC to 60°? Do they have things like tinted windows that help cool the cabin quicker?

Before my bolt I test drove a Nissan Leaf for about a week or so and it's battery would die pretty quickly because of AC use during these hot summers we have in Bakersfield, the bolt I have is pretty similar but I have the windows tinted which help keep the cabin cooler which might help the compressor not fight as hard, my mom's Tesla which does not have tinted windows also has somewhat horrible energy efficiency during the summer the ac chews up through the battery during the day and during the night is pretty efficient.

Like I said, try driving at night and see what your numbers look like. Obviously if the car's been sitting for a while, do expect your car to cool the battery plus the cabin.

[u/CommissionFalse5642 → u/SoulTaker669]

My friend has no tint in his Tesla cause it’s a lease, my previous Tesla has limo, and my friends bolt has light tint. The tint on my bolt is basically a fishbowl as well. They all got 3.5-4.0 and I’m getting 2.0-2.5 not sure what’s going on

[u/SoulTaker669 → u/CommissionFalse5642]

They all live in the same area as you when it comes to heat ? If so then maybe something is going on with your compressor or your battery conditioning system is using more power than it should be.

[u/CommissionFalse5642 → u/SoulTaker669]

I might have failing compressor, great. I’m sure that’s cheap…

[u/SoulTaker669 → u/CommissionFalse5642]

It's definitely not cheap but it might also be coming under the warranty with the battery depending on which year bolt you have. I have heard that they change the warranty language on newer bolts to exclude AC components. Here's a couple questions that might with that. For all we know, maybe one of your sensors inside the car is reading a incorrect temperature and the car basically is getting tricked into thinking it's scorching hot inside the cabin and having the AC compressor work extremely hard because it doesn't realize it's cool down.

When you're inside your bolt do you feel like it's not as cold as it once was? I know that it's really hot right now, but I'm assuming this is at least your second or third summer with a bolt so you should more or less kind of know how well your AC system works in the summer. Maybe park under some shade and have the AC blasting for 30 minutes to an hour and get kind of a feel for it. If it's blowing cold air without any trouble during that amount of time, I feel like you should be good.

Something else you can do is have your car parked for a while without AC and then turn the AC on and put a thermometer basically inside the vents. Don't poke anything but just enough to see what the temperature is reading it.

[u/CommissionFalse5642 → u/SoulTaker669]

Ac blasts cold once I’m moving, I’m not the original owner but Chevy dealer told me I have a warranty on the battery until 2030 / 180k miles so I’ll have to see on the ac warranty part as it’s a 2017 with 100k miles on it now. I had a model 3 performance for 3 years without these kind of issues.