Having shared the positive side of the electric vehicle experience, I should share the unknown or negative side.
The Bolt's range of 160 miles on cold days and 240 miles on mild days and 210 miles on hot days with the AC is fine for our daily life. I plug it in every night and it always has enough range for anything we do on a regular basis.
We're not so comfortable when it comes to travel and emergencies.
I have only ever plugged it in at home. I have an app on my cell phone (which I can use from the car dashboard) to find charging stations, and I understand I can fully charge the car in a few hours at high powered public charging stations. But, I have never tried it and can not attest to how convenient or inconvenient it is. To me, it seems like it's probably a pain to stop for a few hours regularly during road trips like to visit her Mom 164 miles away or go to concerts in Boston 141 mile away or in New York 240 miles away. So, we plan to use Annie's gasoline fueled Durango when we go on long trips.
Emergencies are another matter.
The Bolt has plenty of range to go to all the local doctors and hospitals when it is charged. But, we think it would be a problem to only have the electric car if we had spent the day doing errands and the batteries were depleted and we had an emergency in the evening. We need a form of transport that is never incapacitated. We think this means a second car. Maybe a second electric car that we keep charged would work, but for now we're happy to have a gasoline car.
In summary, we think the Bolt is terrific. We both like it far more than we expected. But, the technology is not yet fit to completely replace fossil fueled vehicles in our normal average American life style.
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