
I’ve been driving my leased 2017 Bolt for a week now, after turning in my 2014 Nissan LEAF — which I had leased for three and a half years — last Monday.
I was able to do a great eight-mile hike in Staunton on an absolutely gorgeous, blue-sky autumn Colorado afternoon.
It was the first hike I’ve done relatively “deep” into the mountains West of Denver in about four years that I was able to drive to in my own car (occasionally, over the past four years, I’ve hitched a ride into the mountains with a friend/relative with a gas car).
It felt like F-R-E-E-D-O-M! 🙂
But at least, with my newly leased Bolt, I can get into the mountains and back without having to charge, something I could not easily do in my 2014 LEAF.
Hiking regularly in the mountains west of Denver just wasn’t a reasonable or practical option with my 84-mile, 24 kWh battery pack LEAF, which, due to a divorce about one-year into my three-year lease, turned unexpectedly into my only car.
Yes, I could have found some Level 2 chargers, of which there are some in the Colorado mountains, but these often were out of the way I wanted to travel in, take a long time to add charge, and, more often than not, simply do not exist.
Two summers ago, I actually tried to drive my 2014 LEAF to Staunton Park. I didn’t make it.
About 20 miles into the trip, I was dropping range like a lead weight thanks to a 3,000 foot elevation gain over about 10 miles of Route 285 in Colorado.
I knew I would pick up some range, probably a lot, on the way back down. I nonetheless freaked out and turned around at about the 25-mile mark on the approximately 40-mile trip from my house to Staunton State Park.
Believe me, it IS scary when you’re climbing up long, steep mountain grades in an 84-mile electric car, and your range is dropping fast, fast, fast — faster than anyone who’s never driven a LEAF up a long mountain pass can even imagine!
It is A LOT less scary in a 238-mile electric car such as the Bolt.
That noted, my Bolt dropped mileage precipitously as I climbed the 3,000 feet along Route 285 yesterday. And, frankly, I started getting a little anxious: After all, I have run out charge twice before in an electric car. It does happen! 😉
It was NOT clear if my 2014 LEAF would have made the 80-mile round trip on one charge, although it may very well have. I turned around two years ago because I didn’t want to be freaking out going up, and be frantically crossing my fingers going down that my LEAF would re-gain enough mileage on the way down to make up for, or more than make up for, what I had lost so quickly on the way up.
This time — in my 238-mile Bolt — I got to Staunton State Park with 150 miles of range remaining — and I knew it would pick up range on the return trip. Even if it did not gain range, I could still make it back home with plenty of mileage to spare.
In fact, the Bolt picked up 34 miles of range on the way down the three-thousand-foot elevation drop. And I zipped out of the mountains directly west of Denver with 184 miles of range 🙂 This, even though I hadn’t even left home with a full 238-mile charge, but with 224-miles of range.
The amount of range I gained in the Bolt on the way down made me think that MAYBE I would have been able to make the same 80-mile mountain trip in my Nissan LEAF two years ago. Then again, MAYBE not. And I do not desire, or need, the uncertainty about whether my electric car will make it home or that it might not.
Indeed, it’s a tremendous relief not to have that anxiety 🙂
The 238 miles of range my 2017 Bolt delivers doesn’t mean “range anxiety” will disappear 100 percent — yes, despite what some electric car advocates claim, “range anxiety” is REAL, at least for those of us who drive a full electric car as our ONLY car. However, the Bolt provides A LOT more cushion than my 2014 Nissan LEAF and can easily deliver me to many, many, many more places than my LEAF.
And that, my friends, is a great feeling 🙂