I replaced my 2020 Chevy Bolt, which I had been driving for 5.5 years, with a 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SEL yesterday (July 23, 2025) that I leased from McDonald Hyundai in Highlands Ranch, Colo.
I’d been thinking about replacing my Bolt for awhile, primarily because, in my view, it was having range meter issues.
I brought my Bolt to John Elway Chevrolet and to Ed Bozarth Park Meadows Chevrolet across the last few months, and both dealerships and the service departments and mechanics who took a look at my Bolt said there was no issue.
Maybe they were right. I am not 100% sure. I, personally, think there was a software issue and that one of the dealerships should have discovered this, worked on it, and fixed it. However, I am not going to get into any more details here about the range meter issue because I wrote about it at length in a previous entry.
Suffice to say that two Chevy dealerships said a problem did not exist and most of the people on the Facebook Chevy Bolt owner’s group where I posted about my issues were not helpful. Most — not all — treated me in extremely patronizing and arrogant fashion — as if I were an idiot newbie who didn’t understand basics about EVs like when the heat is on the range drops radically, etc., rather than the 11-year EV driving and owning veteran I am.
ChatGPT was A LOT nicer to me, and much more helpful than the Bolt owner’s Facebook group, and it said there definitely was a problem based on the range meter behavior I was describing and based on the fact that the problems appeared suddenly, out of nowhere.
But, hey, it’s not my issue any more, it’s someone else’s. I don’t feel bad at all about trading in my Bolt. I made a good effort — having the car serviced by two different Chevy dealerships — to establish that there was no battery problem. In other words, in my view, I got my Bolt certified by mechanics and dealerships.
But enough on that. The other primary reason I traded in my Bolt to lease a 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SEL is because the federal EV tax credit is going away in about two months. I didn’t want to be on the other side of that extremely unfortunate — and, I think, plain stupid — development, which I think will JACK up the prices of EVs and make them unaffordable for me, and countless others.
In retrospect, I kind of wish I had asked for a 39-month lease. Both of my Bolt leases were for 39 months, first on a 2017 Bolt, and then on my 2020 Bolt that I traded in to McDonald Hyundai. A 39-month lease would also get me all the way to the end of Trump 2.
I bought out my 2020 Bolt lease in 2023 because interest rates were so high then that lease payments for a new Bolt were around $600/month with $2k down. I cannot afford that. My monthly payments were lower for a used car loan on the 2020 Bolt than for leasing a 2203 Bolt, so I bought out my 2020 Bolt.
I know I would have gotten more money, probably a lot more, if I had sold my 2020 Bolt myself. However, I did not want to have to deal directly with someone on the other end of my sale who might have had a range meter issue — remember, two Chevy dealership service departments said there was no range meter issue, right?
I am excited about the Ioniq 5 SEL with AWD. It grips the road very well, should be quite a bit better in the snow and ice of Colorado in the winter than my 2020 Bolt, it looks cool, I think, and I got the most sought-after Ioniq 5 color: Digital Teal. Cool! Oh, and I did mention that the Ioniq AWD goes 0-60 mph in about 4.5 seconds, or almost two seconds faster than my Bolt, which takes a still very quick 6.3 seconds to get to 60 mph.
I’ve done very little racing in my Bolt, compared to when I first got my 2017 Bolt, due in part to a long-term, ongoing, unexpected and ultimately also unfair chronic health condition that has profoundly affected me in many ways, including pushing me into a long depression during which I definitely did NOT feel like racing off the line at stoplights in my Bolt, nor much like writing for SolarChargedDriving, etc.😢
However, that noted, about 1 year ago, I did a little bit of drag racing off the line in my 2020 Bolt vs. an Ioniq 5. The Ioniq 5 left me in the dust 😉, lol. A big reason that me and my Bolt were left choking on some Ioniq 5 rubber: Clearly, this Ioniq 5 had AWD and it did not lose precious energy and momentum spinning its tires. I, and my “poor” FWD Bolt, did 😜.
Oh well, so goes it.
I had wanted to lease another Bolt in 2023, but, again, interest rates were simply too high and monthly payment, which stands as my most key affordability criterion, was too high. I prefer to lease my EVs — I’ve leased ever since I started with EV only driving in 2014, beginning with a first generation Nissan Leaf and then moving to lease two successive Bolts, before being basically forced to buy my 2020 Bolt in 2023 due to those high interest rates.
I am happy to be in a lease again.
I am also happy to be in a different EV vehicle (I also test drove a Nissan Ariya AWD yesterday, but liked the Ioniq better), and happy that problems such as range meter volatility — I was afraid to go on a long road trip in my Bolt, and I definitely want to start doing EV road trips again — are hopefully part of the past 🤞.
I did another Denver to Santa Barbara trip in the summer of 2021 with my youngest daughter to visit my sister and her family. The 2021 trip was much easier, and I covered the 1,200 miles each way in two days, rather than the three it took in 2018 due to a lack of non-Tesla Level 3 charging in Utah at the time.
I feel lucky to be able to try out a third make, and model, of EV for the next three years and I am excited about doing some more road trips and feeling comfortable in doing them. Maybe a road trip to the Bay area to visit my dad, for example 🚙 🙂.
I will also implement a different charging regimen with this Ioniq 5 than I did with my 2020 Bolt.
I think this charging regimen and driving regimen for my 2020 Bolt, while good for battery life — ChatGPT re-itereated it is good for battery life, but also noted it is not so great for predictable and reliable range meter information. My Bolt range meter was NOT a “guess-o-meter” for the first five years I had it! It was VERY accurate and reliable, including on longer trips that I took it on. However, I know now that the charging regimen I followed for my 2020 Bolt is not great for range meter “training”.
I plan to drain my Ioniq 5’s battery a few times per month and charge back to 100%, and I also plan to vary the level to which I “fill” the battery so that it is not always 80%, but sometimes 60%, 40%, 100%, etc.
A more varied Bolt charging regimen — recommended by ChatGPT — might have turned things around in terms of my range meter issues that two Chevy dealerships and multiple folks in the Facebook Chevy Bolt owner’s group alleged to me was not an issue.
Of course, they weren’t the ones driving up steep mountain grades and watching range drop miles and miles in a single minute at modest speeds of 50 to 55 mph and wondering if they were going to make it to mountain destination A, B, or C. (Yes, of course I understand steep up grades drain batteries very quickly. BUT the quickness that my Bolt range meter was showing losses was WAY quicker than I had experienced when I had a reliable and accurate Bolt range meter, which I DID have. It had NOT been a guess-o-meter for me.)
So, goodbye Bolt, you served me, and the world, well — being solar-charged and green and all — until the last four to five months. And hello, Ioniq 5, I am ready to plug you into solar and rack up some Sun Miles with you, and have some fun along the way ☀️🙂🚙
