Charging at home and not scared.

[Colorado Bolt]

I set my 2018 premier model to hilltop reserve and moved my L2 charger from inside my garage to being mounted outside. It took buying about 50.00 in parts from Chepo Depot. New outlet and waterproof box. I spent less than an hour of my time drilling through wall and rewiring the outlet. I can now charge not only in my driveway but in my garage once I get the new battery pack. I’ll be able to back in garage and run cord under the door.
To the guy interviewed complaining about not being able to charge at home because of the location of his charger a simple solution is to buy a dryer cord extension for your charger. They are available on Amazon. I used one for a bit when I first got my charger and would unplug my dryer and then plug in my charger. I now have it on my dryer so I don’t have to unplug it when I move it to clean the dryer vent.
Don’t be so rock brain about this recall people. 10 cars out of 140k are really good odds yours won’t burn down. I charged to 210 miles last night and won’t need to charge for another few days. Most of us Bolt owners won’t need a full 240 miles every day so just hang tight and GM will make it right.

 

[Barter1]

I set my 2018 premier model to hilltop reserve and moved my L2 charger from inside my garage to being mounted outside. It took buying about 50.00 in parts from Chepo Depot. New outlet and waterproof box. I spent less than an hour of my time drilling through wall and rewiring the outlet. I can now charge not only in my driveway but in my garage once I get the new battery pack. I’ll be able to back in garage and run cord under the door.
To the guy interviewed complaining about not being able to charge at home because of the location of his charger a simple solution is to buy a dryer cord extension for your charger. They are available on Amazon. I used one for a bit when I first got my charger and would unplug my dryer and then plug in my charger. I now have it on my dryer so I don’t have to unplug it when I move it to clean the dryer vent.
Don’t be so rock brain about this recall people. 10 cars out of 140k are really good odds yours won’t burn down. I charged to 210 miles last night and won’t need to charge for another few days. Most of us Bolt owners won’t need a full 240 miles every day so just hang tight and GM will make it right.View attachment 13346 View attachment 13346

I just put a 4" pvc pipe thru the side of the garage and the cord and connector fit thru and have enough length to reach the Bolt. May need an extension cord as it is still near the garage and I need to get it about 12 feet further away. I also use a piece of foam to keep out bugs and have a pvc cap to cover when not needed. I also put a cord holder and connector holder outside so it is somewhat protected from rain.

 

[Captain Skeptic]

1 out of 14,000 is a pretty high-risk, especially when the possible consequences are killing your family members in a fire, burning down your neighborhood, or here where I live in California, creating a 100,000 acre fire with multiple fatalities. The correct way to assess the risk is to ask yourself if everyone had the car I have, what would the impact be? And here it would be endless fires destroying neighborhoods forests homes and lives. If I had a car fire at the end of my driveway it would still burn my house down which and would destroy my neighbor's house is which is close by. Do you really want to accept the liability of multi-million dollar lawsuits that you'll never be able to come out from under?

 

[Colorado Bolt]

1 out of 14,000 is a pretty high-risk, especially when the possible consequences are killing your family members in a fire, burning down your neighborhood, or here where I live in California, creating a 100,000 acre fire with multiple fatalities. The correct way to assess the risk is to ask yourself if everyone had the car I have, what would the impact be? And here it would be endless fires destroying neighborhoods forests homes and lives. If I had a car fire at the end of my driveway it would still burn my house down which and would destroy my neighbor's house is which is close by. Do you really want to accept the liability of multi-million dollar lawsuits that you'll never be able to come out from under?

 

[Colorado Bolt]

Captain Skeptic your name says it all. I appreciate your feedback. Go continue driving your gas burning vehicle and I will continue to breath the horrible air your state is sending my way. By the way. 14 car fires out of 140,000 vehicles pales in comparison when you look at other gas burning vehicles recalled for spontaneous combustion. There are plenty ICE vehicle recalls for this very issue. Go look at the numbers and understand why I feel safe. Please also understand the reason your forests are burning is because people insist on building homes in places they don’t belong and communities nationwide allow mega developers to come in and build homes for max profit meaning less than ten feet apart. Hence the reason you see one house catch another on fire and so forth and so on. California has also been drilling oil since it was discovered and this has decimated your water table causing the drought conditions that we all are experiencing through the west. Fracking has only compounded this issue ten fold while O&G operators continue to lie to us about the safety of this practice. Thank you again for for input but the numbers don’t add up. Do some research please.

 

[Captain Skeptic]

Captain Skeptic your name says it all. I appreciate your feedback. Go continue driving your gas burning vehicle and I will continue to breath the horrible air your state is sending my way. By the way. 14 car fires out of 140,000 vehicles pales in comparison when you look at other gas burning vehicles recalled for spontaneous combustion. There are plenty ICE vehicle recalls for this very issue. Go look at the numbers and understand why I feel safe. Please also understand the reason your forests are burning is because people insist on building homes in places they don’t belong and communities nationwide allow mega developers to come in and build homes for max profit meaning less than ten feet apart. Hence the reason you see one house catch another on fire and so forth and so on. California has also been drilling oil since it was discovered and this has decimated your water table causing the drought conditions that we all are experiencing through the west. Fracking has only compounded this issue ten fold while O&G operators continue to lie to us about the safety of this practice. Thank you again for for input but the numbers don’t add up. Do some research please.

It's irrelevant why California is so prone to fire -- it is a fact of life, not an excuse to be negligent. ICE car fires don't happen hours after being driven when the owners are fast asleep, and are able to be quickly put out before spreading much. I'll be ditching my ICE cars as soon as I can get one with non-LG batteries.

As for horrible air, Colorado uses 30% more electricity per capita than California, and burns coal for about 33% of it's electricity, while California burns coal for 2.7%.

As for housing, have you not seen the sprawl around Denver, and east of Boulder?

 

[rgmichel]

1 out of 14,000 is a pretty high-risk,

So, when you come to something simple like cataract surgery, when you are old and frail and you are going blind, where the odds of a poor outcome are about 1 in 100, then you won't take the risk????

 

[rgmichel]

I am not at all worried about my Bolt catching fire. I virtually never charge to full, except on vacation on the night before a long day's driving, and I virtually never run the battery down to nearly empty because I just don't drive much more than 110 miles in a day. Right now, because of some construction work on my driveway preventing access to my garage, I am charging at 120 volts and that is keeping me going just fine in hilltop reserve. I do wonder if charging at 120 volts, being more sedate, endangers the battery less, but its a bit inconvenient because it means the car has to be plugged in virtually all the time to keep up with my driving habits. Anyway, I will be marginally happier charging at 240 volts in my garage when I have access again. The odds of my Bolt EV catching fire just don't enter my mind very much. I would not bet on a horse with such long odds for sure.

 

[June Barton]

I agree I set the target on my bolt to 93% and I charge with 100 miles left. My daughter is an engineer with Borg Warner and actually works on the software used for testing automobile batteries. They are stressed to limit but she says we are guinea pigs. But hey I sleep with my lithium powered cell phone on my nightstand so I guess I’m risk taker. Love my Bolt.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

It's weighing the risk with the consequences of the fire. I park my Bolt in my driveway. If it went up in flames, I would lose the Bolt and everything in it. I park my other car far enough away that it would not be destroyed (maybe suffer some cosmetic heat damage, if the fire was intense enough). That's it. It wouldn't spread to my house. My family and I would be perfectly safe. If a fire happened, any damage would be covered and I would move on. No way would I be liable for some "multi-million dollar lawsuit that I'll never be able to come out from under". That part is pure FUD.

 

[June Barton]

I agree I set the target on my bolt to 93% and I charge with 100 miles left. My daughter is an engineer with Borg Warner and actually works on the software used for testing automobile batteries. They are stressed to limit but she says we are guinea pigs. But hey I sleep with my lithium powered cell phone on my nightstand so I guess I’m risk taker. Love my Bolt.

I forgot to mention I have a 2020 Bolt
If I had one older, I would probably park it outside or in our detached garage.



Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[Barter1]

I just put a 4" pvc pipe thru the side of the garage and the cord and connector fit thru and have enough length to reach the Bolt. May need an extension cord as it is still near the garage and I need to get it about 12 feet further away. I also use a piece of foam to keep out bugs and have a pvc cap to cover when not needed. I also put a cord holder and connector holder outside so it is somewhat protected from rain.

I moved evse closer to garage door and put another 4" pvc pipe in hole . Now Bolt is about 14 feet from garage and I charge between 5 and 9 a when rates are low to 90%. Refused buyback and gm wouldn't do a msrp swap. So I'll wait 2 years for new battery and new warranty. Maybe some cash for loss of range and inconveniences. Love driving bolt and save $1000 in gas and feel good about less pollution

 

[Gary Follett]

I agree I set the target on my bolt to 93% and I charge with 100 miles left. My daughter is an engineer with Borg Warner and actually works on the software used for testing automobile batteries. They are stressed to limit but she says we are guinea pigs. But hey I sleep with my lithium powered cell phone on my nightstand so I guess I’m risk taker. Love my Bolt.

One other notable point can be made about the concern that EV fires generally occur when the owner is not sitting in them. Unless the fire is allowed to continue to the point of setting the nearby home on fire, the owner is not sitting within the burning vehicle, to be incinerated by that fire. Given a choice, I'll take a fire that occurs in my absence. Put that on top of the fact that the odds for an EV fire are a tiny fraction of the odds for an ICE fire per 100,000 vehicles either in use or sitting still, I feel pretty safe with my 2020 Bolt. As June posted, my cell phone in my pocket is likely more of a risk than my car is. It's hard enough to get that thing out of a tight pocket when it rings, I can't imagine what it would be like if it were on fire. Could this whole over-hype of EV fire stories be oil and gas promoters trying to slow the pace of EV acceptance to prolong their profit taking?

 

[Colorado Bolt]

You

One other notable point can be made about the concern that EV fires generally occur when the owner is not sitting in them. Unless the fire is allowed to continue to the point of setting the nearby home on fire, the owner is not sitting within the burning vehicle, to be incinerated by that fire. Given a choice, I'll take a fire that occurs in my absence. Put that on top of the fact that the odds for an EV fire are a tiny fraction of the odds for an ICE fire per 100,000 vehicles either in use or sitting still, I feel pretty safe with my 2020 Bolt. As June posted, my cell phone in my pocket is likely more of a risk than my car is. It's hard enough to get that thing out of a tight pocket when it rings, I can't imagine what it would be like if it were on fire. Could this whole over-hype of EV fire stories be oil and gas promoters trying to slow the pace of EV acceptance to prolong their profit taking?

you bet. That’s why they put people like “captain skeptic” on forums like this. Keep the fear flowing so we can keep drilling. Stay strong Bolters!