Homeowners of Common Motors-made EVs lastly gained entry to Tesla’s expansive Supercharger DC quick charging community in the USA final week, which is nice information for these lengthy street journeys, seeing how the variety of Superchargers in North America exceeds 17,000.
The listing of automobiles that may be recharged at Tesla stalls contains names like the brand new Chevrolet Equinox EV, GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq. It additionally contains the venerable Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, which have been as soon as America’s most inexpensive new battery-powered automobiles earlier than being discontinued (don’t fret, although, because the Bolt EUV is coming again with Ultium tech and an LFP battery.)
And it’s the Bolt that I’ll concentrate on right here as a result of, with over 200,000 items offered within the U.S. throughout its eight-year journey, it’s protected to say that there are nonetheless lots of them on American roads immediately. It is probably not the fastest-charging, the largest or probably the most luxurious EV on the market, however it’s at all times been the protected and inexpensive alternative for these searching for an city runabout.
Our personal Tom Moloughney was one of many first folks within the U.S. to cost the Bolt EV on a Tesla Supercharger. He made a slightly useful video, which I’ve embedded on the high of this web page, and I’ll provide the gist of it in writing as properly.
First, in the event you personal a Chevrolet Bolt EV, you need to know that some 2019 and 2020 model-year items will want a software program replace on the seller to work with Tesla Superchargers. You’ll additionally want a CCS to NACS adapter, both from Common Motors or a 3rd get together like A2Z or Lectron–the video covers a number of adapters.
One other factor to notice is that solely V3 Superchargers can be utilized to top-up non-Tesla EVs. You could find them by going to Tesla’s on-line Supercharger map and toggling the “Supercharger open to NACS” choice.
With all this in thoughts, earlier than you present as much as a suitable Supercharger together with your Bolt EV and an adapter at hand, you should hyperlink your car to a fee methodology within the MyChevrolet app, in order that Tesla is aware of the place to attract cash from for the charging classes. All apps should be updated.
A 20% to 80% state-of-charge top-up of the 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV on a V3 Tesla Supercharger.
That’s rather a lot to soak up, however when you recover from all these preliminary steps, all you should do is park front-first at a suitable Supercharger, plug within the cable, launch the MyChevrolet smartphone app, choose the right stall from the listing and hit Cost Now.
In Tom Moloughney’s testing, each third-party adapters labored simply advantageous, funneling the utmost cost charge that the Bolt EV helps–55 kW–with out hiccups. The EV wanted 49 minutes to cost from 20% to 80% state of cost, which, once more, is regular Bolt EV habits, however there was one problem the place the automobile stopped charging at 70% SoC and wanted to be unplugged and replugged to get to 80%. The charging curve was the identical as on different charging operators comparable to EVgo and Electrify America, with the speed slowly taking place after the battery state of cost handed the 55% mark.
So it’s all good. Virtually. That’s as a result of the Bolt EV’s charging port is on the front-left of the automobile, versus the rear-left of Tesla EVs. This implies you need to pull into the charger on the proper, successfully taking on two stalls. It’s the identical problem with Rivian EVs and the Ford F-150 Lightning. One resolution to this drawback is to attempt to cost on the right-most stall if there’s house to take action–if not, you’ll should take up two locations.