Boltage: Day Three

After a few days living with the Bolt, I've gathered enough of an impression to comment on general driving performance. Overall, it's been a pleasure.

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you'll already know that my touchstone is a 2003 Mini Cooper, which I have owned since new and driven almost exclusively for nearly fourteen years and close to 60,000 miles. We also own a 2011 BMW 3-series turbodiesel; it's my wife's car, but I am often behind the wheel. Worthy or not, these are my bases for comparison.

I will also confess to being a total noob when comes to EVs. I have little means to compare the drivability of the Bolt to any other EV. With that out of the way:

I'd read about the low-speed torque characteristic of EVs, and even experienced it once, in a friend's Tesla. Still, I was not entirely prepared for having that kind of snap at my own foot on a daily basis. On straightaway accelerations, the Bolt's performance is instantaneous and impressive.

The Bolt doesn't quite outperform the BMW on acceleration (at least, not by the numbers), but it feels very much like a close call, when turbo-lag is figured into the mix. The BMW's hesitation may be small, but it now feels like an eternity compared to the Bolt's antic jump off the line.

And then, there's the sound. As in, what sound? A little hum, and off you go. It's like a magic carpet. Some EV veterans are no doubt having a good laugh right now. "That's the way it's suppose to be, dummy!" 

Go ahead, that's okay. It's unexpected, but I really should have expected it. So regard these observations as coming from a member of the new audience for EVs that Chevy is targeting with the car. It was a head-shot. They got me.

Handling is somewhat of another matter. I am not prepared to be overly critical of what is after all a fairly heavy and tall car, and of course nothing will ever compare to the pure motoring experience of the Mini, or the refined balance of a rear wheel drive BMW.

That said, so far I find the steering to be tuned a bit on the light side for my tastes. I learned to be a two-handed steerer, a technique enforced by years of Mini driving (when not shifting of course), but I can see getting into the bad habit of flicking the wheel of the Bolt one-handed. It's an American car, for sure.

I haven't had the Bolt out on the twisties yet (that's planned for later today) but the expectation is for a bit of a tendency to oversteer. I will be most interested to discover whether, due to the car's mass, it wants to plow. Report to follow.

Unrelated item: I set up CarPlay on the Bolt yesterday. It was essentially a non-event. Once the iPhone was plugged into one of the USB ports between the front seats it was activated. From there, it just worked.

The limited array of iPhone apps appeared on the big touchscreen, and that was it. I pressed the voice command button on the steering wheel, told Siri where I wanted to go, and voila, up came my route. This is the way it's supposed to work! Kind of thrilling, honestly.

The only thing that seems to be missing from this experience is audible turn-by-turn instructions. If anyone knows whether this feature is supported on the Bolt and perhaps I missed something, please let me know. My research hasn't turned up a clear answer yet.

In the meantime, I wonder if JC Whitney sell a vroom-vroom tailpipe sound for EVs. Nah. Why would anyone want to spoil a perfectly good magic carpet ride?