stolenmoment

1) That's about as good as it gets, although the lugs under the hood are easier to get to for most. 2) Not as far as I can tell. My battery died a year ago Christmas, my Entertainment went dark in the coldest part of this past winter. BTW, the 12v battery should be charged from the alternator whenever you run the car. It is pretty much only used to pull the relays that isolate the HVB from the rest of the works. IMHO it's a design failure to neglect keeping the 12v battery charged while parked, at least while the HVB can still start the ICE. This is doubly true for the Energi models.

I keep asking Ford salescritters why they don't advertise the Cmax, they tell me "It doesn't sell". I ask them "If the F-150 sells itself, why do you advertise it?" I never get a good answer.

Softer tires will be quieter but less efficient. I also love my 2013; I've had it for almost two years now, no regrets. I occasionally have to pull a fuse to reset the audio, but I'm more or less used to the contortions now. I can't find another affordable electric (I have the Energi) with the headroom my family requires.

2+4) EV+ indicates that the computer will let you run the battery down further instead of running the ICE. If you have the threshold displayed in the left screen, it goes much higher when EV+ is displayed.

I originally took my 2013 Energi to a local (non-Ford) shop to get the battery replaced. They worked on it for an hour or so, got scared by the bright orange cables, and gave up. At least they didn't charge me anything!

They did that to me, too: they broke the door-handle locking/unlocking. They fixed it immediately without any fuss.

Have you adjusted the sensitivity? On my 2013, you rotate a ring on the right stalk.

There are no touch controls on the camera video, so it makes sense that the touch screen wouldn't work while the camera is supposed to be working.

Ouch! Keep us posted on how the repair goes!

Yikes, a much more complicated implementation than I expected; cheaper to manufacture than two pumps, perhaps? Now, I'm trying to remember if I could hear the pump going when the rear washer got no water...

The "sensor" is that the back pump inlet is higher in the tank than the front, and so stops working to give you a warning before leaving you with an opaque windshield. That's common in other cars I've owned.

If my 6'2" son could sit in the back seat of a Volt, I'd have one of them instead of my Energi; twice the battery range.

TL;DR: some cells have dropped below threshhold voltage, and the car decides to stop NOW. Chevy claims to be able to tell which cells will do this (a bad batch?) and is actively recalling them.

My local locksmith was able to produce more key fobs for me. He had to be told about the hidden hardware key, though, so take care.

I have found that my 2013 Energi misses turns taken at speed, like highway ramps. It once missed me changing from rte 2 W to I-495 N (Littleton MA), and tracked me west along rte 2 for about 20 minutes before it corrected, after I passed rte 3 N... Yeah, not trustworthy.

I puzzled over this for a long time, and the simplest way I can lay it out is this: The parts of a planetary gear system are ring (the outside), planets (the little whirly bits inside), and the sun (the central shaft). These are always engaged with each other. In our cars, the ICE is connected to the sun gear at a fixed ratio, the wheels and one motor are connected to the ring, also at a fixed ratio. The axes of the planetaries are connected by a yoke to the second motor. Under electric drive, the ICE and second motor are unenergized, the planetaries spin freely. A load is placed on the either motor for regen. The real trick is that the second motor controls the "gear ratio" between the ICE and the ring and thus the wheels. All of those modes are ratios of thrust or drag among the ICE and the two motors. For instance, to start the ICE, the motor on the planetaries spins against the ring to turn the ICE. Propulsion by ICE has the planetaries held still (the motor can do that), so that the power from the ICE transfers through to the ring. Varying the power fed to the planetaries can allow all three sources to contribute torque to the wheels. Planetary gear systems are hard to think about, I think because thrust and drag can come from any of the components.

That forum seems to work for me... the owner posted that he had put it on its own server for performance, which would certainly need a DNS change.

That was a nice little plug!

Josh, the "electric" heater in the Energi isn't of any real use except for a go-time when plugged in to 220v; it cuts the electric range in half. I just don't use it. If I really need the heat, I'll burn some gas, but even today (10F) the seat heater was enough. My commute is short enough that if I run the motor at all, it's on for more than half the trip before the software will turn it back off...

I have to say that I'm much happier now, waiting in line at a drive-through in my Energi, because I'm not burning gas just to keep my inefficient power plant turning over for no better reason than it's hard to start.

My dealer offered to do this when I took my Energi in for something else. They broke the keyless door locks, so check that before you drive away. They fixed it with no argument, but it was another day in the shop.

Seems to work fine for me, Chrome on Ubuntu Linux.

Is there a 110v EVSE supplied with the Bolt? How much current does it draw?

BEVs are (should be!) just as smooth as the CMax, for the same reason: electric motors have a much broader range of efficiency, so you don't need a troublesome transmission to match motor speed to road speed. Look at diesel-electric and electric trains, for instance: electric motors, no transmissions.

I still believe that hub motors will be "the right thing" for BEVs. Get rid of the U-joints, the differentials, all those spinning bits. Lots more room for cargo and passengers.