2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV We tested popular SUV

It offers 400 km of autonomy and if you wish it can start as a sports car

The 2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV has been tested and passed our approval! It’s time to examine the details of the popular SUV equipped with the latest technologies.

When I start talking about an electric Chevrolet vehicle, the EV-1 always comes to mind, GM’s first electric car, which unfortunately did not yield the expected fruits and was controversially forgotten by its creators who were nearly four of a century ahead. their competition by presenting a “viable” option for 100% electric mobility.

I quote the EV1 as it was the first electric car that I could drive on the streets of my city, thanks to the trust of a colleague who had one on trial and lent it to me for a few minutes in 1998. Much has happened since then and along the way. over the years … “that of driving electric vehicles is becoming a thing of almost every day.”

Today, there are at least 15 options in our ZERO EMISSIONS car market, ranging from a small hatchback of Chinese origin, some small delivery vans, and through the big German brands that increasingly have more electric options, obviously without forgetting us. of Tesla that they like it or not was the architect of the massification of the electric car, and he who put the entire world automotive industry to work in favor of the electric car at mass public levels.

Chevrolet has worked a lot on the electrical concept, it has been cautious and has taken firm steps in automotive electrification and as of today it already has large electrification plans for a good part of its portfolio in almost all segments and promises us 30 electric vehicles before from 2025.

In the early years of the 21st century the EV-1 was mocked by the “Petrol Heads” and today the EV-1 turns out to be the hero of the film and the few that remain are seen as the Holy Grail of anodes and cathodes. automotive since almost all were destroyed.

After digging into Chevrolet’s electrical history a bit, let’s get down to business with the 2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV, but not before reminding you that we’ve been living extensively with the Bolt EV for quite some time. 

Design

2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV

We are facing a vehicle whose dimensions immediately pigeonhole it in the C segment and its design is -according to its creators- an SUV, although I see it more as a small Crossover. The ACRONYMS 2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV stands for “Electric Utility Vehicle” and it is built on the GM BEV2 (Battery Electric Vehicle) platform, its dimensions and measurements are designed for five occupants, although four are better and with good trunk space.

The lines are futuristic and there are some disconcerting lines that you have to get used to, for example, the grill whose design is made up of the grouping of irregular hexagons in high and low relief, and no longer acts as an air inlet for the traditional radiator of cooling that is no longer located there. The battery must be cooled by a coolant fluid that is cooled by the airflow that enters the entire lower part of the vehicle.

The vehicle has plastic perimeter parts and here we also find aerodynamic additions that guide the airflows in favor of less rolling resistance at average speeds.

MEASUREMENTS (in mm)

  • Long: 4,306
  • Width: 1,770
  • Height: 1,616
  • Wheelbase: 2,675
  • Weight: 1,685 kilos

Specifications

The mechanics consist of a permanent magnet motor powered by a 65kWh Lithium-Ion battery with 288 cells that are located on the floor of the vehicle and weighs 430 kilos.

  • Power: 200 hp equivalent to 150kW
  • Torque: 266 lb.-ft.
  • Transmission: Single speed

Recharge Times

  • Autonomy 400 km (100% load)
  • Recharge times:
  • 120 Volts 6 Kms of autonomy for each hour connected  
  • 240 Volts at 32 amp = 10 hours at 100% or 40 km of autonomy for each hour connected
  • 240 Volts at 48 amp = 7 hours at 100% or 59.2 km of autonomy for each hour connected
  • Connectors: NEMA (charger) and SAE J1772 (auto)

2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV Interior

2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV Interior

The materials are of good quality, the leather upholstery -surely synthetic- has a very interesting pattern made up of regular hexagons with some perforations, with blue stitching that harmonizes with the board. Good materials in general that clothe a lot of technology onboard.

In this area there are many new features, for example, there is no longer any analog operating instrument, and all the information on board is through the two screens, one that is located in front of the driver, in the place that formerly housed the instrument panel cluster Today it is a configurable screen where information about the status of the car, the speed at which it is circulating, the permanent status of the remaining charge in the battery is displayed, and one informs us of a data to which we must get used to, the distance we have traveled and the average kilowatts/hour (kWh) we will spend in 100 km, and the icons of the energy recovery systems are also displayed, but I will describe those later.

Speaking of the other 10.2-inch screen with touch control, in it, we can display many functions, from the basic ones that are replicated from our phone, which incidentally connects wirelessly with the already well-known apple platforms. or the android and since we are talking about smartphones, they can also be charged wirelessly on the induction pad at the bottom of the board.

2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV

Safety

This is an area of ​​utmost importance and where manufacturers make efforts to provide their new vehicles with the greatest possible safety if they intend to be evaluated with high marks by the organizations in charge of such evaluations, the most important being EURO´Ncap in the old continent and the NHTSA in the US – which has not yet evaluated this version – but it will surely be well rated.

  • 10 airbags
  • ABS brakes
  • Reverse camera
  • Stability and traction controls

2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV Driving

Driving an electric vehicle is a different experience, and you have to get used to the different ways of doing the things that each manufacturer chooses for their models, for example, and in the specific case of our test vehicle, I noticed several things that need to be learned. use or relearn how to do it, for example and the most obvious is the transmission selector, which no longer uses a lever as such, now there are buttons and keys for each function, that system we had already seen about 8 years ago in the Acura ILX 2015 -which if memory does not betray me was the first to abandon the use of a transmission selector lever and resort to the use of buttons-

To give life to the electric motor, you have to press a start button on the dash, there is no sound, and on both screens, there are animations that indicate that we are ready to go, you just have to press the D key and apply Gently press the accelerator pedal r, if the parking brake is activated, it disengages automatically immediately. There is no sound whatsoever and the march is started smoothly, there are also no sensations of changes from the automatic box since the transmission is a single ratio to go in reverse, when pressing the R key what we do is change the gear direction of the motor rotation to move backward.

The things in common that the 2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV has with the other cars are the suspension system that is McPherson scheme on the front axle and a torsional beam for the rear, the brakes are also similar to those of an internal combustion car, but They have an energy regeneration function that I will explain in the next section.

The handling is smooth, silent and if you want you can go very very fast, since the delivery of torque is immediate and the acceleration is dizzying, the 2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV is capable of doing the 0 to 100 km / in SEVEN Seconds, and those are very powerful car figures.

2022 Chevrolet BOLT EUV Power Regeneration

This is one of the subjects that must be learned to execute when driving a vehicle with these characteristics since when one understands and rationalizes the regeneration functions “on-demand” on board we can make our journeys with low energy consumption and therefore Hence we will increase the range between load and load.

In the image we see several new light indicators, which we were not used to, in the lower right corner we see three aligned icons, the first is a small battery with an arrow and the word Regen. Followed by a green witness with the silhouette of a Bolt with the word READY and next to it is a circle with two arrows that frame a shoe and an accelerator, these icons indicate that the regeneration and conversion program of kinetic energy is activated and that it consists of a couple of functions called  “ONE PEDAL DRIVING” and “REGEN ON DEMAND” and which work as follows:

ONE PEDAL DRIVING

When you need to slow down, the most logical thing to do is lift your foot off the accelerator and apply the brake, since with this function activated it is no longer necessary to apply the brake to slow down or even to stop completely. If you ask me, it is a very disconcerting feeling to drive in city traffic and get used to the idea that THE BRAKE PEDAL IS NOT GOING TO BE USED at any time, I insist, at first, it is highly disconcerting but the feeling that one is going to crash with the car in front it disappears as you interact with the system, which in effect reduces and brakes the vehicle completely autonomously, you only have to lift the accelerator pedal to start working. When driving at high-speed averages, that is, at 110 km / h or more on the road, it is advisable to be alert to brake by operating the pedal in the event of an unexpected maneuver of a vehicle, but in city traffic, it is completely safe to let the system ONE PEDAL does its job and regenerates that kinetic energy, into thermal energy and is stored in the battery. Pure Physics applied!

REGEN ON DEMAND

It is another gizmo that you have to learn to use and to operate it you have to pull a paddle located behind the steering wheel, on the left side, just as if you were holding a selector paddle from a gearbox at the wheel.

How does it work?

When one is circulating at an average speed -preferably in a straight line-, the mechanism is activated with the fingers of the left hand, the paddle is pressed towards the steering wheel and it is right there when the energy regeneration begins and that function is also graphed in the table. of instruments and the animation of the operation is interesting, there is a very noticeable leaf on the right side when the regeneration lever is operated a small circle appears, if the circle is accelerated it moves away from the leaf and if it is slowed, the acceleration circle gets closer to the sheet when both elements are centered the small circle turns green.

It is quite a challenge to try to have both elements in perfect harmony, but at the end of the day it is even fun to drive “regenerating energy” and if one is careful with the accelerator pedal it is very possible that in a journey one or two kilometers of autonomy instead of spending them.   

Elenor Kling

A tech lover and generally a car enthusiast who likes to do a lot of research and share knowledge.

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