I pulled the trigger! New to us chevy spark

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qrper

Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2019
Messages
12
Gang.... I've wanted an electric car since the days of the 'voltswagen' and the boatload of flooded lead acid batteries stuffed inside everywhere.

Today, my wife and I drove home our new to us 2016 Electric Spark. It has 9600 miles on the clock

I've driven small cars all my life, from VWs to Ford Pintos, and even a Chevy Vega. (Gasp!) So this isn't anything new to me other than not having to put gasoline in it.

I do have a zillion questions to ask. And this is the first one.

I have ordered a EVSE from Cuttercreek, a LSC30, that the lady on the other end said would work fine for our car.

So question number 1. Does the car know that it's connected to the high powered EVSE or do I have to tell it? Right now, the level 1 charger is set at 8 amp. Do I need to tell it to go to 12 amp setting?

Question number 2.

I had the dealer pull the car in so it would have a full charge to get us home. When I turned it on, the 'gas' gage said 72 miles. I was under the understanding that it had a 85 mile range. Why did the gage say otherwise. Remember, it has only 9K miles on it, so the battery should be gosh darn new.

Thanks in advance.... Mike
 
Battery range can vary depending on how it was driven in history. The only true way to know what the range potential is to run the TorquePro app to see what the actual battery capacity is.

If your capacity is 15-16kwh, that's what I'd call good normal healthy average. 16-17 is above average and 12 to 13 is well below average while 13 to 14 is slightly below average.
 
qrper said:
Gang.... I've wanted an electric car since the days of the 'voltswagen' and the boatload of flooded lead acid batteries stuffed inside everywhere.

Today, my wife and I drove home our new to us 2016 Electric Spark. It has 9600 miles on the clock

I've driven small cars all my life, from VWs to Ford Pintos, and even a Chevy Vega. (Gasp!) So this isn't anything new to me other than not having to put gasoline in it.

I do have a zillion questions to ask. And this is the first one.

I have ordered a EVSE from Cuttercreek, a LSC30, that the lady on the other end said would work fine for our car.

So question number 1. Does the car know that it's connected to the high powered EVSE or do I have to tell it? Right now, the level 1 charger is set at 8 amp. Do I need to tell it to go to 12 amp setting?

Question number 2.

I had the dealer pull the car in so it would have a full charge to get us home. When I turned it on, the 'gas' gage said 72 miles. I was under the understanding that it had a 85 mile range. Why did the gage say otherwise. Remember, it has only 9K miles on it, so the battery should be gosh darn new.

Thanks in advance.... Mike
Click to expand...
Personally, I think the 2016 Spark EV is the best of the three years. I leased a 2015, purchased a used 2014 and purchased a used 2016. All three have been great cars. My 2014 does not have the DCFC quick charging option but my 2016 does.

The Clipper Creek LSC-30 is designed to supply 24 amps at 240 VAC. The car will determine how much power to draw from this type of EVSE. You do not have to do anything more than just plug it in. But, you will need a 40 to 50 amp 240 VAC service.

The 120 VAC EVSE that came with the car defaults to the 8-amp setting. Unfortunately, you must manually change to 12 amps every time you want to use it. This is kind of a bummer because I have to remember to manually set my car to 12 amps every time I charge. Otherwise, the care will default to 8 amps.
 
Thanks for the note. I've looked around, using an charging locating app, for the high current dc chargers and there are none close to me, I'm in ohio, so unless something changes, that's not going to be an issue.

Found a lot of chargers, mostly level II near hotels/motels and apparently they are for guests only.

mike
 
qrper said:
Thanks for the note. I've looked around, using an charging locating app, for the high current dc chargers and there are none close to me, I'm in ohio, so unless something changes, that's not going to be an issue.

Found a lot of chargers, mostly level II near hotels/motels and apparently they are for guests only.

mike
Click to expand...
Sign on to www.plugshare.com. This APP shows most available charging stations currently available across the USA. You can zoom into Ohio and then zoom in further to search for any L2 locations near you. You might even find a DCFC station you did not know was available.
 
Yup, that's the one I used. It's amazing the number of public charging stations around me in Ohio, like I said, most of them are at hotels.

About 20 miles from me is C&S Titanium that has a solar powered level II charger. If I could figure out how to attach a photo, I'd show the solar panels and charger.
 

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