Chevy Spark EV Forum

Buyers remorse. I bought a 2016 Spark with 65,000 miles and 75 miles of drive time in April. We are now coming in to September and the max. miles are 58 on a full charge, does that seem correct? New to this forum and appreciate any feedback, thanks

Conditions will affect how many miles you get. Cold weather, using the heater, and driving at high speed are mileage-reducing conditions that come to mind. I used to get about 58 miles on my 2015, I think because I used to start out with a full charge going downhill, so little regen, then turn around and go back uphill, which used a lot of energy.

If the 58 miles is enough to do what you want to do, I wouldn't worry too much. The mileage will drop in the winter, but it should come back when the weather warms up.

I have a 2015 I bought in 2017 with 19k miles, now with 91k miles. Today's full charge range is 57 miles. I am in TX dealing with lots of 100 degree days this summer. Back in April when weather was milder my range was around 72 miles. Cold in TX rarely impacts me but when it gets below 30, I have seen range drop to as low as 48 miles.

I should add that I am using General Altimax tires which offer better performance but are not low rolling resistance. When I switched from low rolling resistance to performance my range dropped about 8% from 78 miles to 72 miles.

Ev4me wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:47 pm Buyers remorse. I bought a 2016 Spark with 65,000 miles and 75 miles of drive time in April. We are now coming in to September and the max. miles are 58 on a full charge, does that seem correct? New to this forum and appreciate any feedback, thanks

Hi Ev4me, welcome to the forum! I'm guessing the Spark just barely fit your range criteria and you didn't account for the range dropping, is that correct?

The range between extreme winter and summer varies for all cars actually. It's less noticeable when you have a car capable of >300 miles of range of course, but its typical for ICE and EV to all lose 20-30% in winter. The range you reported is in the normal seasonal range for this EV. What have the temperatures been like for you to reach the winter ranges in September?

I should also mention the range estimate is called a GOM (guess-o-meter) for all Chevy EV owners. It is a best guess that will vary, improve, or get worse with your driving style and terrain, so it's a good idea to switch the display config modes (located next to your mirror adjust buttons) to see the three ranges (conservative best case, average, and worst-case) as opposed to the simple display with one range. It helps to know what you are trending towards. The ball that moves with your throttle is also the best config to use to get feedback from the car on whether you are in the maximum efficiency zone of driving or not.

I don't know what your parking and charging situation is like, but if you want absolutely the maximum available energy in the winter, plugging in will keep the battery warm, somewhere in the 41ºF-55ºF (5ºC - 13ºC) range. This will be an important consideration because the colder a li-ion battery is, the less capacity it has, which gets worse the faster and harder you discharge them.

If you find yourself in freezing temperatures, the car will run a 2kW battery heater to bring pack temperatures up to a minimum 39-41ºF. This protection feature can consume 6-12% of your battery over 20-40 minutes in extreme cold and won't turn off until the cells are in their safe operating temperature, so be aware of that. If you didn't have a battery heater, regen and public charging would destroy your lithium pack, so this is a strategy to mitigate damage in cold cell charging (you can't charge lithium batteries beyond a trickle below freezing).

If you want longevity, however, EVs have the least degradation in freezing temperatures, so you might suffer more range loss, but you'll maintain your battery capacity and enjoy it for more Summers when the car is cold-soaked and not sitting fully charged.

The other thing to be mindful of is tire pressure. Colder temps will lower tire pressure and increase rolling resistance. Keep tire pressure in the range of 35-40 psi.

preconditioning your car for 10-15 minutes while plugged in saves a serious amount of power during your drive, so take advantage of that if you are nearly full. Preconditioning can also run the battery heater so that it isn't running during your drive.

Hope this helps.

Infinion wrote: ↑Fri Sep 08, 2023 1:06 am The range between extreme winter and summer varies for all cars actually. It's less noticeable when you have a car capable of >300 miles of range of course, but its typical for ICE and EV to all lose 20-30% in winter.

I'm sorry, I have to disagree here. Yes, ICE cars do lose a bit of range in the winter, but MUCH less than EVs. The primary culprit? Heat. Cabin heating is free on an ICE car. Cabin heating on an EV can easily sap up 40% of your range on a very cold winter day.