I know that. But I don’t weigh 300 pounds so it’s no problem to load in the 1 cubic yard of bark we were talking about that weighs 400-600lbs.
I was trying to be funny. I have no idea how much that haul weighed, but you didn’t see my car!! It definitely had more than 18 suitcases worth in it! I do have photos somewhere but I’m not going to post them since I don’t want to dox myself and it would be embarrassing, too.
And I have been driving this car since 2017 with no issues related to overloading it by hauling my daughter’s crap back and forth or anything else we put in it. Really a non-issue in real world usage. I’m here to tell the tale after 7.5 years! The shocks are fine. The only routine maintenance on it is tires and wipers and wiper fluid. It is really the best car we’ve ever owned. We just bought a Bolt EUV in fact! There are some great deals out there on used EVs and this one was too good to pass up.
Can a large truck haul more? Sure. Is it more likely to fly out of a large truck? Definitely. Not saying that a load can’t be locked down securely, but it can also not be as evidenced by all the large items I see on the side of the road. You just don’t typically have that problem in enclosed vehicles.
People are always surprised how much you can fit in a hatchback. The Chevy Bolt has 57 cubic feet of cargo space behind the two front seats. The Chevy Equinox SUV (non EV version) has 63.5 cubic feet of cargo space. For a vehicle that much bigger you’d think there’d be much more space, but SUVs just don’t use the space efficiently. A Honda Odyssey minivan (which we also used to own) has more than 155 cubic feet of cargo space behind the front row. Even a large SUV like the Chevy Suburban doesn’t beat that. It has 144.7. All those numbers are from cars.usnews.com
@Sweetgum I adore our Bolt. I wouldn’t take it on road trips where I needed to drive more than 350 miles a day because of the slow charging and I would feel stressed, but other than that I haven’t found anything I need that it doesn’t do. That said, the people who want their trucks, or large SUVs or luxury models of whatever are not going to want a Bolt no matter what argument you (or I) make. We did haul mulch and soil in it just last week!
I’m not surprised. I drove Corolla hatchbacks for two decades. A hatchback of that size can fit a lot volume-wise, but it is not designed to carry a lot of weight. I wouldn’t haul a pallet of retaining wall blocks in a small hatchback even though I can probably shove the entire pallet of them in there. A few bags of mulch is ok once in a while.
There is a house I drive by occasionally on the way to the kids’ place. They have 4 (!) Bolts parked in the driveway. Not a rental, so this is a family fleet.
I mentioned this upthread. It is in place in Norway ( and some surrounding countries). One of our Uber drivers pulled up the swapping station map. These vehicles have great integrated software.
And this cute little thingy lives on the dashboard. It winks, it smiles, gives directions etc.
Our Bolt has been up and down the East Coast. From NC to Florida and from NC to Philly. We road trip for shorter distances in it frequently but on long trips we are sometimes jealous of those Ioniq 5s and Kia EV6s, etc, that can charge in 15 minutes. We usually time our stops around a meal, though, so it’s not as annoying. We’ve also been driving EVs for 10 years starting with a Nissan Leaf so we’re pretty used to it. But for someone with money to burn looking to get into an EV the Bolt is not the car I would suggest because of that slower fast charging. That’s the main drawback and we just add a little time to our longer trips.
This is not a hybrid-specific topic, but I’m trying out the cellphone/digital key on my Lexus NX 350h (which comes with 3 year subscription for digital key service - after that $15/month). It works OK, but I have read it can be unreliable. Figured it might be nice when I drive to the local lake trail to run… could walk home (or call retired husband to bring key) if for some reason it failed. I have begun to worry that if I do bring the key, which I put in jacket pocket for pickleball, there’s a chance I could accidentally go home without the key.
Still, that is a poor design decision. If electrically released doors are used (e.g. to lower frameless windows on door opening) it would be better would be to have an ordinary looking interior door handle that electrically releases the door on a light pull, and mechanically releases it on a greater pull (or two pulls).
But poor design here is not limited to Teslas or EVs. Some Corvettes have a similar not so obvious mechanical door release.
A few bags of mulch is ok once in a while.
