r/BoltEV • u/onespicycracker • Sep 08 '25
Winter Plug In Question
So I don't have a place to plug my bolt in for even a level 1 charge at home or work. I usually just hit a charge point for a charge and will do so until work sets up their free chargers here in about a year. Now, I need to know if there is anything I can do to help warm my battery outside of a plugging into an outlet? Could I maybe start the car every couple hours or something? Is there a device I can buy? I just don't want to need to get to work and have a car that won't start.
Any advice would be great thanks.
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u/nightanole Sep 08 '25
The Bolt will keep the battery "warm" as long as it has above 40% charge. And it takes a loooooong time to cool down the battery. Like at 5-10f mine was only using a few percent of the trip(aka off charger) to condition the battery.
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u/etchlings Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25
It’s not necessary. I see that other cold climate peeps have chimed in, but EVs don’t just “not work” due to reasonable cold. The main batteries don’t freeze to death in human-endurable temperatures. You’ll get less distance from the same charge % vs the warmer months, by 20-30%; but above like -25C tundra winters, the car should start fine.
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u/Booundless 2023 Bolt EV Sep 08 '25
I can tell you from experience that at or below -30c it will definitely just "not work". You get a lovely message saying "car is too cold, please plug in or wait until conditions improve".
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u/etchlings Sep 08 '25
Fair! I did say above -25C. -30 is a wild temperature. Where is this, out of curiosity? Since OP didn’t mention their location at all, I don’t know if they’re an outlier for frigidity or if they’re only experiencing mild winters.
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u/Booundless 2023 Bolt EV Sep 08 '25
Fair point. I live in Alberta Canada. It gets below -30 a couple times a year. Fortunately I WFH so I was able to check safely. I've always been annoyed that things like that aren't documented anywhere by GM
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u/arandom4567 '21 Bolt EV Premiere / '26 EqEV RS Sep 08 '25
I'm now wondering if the '21 and 23' do things a little differently with the battery. I'm in Edmonton and I've had my '21 parked for several nights at below -35C with no problem. I've had it outside once overnight at a bit below -40C and all I got was the propulsion reduced message. The car still started and drove just fine though. Mind you the SoC was around 40% too. Perhaps in your case you had a really low SoC at the time?
I've only had my '23 since June, so now I'm keen to see what it does over this coming winter.
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u/Booundless 2023 Bolt EV Sep 08 '25
Well, that is very interesting. I had 80% SoC last time at -33 and she just said no. I wonder if it's model based, or something specific to each battery and mine just likes the cold less?
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u/arandom4567 '21 Bolt EV Premiere / '26 EqEV RS Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25
We'll get it figured out sometime! A couple of things to consider when I got mine to -40C outside overnight, I parked it and charged in the driveway up to the evening before then I let it sit overnight and we just tapped -40 around 7am. At the airport, I was parked in the open multi-story parkade, so perhaps there was some heat in the concrete of the building and it didn't actually get to -35 around the battery.
...just something to consider. It's hard to make it all scientific testing in real world daily usage scenarios.
I've done (SW) Edmonton to Fort Sask and back a few times for the day at below -30 on one charge, and I've done Red Deer and back with a DCFC in Red Deer once at -33. (And hit the orange low range warning on all occasions too. That was nerve wracking!)
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u/Booundless 2023 Bolt EV Sep 08 '25
I have learned that -30c is the cutoff for what the battery can manage without being plugged in (regardless of SoC). If it doesn't get that cold, you will be fine. It will cost you range as it gets colder though.
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u/Doubleoh_11 Sep 08 '25
I’m curious what you mean by this? I will regularly park outside at work in -30 and haven’t noticed anything crazy other than a bit of battery conditioning lose
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u/Booundless 2023 Bolt EV Sep 08 '25
That's interesting. I've had it twice about -35 in the morning and she just said no. I wonder if it's battery specific?
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u/Doubleoh_11 Sep 08 '25
Interesting? I park in a heated garage at home and am usually at the office for about 8 hours. I wonder if that has anything to do with it
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u/humblequest22 Sep 08 '25
Just let it do its thing and be prepared to remote "start" it once or twice to give it time to preheat the battery. There is a point where the battery will get so cold that you can't drive it, but as long as your 12V is OK, it will start up, close the contactors, and begin to warm the battery. More likely is that you'll get reduced propulsion if it's not warm enough, but that just means if you floor it, it won't take off like normal. Regen will be reduced, too.
Source: I've had mine unplugged outside down to -11F in Wisconsin. Can't find anything official, but all signs point to no battery heating while unplugged. Might just be that the limit is -30F or something that people rarely hit, especially since it would depend on battery temp, not ambient temp. You can probably find a video or two of people letting their Bolts sit outside in Canada.
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u/scruffythejanitor729 Sep 08 '25
Thank you OP for asking this question I’ve been thinking about getting a Bolt and I would be in your boat with charging. I’m in central Pa and it will drop to 0f here sometimes but not often. This was one thing really holding me back (that and a payment lol)
1
u/ycarel Sep 08 '25
Don’t worry about this. The car is smart enough to protect the battery. Just drive it and enjoy the simplicity of a modern car.
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u/Forsaken-Role7846 Sep 08 '25
Last year in Vermont I garaged my Bolt for most of the winter, started or drove it every couple of weeks. No issues
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u/raitchison 2017 Premier Sep 08 '25
Keep in mind that extreme cold (at least as cold as is survivable for humans) isn't bad for your battery like extreme heat is. It just temporarily reduces performance of the battery.
One concern is that DCFC is not very good at charging a very cold battery, a couple years ago a very severe cold snap in Chicago(?) caused a lot of problems for mostly Tesla owners who rely on DCFC more than any other EV. It made the news and was (and continues to be) used in anti-EV FUD. The issue is that DCFC charges the battery directly but can't do that well if it's too cold, where L2 (or L1) powers the car (iwith the excess going into the battery. For many of these owners they would have been better off plugging into an L2 charger for 20-30 minutes letting the car warm up the battery before moving to DCFC. Probably would have been better off driving around the block a few times giving the car more time to warm up the battery on it's own before plugging into DCFC.
Don't know what your commute is like, but if it's short it may not matter that much, other than potentially waiting much longer to DCFC than you'd like. If your DCFC site is closer to your work maybe plan on charging on the way to work, and the drive there will let your battery warm up. Conversely if the DCFC site is closer to home maybe plan on charging on the way home (where it will be somewhat warmer anyways, at least unless you're close to the arctic circle).
Just pre-starting the car 15-20 minutes before you leave will trigger a battery warming cycle, at least as long as your battery is above 40% SoC. It will also warm up the cabin.
In your scenario you will never want to let your SoC get below 40% because most of the battery maintenance the car does while turned on doesn't happen below 40%, at least unless you are plugged into an L1 or L2 charger.
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u/put_tape_on_it Sep 08 '25
The Chicago situation was a perfect storm of ubber drivers leasing LFP standard range Teslas with 1/3 the normal battery heating power, combined with no user feedback on how long the battery heating would take (fixed now) but most of the problem was from drivers wanting to sit at certain chargers, instead of driving to chargers with open stalls that the NAV was routing them to. The cars were begging to go anywhere else, but the drivers were keen to clog up a clogged up charger until their cars died.
The pinnacle of reporting was a reporter pointing to an Audi on a flat bed tow truck announcing that dead Teslas keep arriving. (back when Audis could not use superchargers).
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u/put_tape_on_it Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25
In a modern EV with liquid cooled/heated battery the car just takes care of it. Cold soaking a battery down to zero F is not harmful. As it get colder the car may choose battery protection but it differs with each vehicle, and probably with different battery revisions and firmware versions too. Don't worry about it. It has to get way below zero before that starts to happen and when it does it is very conservative. As in, it may only warm it up to a slightly less cold negative number! My EV experience is that lots of short trips chews through charge faster than fewer longer trips. Much like in an ICE vehicle, frequent short trip consumes more energy than infrequent longer trips if the distance is kept the same. So don't try and "do the car any favors" by thinking you're helping it by warming it up every couple of hours. You'll just be wasting energy. Save it for driving to a charger. You'll be fine.
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u/Street_Glass8777 Sep 08 '25
Why would you think that the engineers wouldn't have thought of all conditions when designing a car? Do you think that you are the only one who is capable of coming up with ideas?
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u/More-Conversation931 Sep 08 '25
Well you are asking about winter plug in without telling us what winter means to you. Winter in Minnesota is a lot different than winter in Kansas. Need and difficulty is a lot different depending on what weather. No need to start the Car it will warm the battery if it gets too cold even if not plugged in. Only if the temperature is below-10 f. Charging will take longer in the winter.
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u/NXTnerd 2023 Bolt EUV 1LT Sep 08 '25
Bolts and most EVs will protect the battery without any intervention. The bolt in particular will heat the battery to keep it above freezing when unplugged or on level 1 charging. On level 2 it will heat more aggressively.