2015 Chevy Spark EV's starting to appear in Midwest

[mowcowbell]

Hello everyone! New member here.

I've been shopping for an EV for quite some time, but here in the midwest US there just aren't any EV's available (other than Nissan Leaf). I've started to notice a few off-lease Chevy Spark EV's showing up in some dealer lots in the region. Found one at a nearby dealer in OKC, several in Dallas, several in Kansas City. Several with less than 10,000 miles and under $10,000.

My daily commute is about 40 miles round trip and we rarely see temps below 32F for very long here in OKC.

Is there anything I should especially look for as possible problem areas on the Spark EV? I've read that the front tires wear exceptionally fast, and that the small 15" tires are somewhat hard to find. Thanks for any advice you can offer!

 

[MrDRMorgan]

Hello everyone! New member here.

I've been shopping for an EV for quite some time, but here in the midwest US there just aren't any EV's available (other than Nissan Leaf). I've started to notice a few off-lease Chevy Spark EV's showing up in some dealer lots in the region. Found one at a nearby dealer in OKC, several in Dallas, several in Kansas City. Several with less than 10,000 miles and under $10,000.

My daily commute is about 40 miles round trip and we rarely see temps below 32F for very long here in OKC.

Is there anything I should especially look for as possible problem areas on the Spark EV? I've read that the front tires wear exceptionally fast, and that the small 15" tires are somewhat hard to find. Thanks for any advice you can offer!

I have a 2015 Spark EV 2LT equipped with the quick charge option and I have 22k miles on the car. I have had no problems with the car and the front tires should go 30K miles or more. Good low rolling resistance replacement tires are available. A 40 mile round trip is no problem in this car but I suggest, if you can, find one equipped with the quick-charge option. I see you have Greenlots DCFC quick-chargers at the On Cue stations in Edmond and Yukon. It might be a good idea to check them out.

I also have a 2014 Spark EV 2LT without the quick-charge option and 40 mile round trips have not been a problem with this car either. Cold weather - ~32 deg. F - will impact the Spark EV's range depending on how you use the heater. If you can, install a L2 EVSE in your garage to allow you to preheat the car in cold weather prior to leaving on you journey. For my 2015 Spark EV, the full-charge range typically drops from ~95 miles in the spring and summer months to 65 miles in the winter months when the outside temperature is 32-40 deg. F. and I am using the heater. Preheating the car is one way to gain a little more range. You probably want to talk with your nearest Chevy dealer and make sure the dealer can service a Spark EV. If the dealer services Volts, he should be able to service Spark EVs too but it is a good idea to ask. There may be a number of software updates that the car needs - you can take the VIN number of the car, in which you have an interest, to the Chevy dealer's service department and ask them to check for any recalls or technical service bulletins that need to be done to update the car.

Before you purchase a used Spark EV, have the car fully charged and make note of the range number in the blue ball on the dash display. If the car has been driven hard, this number may be in the low 50s or 60s. The question here is, with TLC driving, will the range go back into the 90s in spring weather or has the hard driving degraded the battery? Unfortunately, it takes a lot of TLC driving to get enough info into the cars computer to give you a real feel for the range you can expect to see.

Finally, if you drive 20 miles to work and 20 miles home, and your employer or destination does not have an L2 EVSE charging location, see if you can find where you can plug in the 120 VAC L1 EVSE that comes with the car. The L1 will allow a charging rate of approximately .75 kWh per hour which is better than nothing and 8 hours of charging could buy you an additional 30 miles of range. I use my L1 EVSE to charge my 2014 Spark EV whenever my 2015 Spark EV is on the L2 EVSE in my garage.

Good luck with your search. You will really enjoy driving an EV - especially the Spark EV!

 

[JeremyW]

Would recommend getting DCFC unless the car is just a commuter appliance.

Here's how to find if a prospective car has QC

 

[scrambler]

Looking at the expected range when fully charged is not a very reliable information, as it is an estimate based on past driving, and you will have no idea how the car was driven during the last few charges.
To get an idea on the state of the battery, the best is to look at the battery numbers when the battery is depleted more than 50%. So when you see the car, press the leaf button on the dashboard, and if the battery used percentages totals over 50%, note down the sum of all percentages and the kWh. That will allow you to deduct a rough estimate of the battery usable capacity (see below).

If the battery is less than 50% used, you can still take down these numbers, but the extrapolation will be less precise. If you can, drive the car around until the battery has been depleted as much as you can, and take down these numbers.

Usable battery capacity will be kWh used / total percentage used.
For example, if the total of the 3 percentages is 63% and the kWh used is 9.9, this means a usable capacity is 15.7 kWh (9.9/.63)

A brand new Spark should be around 18.4 kWh or more. My 55k miles 2014 is down to 15.7kWh usable.

That gives you an idea of what will be a "normal" number.
Based on an estimate of 18.4kWh usable when new, and an advertised range of 82 miles, the 82 miles correspond to 4.45 miles per kWh.

By experience, depending on your driving conditions, you can expect to be doing between 4 miles per kWh and 6 miles per kWh. My average in North California 50% highway, 50% city right now is 5.4 miles / kWh.

So based on the usable battery capacity of the car, you can estimate to range, but it should be way over 40 miles, so you wont have any issues.

 

[mowcowbell]

Greatly appreciate the feedback from you guys! Thanks for the tip on how to check battery capacity.

I was surprised to find two DCFC charge stations in the OKC metro, especially considering this area is like a desert for EV charging stations. The one in Yukon is about 10 miles from my home.

Definitely planning on getting a L2 EVSE installed at home, where I plan to do most of my charging. I'm keeping my ICE vehicle, so the Spark EV will be my commuter vehicle. I figured a lightly used sub $10K EV would be a cheap way to introduce my family to the convenience of an EV. Sure won't miss visiting gas stations as often, or dealing with price fluctuations of gasoline due to external/environmental/weather issues. We saw a .25 jump in prices due to hurricane Harvey.

 

[MrDRMorgan]

Looking at the expected range when fully charged is not a very reliable information, as it is an estimate based on past driving, and you will have no idea how the car was driven during the last few charges.
To get an idea on the state of the battery, the best is to look at the battery numbers when the battery is depleted more than 50%. So when you see the car, press the leaf button on the dashboard, and if the battery used percentages totals over 50%, note down the sum of all percentages and the kWh. That will allow you to deduct a rough estimate of the battery usable capacity (see below).

If the battery is less than 50% used, you can still take down these numbers, but the extrapolation will be less precise. If you can, drive the car around until the battery has been depleted as much as you can, and take down these numbers.

Usable battery capacity will be kWh used / total percentage used.
For example, if the total of the 3 percentages is 63% and the kWh used is 9.9, this means a usable capacity is 15.7 kWh (9.9/.63)

A brand new Spark should be around 18.4 kWh or more. My 55k miles 2014 is down to 15.7kWh usable.

That gives you an idea of what will be a "normal" number.

Based on an estimate of 18.4kWh usable when new, and an advertised range of 82 miles, the 82 miles correspond to 4.45 miles per kWh.

By experience, depending on your driving conditions, you can expect to be doing between 4 miles per kWh and 6 miles per kWh. My average in North California 50% highway, 50% city right now is 5.4 miles / kWh.

So based on the usable battery capacity of the car, you can estimate to range, but it should be way over 40 miles, so you wont have any issues.

I agree with the method you presented and I have used it for 2 years. However, the GOM Blue Ball range number does give you an estimate based on recent usage. Just run the AC or heater for a while to see what I mean. The next full charge will cause the GOM range estimate to drop -sometimes significantly. But... it says nothing about battery capacity. Here are some examples:

I just looked online at a 2014 Spark EV 2LT with 21K miles on it. The photo of the dash display showed a GOM range value of 28 miles with 40% of the battery remaining. another 2015 Spark EV 2LT with 26K miles showed 34 miles with 70% of the battery remaining and 3.9 mi / kWh. And still another 2014 Spark EV 1LT with 25K miles showed 74 miles on the GOM and 10 bars (full) on the charge gauge.

The prospective owner would be wise to have the car fully charged to reset the Energy Information screen to ZERO and then drive it at a steady speed (45-50 mph) in D for about 25-30 miles using the cruise control and on a level road with no stops, slow-downs or headwinds. AC, heater, and / or radio should be turned off as well as the day-time headlights. Day time air temperature should be 70 to 80 deg. F. At the end of the 25-30 miles, write down the readings shown on the Energy Information screen and then go back home. Use the information taken from the Energy Information screen to calculate the battery capacity as given above.
This will give you a reasonable estimate of the vehicle's current battery capacity. The object to running the test this way is to eliminate the effect regeneration will have on the calculated number.

 

[RamAirDave]

Hey ... Sorry I just saw this!

I live in Yukon, about 1/4 mile from the OnCue Station. DCFC for us was a must...we have a Volt as well so it goes L2 at the house. The 20 minute 80% charge is awesome and did I mention...FREE!! lol

If you have not purchased yet, feel free to message me, Happy to let you try it out. Very fun car and surprisingly quick.

Really surprised you found one local..I had to have mine shipped from Utah! Took forever...but again...dcfc made that search much harder.
Dave

 

[fox]

Hello. What site are you using to find these cars for sale? I use cargurus.com mostly and auto trader

 

[Jester84]

use all of them...lots on Ebay too. DCFC is very hard to come by. I must have found 200 without it before finding ONE that was reasonable and did with lower miles.

BTW..I am RamAirDave on here too...just noticed I have 2 profiles lol