Well, if you are a Chevy Bolt owner and wonder what all those parameters mean, here’s a little bit of a decoder ring (it is incredible in this day and age that even with all that infotainment, there isn’t a simple thing like a Tooltip to tell you what a setting means), but fortunately there are forums:

  1. Hilltop Reserve. I had mistakenly thought this had something to do with hill climbing, but it is incredibly misnamed. What it means is that if you live at the top of a monster hill, the thing will only charge to 90%, so that as you coast downhill you will get more free charge. Now doing that math, this would be a 6kWh hill, so you in other words, it had better be an hour down hill. The side benefit is that it only charges the battery to 90% which helps long term battery life. Just remember to turn this off when you are going on a long, long trip and need the extra 10% (about 24 miles).
  2. Android Auto. Man this is a strange mode, it doesn’t seem to work with Nexus 5X with the latest Android. Not clear why, I wish these modes had some debugging. Also, it make it strange to have the something that has to switch and when you click on it, it detects the phone and then asks if you should switch. Isn’t it obvious if I’ve plugged it in?
  3. Apple CarPlay. What a strange implementation. There is no obvious way to go to the home of the overall system. You just have hit the hard HOME key or go through the Energy system to find it. Plus if you want to open up a non-CarPlay application, Siri refuses to do it even thought it works just fine.

I’m Rich & Co.

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