You're so funny...love your honesty.

Preconditioning while plugged in will help by warming the battery before you drive off. I've found this increases winter range quite a bit.

I appreciate your videos. It helped when when shopping to make sure I got a Spark EV with the DCFC. Love this car in town!

Great review, thanks!

Thank you for your video and insight !

Great video! You are so funny. I want a used Spark EV despite living in (cold) Kansas.

One way I deal with this is to press the Temp button on the temperature dial to turn off the heater when the air is warmed up enough. It continues to blow hot to warm air for a few minutes, then I can kick it on again for a few minutes when the air starts to cool off. That has helped me reduce the heater's draw on the battery. Also I have it on recirculating air. Not sure why it always defaults to outside air when I start the car... wish it remembered it.

I feel your pain during the winter, I live in Quebec Canada and if it wasn't for the fast charging infrastructure we have here I would have not bought this car. Fast charging only takes about 15 minutes at the most and I'm gone. Right now being January Temps are anywhere from 32 Fahrenheit to -8 fahrenheit, and I'm getting about 43 miles to a charge on those really cold days. By the way I also have a 2015 spark I just purchased in October of last year. But it does put a smile on my face for the most part it's really fun to drive. One of my biggest complaints is the a-pillar on the driver side is a pretty good blind spot especially when it comes to pedestrians, you really have to Bob your head back and forth to be safe. Congrats on your next car hope to see some videos on it.

Appreciate the honest review. I have a fiat 500e as a third car and I love it most of the time, but if you have to rely on it in the Pennsylvania winter there's no chance. Count on at least 30% range reduction at best. If you live in the city and are doing stop and go it's fantastic. On the open highway not so much. You have one eye on the battery percent pretty much the whole time.

Gotta hand it to you- I concur with your assessment of the 2015 Spark EV. I had one until it got totaled. I hated the stereo system. It didn't do well in cold weather (range issue). However, it was trouble free and it was powerful. I loved it. Stay safe and healthy.

Jimmy, just ordered a 2016 from Carvana. Decision mostly based on your honest reviews and my intense urge to try an EV. I even bought the Carvana care for 4 years-just in case.

Is ther any "warm up" factor at all? What if It started in a garage, but then you go out into the cold? Would that be much better or would the miles per charge go down once you got driving in the cold?

Sad to see it go but you will certainly enjoy your future experiences with EVs, i am certain. I read some of the comments here and have some to add and i want to end with a question. Please respond if you have time. First, yep... my speakers are super low quality in the sound arena. According to the 2015 brochure, both trims had the same sound equipment... hmm. Maybe my 2016 too? Perhaps i have been spoiled with other sound systems in the past. Your comments to others regarding pre-heating; even with my spark EV hooked up to 240v when I do the preconditioning it still uses battery, that 3.3 kw charger just cant supply enough for a full preheat in winter. It does work on the 120, though. You just use that much more battery is all. I recommend preconditioning for at least 15 mins before leaving the house in cold conditions, plugged in or not. Your new volt, congrats. They are pretty cool cars and very well managed packs. I have read it is an 16 or 18 kwh pack with a usable 10kwh. That is very conservative and should get you 100ks of miles with no worries and ZERO measured degradation for many years. But did you hear people talk about their volts in the wintertime? I have heard in some cases the engine will warm up and you can not choose to run battery only to do heat and driving. Like, the engine will run and you cant shut it off even if you wanted to? When i first heard that i was sad. It makes mechanical sense but it also takes some of the sense that you are"winning" away. Winning against the fight with big-oil. Agreed to the wintertime range effect on the Spark EV. I bank for "half" and i can run the heat and get where i need to go, 40 miles in sub freezing weather is a solid YES with my car, currently. I almost have 10k miles on my spark EV and have not yet seen any degradation. I am a stickler with how the battery is treated, however. I NEVER let it sit for long periods of time at a full charge (ok, so once or twice i had it fully charged for a couple days, ick). I try to keep the departure time at or a little after i actually leave, so i do not have a complete charge. (less stress on cells this way) So my question for you is (two questions); 1) did you let the car sit at a fully charged state often? 2) what will be your next EV if you had to choose? Keep living the dream! P.S.: My wife and I bought a used 2013 Tesla Model S from Tesla a few months back. The service experience was Bologna, the car is great. Tesla is growing (pains) but i wanted (and want) to support their mission ~"sustainable transportation". The crazy thing though, their packs are so well managed that if you preheat for 30 minutes prior to take-off.... that's right, take-off (HA!).... your winter range is not that low. I was figuring half with it but its more like 20 percent loss... Kinda crazy. They heat up the packs really nice, even if its not plugged in and you run the preheat.

I am about to buy a 2015 Chevrolet Spark EV used with. 52k miles on it. I need a car for work cause public transportation from San Jose to SFO in California cost me $35 a day on weekdays and $40 a day on weekend one way . 2-3 hours one way trip between 3 different public transportation agency. Uber cost me $45-$65 one way from San Jose to SFO between the hour of midnight to 3am. Uber rate are not fixed. I would cost me about $80+ a day to go to work and come back home.

You knew I had to ask this. How do you know the degradation isn't due to your hypermiling 100% to zero? Here in Winterfell, MA 50 degrees in December is practically a heat wave LOL. I have seen a 25% temperature related degradation this month just for the record. I DC fast charge weekdays 10 minutes in the morning and 10 in the evening during my commute.

Good points.

Same issue on the Volt.. you have to change the voltage on charging everytime.. but the more irritating is the Sports mode and L.. that's the best way to drive it.. and I wore that button out.. literally

Good honest AK man.

I’m not sure if you explained to us how you think your battery has degradation other than the computer isn’t maxing out on the range? It could be how your drive and how much climate you are using in the winter/summer.

What kind of 12volt battery do you use for this? Do you need to replace the OEM AMG battery with another OME battery?

How can you determine how much battery degregation?

Oh Jonesboro. Lol

Trading give less in return than selling. 40-50 miles would be plenty for me if that happened only in the winter time. Could hav gotten cloth in the Lt1 model. If I was going for something new, I would consider the Toyota Prius Prime, they should last longer than the Volt as well. They are Proven and can last 300k or more. The MPG is 55, and it still gets at at least 25 MPG in town with EV mode. It takes 7 hrs on a 120 volt plug to gain a full charge, it is really quick to fast charge as well. Hopefully Oaklahoma will improve infra. You drove all that way just for a sammich and cheese sticks?

I'm not sure you were ready for an EV. But the spark is definitely a good way to feel it out. And also there is many cheap cars that will do 40+ mpg , but nobody wants them lmao.

20% battery degradation is not normal, no. What are your charging habits (I'm posting this before watching the entire video)? Do you plug in every night, no matter what? Are you regularly charging to 100% and/or letting it drop below 20%? Any of those can hurt the battery pack over time, though it's not talked about enough. Performance-wise, the Spark is one of the fastest "compliance" vehicles out there. I agree with your assessment that you should try to get the EV with the greatest range that you can afford (new or used). However, if the EV has DC fast charging it can make smaller ranges easier to live with. For example, let's say you are like most people in the world and you drive less than 30 miles per day on average, but _occasionally_ drive more than that. That's when DCFC comes in handy. I think the Spark did not offer it until 2016, right? The Fiat 500e never did offer it until the latest (2020) which will not be for sale in the US...

Was gonna buy a used spark ev🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

hate to say it but that 2015 Volt you bought is worse in the winter. You might get 28 miles if you are lucky. Cant really compare fairly because the Volt has gas but then thats defeating the whole purpose isnt it...

~20% degradation for 2015 Spark EV's seems to be more the rule than the exception (at least from those that post on the mychevysparkev.com forum).

lol 5 ddllar butane stove for heat rather than wasting juice

I had a 2013 Honda Fit EV which had an 83 mile summer range that was totally unusable in the New England winter.....I mean it would go 30 miles in the cold, and forget about heat....or even heated seats. Electric cars are like cars with 1 gallon fuel tanks that take hours to fill up. I know the 300 miles of a Tesla sounds good, but I bet that even degrades. It is sad, but true.