It sounds like you are onto something. There may be a more complicated and justified reason for the software to be the way it is; I’m not sure.

But to make your numbers more legit, you need to keep track of a long-time average instead of relying on the instantaneous mileage. The fuel economy gauge in cars is notorious for not being very accurate anyway.

I would suggest you start keeping track of how much gas you buy and how many miles you drive (using the odometer). After you have gone through 5 tanks of gas, divide the miles driven by the gallons of gas bought (of course, fill up the tank before you start and when you finish, so that the tank is at the same level when you start as it is when you finish). An average like this is much more error-free than instant readings.

I suspect your numbers are close to accurate, but others may be more willing to accept them if you follow that procedure.

After I saw a short piece with AFS Trinity CEO Edward Furia & a CNN reporter driving a test vehicle last month, I emailed them. They called me back and after further study I’m convinced they’re legit.*

GM’s goals for the new Plug-in VUE, with a claimed EV range of only 10 miles, are not at all ambitious –to the contrary, they’re too short-sighted– and I’m trying to convince them to offer a much longer EV range (35mi+) as at least an extra-cost option for the Plug-in VUE!

* But don’t send AFS Trinity any money you can’t afford to lose

Wise Golden says:

Yes.

When I first got the Saturn Aura, I was disappointed by the mileage, but after about 2 weeks of driving (I drive 1000 miles each week – sometimes only 700.) I started to understand that the car’s computer was doing some things that only made sense on certain occasions. For instance, the car wanted to immediately go into charge mode as soon as my foot was released from the accelerator. This would cause a form of regenerative breaking and would cause the car to loose momentum. I speculate that GM engineers have decided that this is the only way to ensure that the battery captures it’s maximum charge, but it began to occur to me that the car was significantly wrong on most occasions (based on my driving route and my habits.)

I used the instantaneous fuel gauge to try to study the car mileage characteristics under various conditions. As would be expected, the car gets very poor mileage from 0-20 mph (all cars do,) very good mileage at the sweet spot of 40-55 MPH, and unbelievable mileage during coasting and stopping. In fact under coast and stop, the car gets beyond 100 MPG and I can only attempt to calculate the mileage because the gauge stops at 99. On one occasion, I was so shocked by the improvement in my total trip average from one journey of 80 miles, that I manually calculated the journey fuel economy and found that it was in the 70’s MPG. That finding leads me to believe that under coast situations, that the car may be experiencing in excess of 200 MPG, or even more because I believe that the fuel cuts off completely. On highway speeds, the mileage drops significantly from a high of about 50-MPG at 40-55 MPH to around 34 MPG at 70-80 MPH – this clearly illustrates the aerodynamics that GM is discussing on the Volt.

All of this said, the strategy of the computer should be (but is not) to allow the car to maximize its Ultra, ultra high efficiency coasting (I really believe it’s above 200 MPG in that circumstance,) even if that is to the detriment of the battery charge. I can say that under my driving conditions, the car will begin to charge at the very moment that the foot is removed from the accelerator and in a normal breaking distance, the car will reach a full charge that will cause the computer to stop charging before the end of the breaking cycle. This has told me that the entire breaking cycle is not needed to charge.

To compensate for the computer’s lack of vision and decision making ability, I believe that GM programmed the most conservative scenario. I have developed a better scenario and have learned to trick the computer into following my commands by using the accelerator and break as computer inputs. Roughly 9 out 10 times that I take my foot of the accelerator; it is not my intention to break, rather, I wish to coast a bit (getting too close to the car in front.) The car wants to break and charge. I trick by tapping a very tiny tap at the accelerator to turn off the regen breaking. I do it again, and I do it a third time as long as I want to coast. On the third occasion, GM has programmed the computer to stop trying to do regenerative breaking – don’t know why. At this point, the car will be allowed to coast, achieving phenomenal mileage. Roughly 1 of 10 occasions, I want to slow down and I allow the car to go into regenerative breaking as it does naturally.

If GM would simply reprogram the car to coast upon the action of a foot being removed from the peddle (with fuel off,) and program the car to wait for an input from the break before it begins regenerative breaking, the mileage of the car would fall in line with mine. As of today, 38.3 MPG over 13,418 miles, an increase of .2 MPG on 13,418 miles in a journey of 68 miles (I said 13,300 in my previous post, but I was rounding – didn’t think it was going to become thesis material. It was about 13,350 miles.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but that means I got 53.9 MPG today on my 68-mile journey. Now granted, I have an ideal journey where I am able to keep the car in the sweet spot for many miles at a time, but I promise that I stopped no less than 20 times at lights. By using my strategy, I was getting maybe 200 MPG as I coasted for several tenths of a mile into a stoplight. Using GM’s strategy, I would have been forced to maintain a slight acceleration into the final 150 feet of the approach into the stop light, because otherwise, the car will go into regen breaking. This super mileage pays for the penalty of accelerating and brings the overall mileage to that of the sweet spot, which is evidently about 53.9 MPG.

I wish to also say that I am a normal driver – I do not inconvenience the people on the road around me. I always travel at the same speed as the car in front of me, and I don’t start coasting a half a mile away from a light. People are not routinely passing me. I don’t get honked at. I’m blending in.

Some people might have other conditions that would be less advantageous than the scenario that I have outlined, but the fact is that I think it would be a real step forward for GM to have the car learn the drivers habits and adapt.

Additionally, I am aware that GM is able to monitor my engine via On-Star if they want to. They have my permission, and I will be happy to discuss this with them. Lyle, you may give them my e-mail address if they request it.

EV’s and windfarms could really help each other out!

Since a plug-in hybrid has to have all-electrical systems (including air conditioner), the plug-in hybrid “black car” could plug-in and turn the engine off while waiting. That would be a big savings over the zero MPG they get while idling now.

My friend, none of us know when we are checking out.
I’m 44, drive on one of the most insane highways in my state,
and have a wife and two kids. I could check out tomorrow.
Stay healthy. Someday we’ll meet.