On Wednesday November 10th, I had my first full day of living with the Chevrolet Volt. I would like to take you through it as if you were there.
First for those who asked, no I didn’t sleep in my Volt the night before, but when I awoke in the AM I was sure very excited and looking forward to going out to my garage and getting in it.
On my arrival there, I found the car had successfully fully charged while it was plugged in overnight. The display showed charging time was complete at 11:15 PM; I had plugged it in to the 240-v charger in the fully depleted state at 5:15PM.
The night before I was unsuccessful at activating my OnStar/MyVolt.com/iPhone app system. I spent some time talking to an OnStar operator, and we were able to determine the car’s OnStar ID number, and the VIN number was on the car, but there were apparently several captured test fleet Volts attached to that ID, and the operator wasn’t sure how to connect to mine. As of this writing my GM liaison is still “working on it.”
When I booted up the car, that’s really what it is like turning it on though quicker, the battery showed I had 36 miles of EV range. That was determined based on previous driving behavior in a miles per kwh estimation. The car at that point had 133 mpg lifetime efficiency which was based on the more than 1200 engineering validation miles GM had put on it prior to my delivery.
The first leg of my journey was from my home to the first hospital I work at. The actual distance was 22.8 miles, and when I arrived, the car showed 15 miles of EV range were left. That drive took place mostly on the highway at 70 + MPH. Outside temperature was 49 degrees, and I kept the cabin at 72 degrees using ECO mode. Comfort mode setting indicated it would drain twice as much power if I had chosen it.
The car was a charm on the highway. It was more than fast enough to deal with all types of merges, entrances, and passes, and handled very sprightly. I looked to see if anyone stared or noticed the car, and interestingly I didn’t see one person do so.
The second leg of my journey was from my first hospital to my second hospital. Upon arriving there I had traveled a total of 32 miles, and the display showed 6 EV miles remained. I spent most of the morning rounding at that hospital, and had no place to charge the car. After that I drove to my office and plugged in at 120-v via the portable charger at 12:15 PM. At that point I had travelled 34.4 miles and the display showed there were 3 EV miles left.
I left the office at 5:15 PM, and over the five hours of 120-v charging the car had accumulated 21 miles of EV range.
The ride back home was pure highway and in the high 60 MPH range. The engine turned on 18.4 miles later.
At that point, I spent some time analyzing the sound of the engine on the highway and the roads. It could be heard and felt but wasn’t at all unpleasant, it was muted and subtle. In fact I really had to strain and focus to analyze it.
One could feel the RPMs matching the accelerator for the most part although with a slight delay. The engine became most noticeable (highest revving) above around 67-70 MPH. I didn’t push it beyond that level on this drive. The engine turned off gently, and without a shudder whenever coming to a stop, and stayed off below 30 MPH. It could be heard revving back on at 30 MPH.
Thus mostly its behaviour was predictable which is what once would expect, and felt cognitively comfortable.
I arrived back home having traversed a total of 63.5 miles and having achieved an effective 200.7 MPG for the day. Back calculating revealed that I had achieved 33.8 mpg in the 10.7 miles spent in charge sustaining mode.
If I had spent the whole day at the office which I often do, I would have had enough time to charge such that I wouldn’t have used any gas. If I had a 240-v charger at work, the same would have also been true.
I found only minor issues. The front end ground clearance is very low. This is needed for aerodynamic efficiency. Going down a steep decline, such as my driveway, however, even at a crawl still led to scraping on the road.
Also when pulling into a parking spot up to a wall, when letting off the brakes and gently re-applying them to creep to the wall, I found they had to be hit harder than I anticipated, making me slam them a bit for fear of hitting the wall.
I think these two idiosyncrasies are just minor variants I will just need to get used to in that they are different than the last car I was driving.
Overall, as you might imagine it was a spectacular experience. I very easily connected my cell phone to the in-car bluetooth system which worked flawlessly. It also automatically pulled my contact list off my iPhone and into the dash which was a terrific surprise.
The car apparently has a significant vocabulary of voice commands I haven tapped into yet. I also haven’t programmed the garage door opener, the radio, or interacted with the on on-board hard drive.
Much more to do and see…
Also my fellow Volt CAB member Eric Rotbard who is also in New York has published his first 24 hour impression with the car in the GM-Volt CAB Forum. Check it out!
And a reminder to anyone who is interested, we are having a Volt meetup with myself and the other three NY CAB members, and our Volts, at Tom M’s restaurant in northern NJ (Nauna’s Bella Casa at 148 Valley Road Montclair, NJ 07042) on 11/13 a from 11am to 2 pm. Register below.
Enter your information below to register for the Volt Meetup.
