Watts Up?!?

[Chevrolet Customer Svc]

@ Einar,

As mentioned in another post, the EV Range displayed in the vehicle is a prediction based on the recent driving conditions. It is normal for the displayed value to adjust while the vehicle is driven as this estimate is constantly being re-calculated. Adjustments are based on recent driving history for the vehicle. The displayed EV Range can vary from season to season, week to week, day to day and even drive to drive.

[saghost]

Glad you're enjoying your Volt!

Interesting. My guess would be it's an accounting issue. The voltage stays fairly flat through the middle of the SOC so you can't directly measure the actual SOC. You have to use energy accounting and guess. Since you didn't fully charge the car was guessing and its guesses weren't very good. As mentioned, the guess might be worse if the line voltage wasn't exactly what the car is expecting.

It's not that, Don. The Volt keeps a SoC internally that's measured down to the individual watt-hour, and I've never seen it take sudden jumps - it trickles up and down in response to driving and regen quite consistently.

As others have said, I think this is a simple case of driving much more efficiently (driving style, weather conditions, and terrain) than the car is used to. The Volt's estimate is heavily damped, but still just an estimate. If you went to the energy usage screen (assuming it's a 2012,) you'd see the number of kWh used increasing steadily through the drive - it's just that the car is now predicting you'll go further on the remaing portion of the battery.

[dwl]

One minor correction. It should be 'Watts Amp?!?' rather than 'Watts Up?!?'

[dax777]

Congrats on the Volt.

If you did not charge overnight, in 9hours, you might want to check that you are nto in 8amp mode. 8amp mode has only 2 leds green and 2 are dark. You have to push the orange button, while NOT plugged into the car, to switch to 12amp mode.


Temp, Terrain and Technique all impact range and the estimate is historical on them. If last thing you did yesterday was drive 85mph up some hills, with just a mile or two of flats into the garage, then today it expects a lot of the same. if today's then on the flats, its early estimates are pestimistic and it adapts as you drive. The estimate is always adapting.. you did not drive 13 miles on 2miles of EV.. you drive 13 miles on some amount of battery SOC, but the initial estimate was just off.

If I was agressive the day before and the very careful the next day, I can leave home with 45 miles of estimated range and arrive at work, 17 miles latter, with 47 miles of range! (My usual spring/summer days yield 48-52 miles of actual range, but work is down hill).

Thanks for the tip about having to change from 8amps to 12 amps while unplugged...I've been charging on 8amps because I thought that was all my system would allow..I unplugged my Volt and Voila, I was able to upgrade to 12 amps....thank you for the useful info...this forum is an excellent source of information...miles of EV smiles to ya...