Total Recovered Energy display

[Ron C]

My 16yo daughter (who I forced to take Auto Shop I because she's blonde and now she's enrolled for Auto Shop II because she really liked it) asked me how much energy was recovered through regen. I couldn't answer because I have no way of knowing given the current displays. The display shows energy going into the battery (in that energy flow animation) but it doesn't show how much. Further, the amount of energy used display does go down when you're regenerating energy, but nothing accumulates that over time.

I think it would be interesting to see the "total recovered energy (in KWh)" since the last full charge on that screen.
Maybe I'm making this up, but I seem to recall about 10% recovered energy during a trip is expected.

An example: I travel 40 miles on a full charge. We know that at the end of that, a total net of 10.2 KWh of energy has been used. However, during that 40 miles of travel some amount of energy has been recovered by regenerative braking. How much is that? Well, let's presume it's that 30% number, so a total of 10.2/.9 = 11.4 KWh was consumed, of which 11.4*.1 = 1.1 KWh was recovered energy. In this example, that number would go up by about 0.1 every 3.6 mils, on average, which seems interesting enough to be shown.

[frankydude]

The Ford Focus Electric displays how many milles were done because of regen. It does not directly give the energy quantity regenerated,
but will give the additionnal distance done, using the energy budget the cars calculates.
Furthermore, the car give a numeric score on how good the driver was to proceed with the regen when pushing the brake.
(The L driving mode is a lot less agressive than in the Volt. You really need to pay attention that you are in L or in D, the difference is
very subtle between the two.)

I agree such informations would be very nice to help educate the driver, so that he can optimise it's driving habits.

Francois
B2653

[Brian Loves Cars]

This is a fantastic idea and is would definitely add to the driving experience. I vote yea

[techtom]

Below is a sample measurement I have taken with the DashDaq. In this commute I recovered 1.45 from 11.4 kW. (12.7%)



Of course it depends on my commute on the amount of regen I get. One way is more down hill, so it's more around 20%.



Below is an example recording of flooring it up to 30 MPH and then slowing down with 4 different scenarios.

[pathfindertim]

My first post as a new Volt owner. In reading your thoughts on recovered energy I offer the following idea. I drove to work this morning on a full charge and when I arrived I had 8 miles of electric remaining. So I used 32 miles of power. From a true mileage standpoint I drove 36 miles. Perhaps do these 4 miles represent recovered energy at the rate of 40 miles per 10.2 KWH or about 1.0 KWH?

[techtom]

My first post as a new Volt owner. In reading your thoughts on recovered energy I offer the following idea. I drove to work this morning on a full charge and when I arrived I had 8 miles of electric remaining. So I used 32 miles of power. From a true mileage standpoint I drove 36 miles. Perhaps do these 4 miles represent recovered energy at the rate of 40 miles per 10.2 KWH or about 1.0 KWH?

Perhaps. That is if you're estimated miles doesn't change very much from day to day.