Charging a Volt in this wicked heat?

[montgom626]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/southwe...7630379404900/

Your pics are great. And anyone who buys a black car in sun baked texas is "crazy". I love your posts, so don't stop!

[Sterling Silver]

Yes, you are correct about being crazy and buying a black car down here... I think the reason I did buy the black Volt, is when I sat in it at the dealership, it was the only Volt they had and was out in the lot in the sun... I sat there for 40 to 50 minutes, marveling at the magnificent technology, my brain suffered heat damage and thus I sprang into action and bought the "Black Rascal." Had it been a white Volt, I'd probably still be riding my burro back and forth to work... but I'm glad I sat in that black Volt and came to my senses...

[Sterling Silver]

I never even considered the Nissan... Too many reasons to go with the Volt, however I was not aware of the Nissan being air cooled in the charging mode... I knew the folks at GM needed to hit a proverbial "home run" out of the ball park when they designed the Volt, Now after owning one for several months, I'm beginning to thing the guys and gals in Michigan hit it not only out of the "ball park" but across the country... it's just brilliant.

[baragona]

I never even considered the Nissan... Too many reasons to go with the Volt, however I was not aware of the Nissan being air cooled in the charging mode... I knew the folks at GM needed to hit a proverbial "home run" out of the ball park when they designed the Volt, Now after owning one for several months, I'm beginning to thing the guys and gals in Michigan hit it not only out of the "ball park" but across the country... it's just brilliant.

I was aware that the Nissan air-cooled its batteries, and living in Phoenix, that was a key factor.

I already saw what the Phoenix heat did to the air-cooled batteries in my, Honda Civic Hybrid. Battery performance fell way off by the middle of the first summer and didn't come back in the fall. Meanwhile Prius liquid cooled batteries are doing just fine. That was enough to convince me...

[montgom626]

I'm beginning to thing the guys and gals in Michigan hit it not only out of the "ball park" but across the country... it's just brilliant.

Agreed, the Volt is exquisitely engineered.

[USe-car]

I have very good reason to believe that GM tested the Volt in Death Valley (I've seen all sorts of test cars go through Beatty, NV during their testing periods) and I wonder if there is an automatic cut-off or delay built into the Volt to stop charging if the environment the Volt is charging in, gets exceedingly hot?

Here in Texas, we hit 111 degrees the other day. I built a special metal carport at one of my properties just to park my 2012 Volt (so it is out of the elements) and where I keep an SPC Xpress 240 quick charger... but yesterday I shot a laser temperature reader at the bare soil, and the ground surface was 124 degrees! I shot the surface of my Volt the other day and it was so hot, I could have fried eggs on it... 148 degrees outside http://www.flickr.com/photos/southwestusa/7685980000/ but inside the carport, out of the sun, I'm probably getting around 120 degrees, but as it sits charging while I have to be away, the charging process has to add some residual heat to the components inside the Volt and the SPX Xpress charger...

I'm probably going to buy one of those cheap fabric canopies at Harbor Freight (through which air can flow) to lessen the heat-load on my Volt and the SPX charger... To lean towards the side of safety, is an ounce of prevention I suppose, until I hear from anyone else who may have done some research on this or who can point me in the right direction...

I wondered about the cooling myself. Yesterday, the ICE had been on for about 20 miles. I drove the Volt into a garage with an ambient temperature of 101 degrees. Closed the garage door, plugged in the charger (240V), and left it charging with the ICE heat, ambient heat, and charger heat all in a closed garage. At the end of the charge, it was fully charged, but only at 39 miles.

[saghost]

I have very good reason to believe that GM tested the Volt in Death Valley (I've seen all sorts of test cars go through Beatty, NV during their testing periods) and I wonder if there is an automatic cut-off or delay built into the Volt to stop charging if the environment the Volt is charging in, gets exceedingly hot?

To the best of my knowledge, there is not. However, just because the environment is hot doesn't mean the battery is. The battery is a well insulated hunk of metal, with its own liquid cooling system. If you try to charge it in extreme heat, I think it'll start to charge slowly - while it uses most of the wall power you give it to drag the cell temps down with the TMS. As it hits optimum temps, it'll use less power on conditioning and more will get in to the battery. I wouldn't worry about heat for the car itself.

The EVSE might be another matter, however. AFAIK, all of them are passively cooled, and some of them tend to run a little hot to begin with. I'm not sure, but I suspect most or all of them do have thermal overload trips - which would deny the car power until the cord cools off enough.