How much battery drain from sitting?

[Mike K]

Hey everyone,

What would the drain on the battery be if the volt sat overnight without being plugged in? As in, estimated EV milage lost?

Thanks!

[saghost]

How warm/cold is it where the Volt is sitting? What are the climate controls set to?

The Volt "idles" somewhere in the 400 watt range without HVAC - 12 hours at 400 Watts would be 4800Wh - 4.8 kWh, about half the battery (19 miles on a 40 mile estimate, proportional for other estimates - though if it's been sitting that long, it might contract the estimate based on the current 0 mile performance, I'm not sure.)

HVAC *can* draw up to 6.5 kW more - which would drain the battery in less than 90 minutes, if it were sustained. I don't think it can be either hot or cold enough to sustain that for the whole night. I wouldn't be surprised if the car could average over a kW log term for HVAC, though - which would drain the battery overnight.

[edit: Oops. Neromanceres correctly points out I might have been misreading the question. If the car was turned off, there should be no measurable drain on the battery even if unplugged, unless it's in an environment that's over 90F (in which case the TMS might cycle a couple times - parked for 9 hours in the bright sun on triple digit days, I see 2-400Wh (1-2 miles) used by the TMS to keep the insulated battery within range.]

[Neromanceres]

Are you leaving the car on or off.

saghost's post above is great information if you leave the car on.

If the car is off the power usage is very low. Except in extreme temperatures the battery TMS will run?

[MrEnergyCzar]

You might gain EV range after parking for awhile... If I park somewhere for several hours and then go drive again, I'll have a few more miles range due to the battery chemistry doing something I can't explain...

MrEnergyCzar

[saghost]

You might gain EV range after parking for awhile... If I park somewhere for several hours and then go drive again, I'll have a few more miles range due to the battery chemistry doing something I can't explain...

MrEnergyCzar

I've noticed that once or twice. My best guess is that the cells are passively rebalancing in the background, and so the weakest triplets that set the lower limit now have more power in them? It's entirely a guess at this point.

[Enrique]

I let mine sit unplugged at about 50% charge in an airport parking lot outdoors at a range of between 75-100F for a week. No loss of EV range after I got back in.

[analog_pal]

Mine sat fully charged and unplugged in the driveway for a whole week when i was away on vacation, temps were 90-93 with humidity, occasional shade and I used a sunshade across the windshield. According to myvolt.com, it took 6 mins on 120V and 0.17 kWh to fully charge when I got back and plugged in again, I have no idea what that translates into on miles per charge, but I am constantly amazed more and more with the Volt.

[Fulgerite]

My Volt has sat in my garage for 10 days while I was away. It did not seem to loose ANY range whatsoever. Don't worry about it.

I have read other threads on this forum where a GM engineer said you can leave the car parked for MONTHS without a significant loss of power.