The Green Leaf Ball is Nearly Useless

[Marc Lee]

I like the concept of the leafball as a visual reminder to be efficient, but it seems to do nothing more than monitor aggressive acceleration and braking.

For example. At 60 mph or so a tractor trailer passed and I decided to draft to see what the green leaf ball would. It didn't budge. I can tell you from driving an EV with an ampmeter on board that doing so saves 100 to 150 amps...which is a very big deal. Not saying you should do this...but it just demonstrates that the leaf ball doesn't really correlate to actual energy usage in many ways.

Want to know whether rolling down the windows or running the AC would be more efficient...no way to know with current system

The volt obviously knows exactly how much energy it is using, why not make that info available to the driver so he can decide which actions and conveniences are worth the energy expended? This is something that could be implemented immediately with a software update.

[SharkVolt]

I agree that there are external influences that can affect mileage quite a bit. With the instantaneous mileage readout on my Dodge Caravan, while towing a trailer at 65 mph, my mileage would read around 14 or 15 mpg, but when when driving even 200 feet behind a big rig, the mileage would go up to around 18 or 19, just because less fuel was being burned, amazing difference.

I would have thought the setup in the Volt was keeping track of fuel consumption and factoring it in to the "efficiency" ball. Does anybody have info on whether this is the case?

Jerry, #536

[SharkVolt]

As a side note, I noticed today for the first time, that the green ball will rise above center a little and stay there when I get over 60-65 mph. I guess that we would have to stay at or below 55 mph to get maximum mileage range then, right?

Jerry, #536

[Rusty]

As a side note, I noticed today for the first time, that the green ball will rise above center a little and stay there when I get over 60-65 mph.

And it continues to raise above the center the faster you go. It goes fairly far up at a constant 82 (speed limit in west Texas is 80).

Yes, it's fairly useless. Yes, an indication of instantanious energy use would be a tremendous boon. Driving in CD mode behind a semi at 70 MPH flat I saw 56 MPG over a few miles. The little green ball? Read exactly like I was going 70 without the benifit of the draft (which means 36ish MPG).

Really? 56 MPG == 36 MPG as far as the ball's concerned? What use is that??!?

[Xzlon]

I would much prefer the green ball be replaced with a -100-0-100 digital readout or even a thermometer type readout with more resolution. The ball just does not have enough resolution to make it usefull at all. I find the gas pump as interesting.

[ctdeng0]

I agree that I would like to see better information BUT this display was designed for the average driver. It works well to show what effect the driver actions have on mileage. If GM is going to succeed with this car they have to target the typical driver and it cannot be to complicated.

[MTN Ranger]

Does the Leaf or Tesla have a this same issue? From an engineering standpoint, incorporating the external factors would be more complicated, but not impossible. I would guess it will have to be a Volt 2 (or 3) feature.

[Marc Lee]

I agree that I would like to see better information BUT this display was designed for the average driver. It works well to show what effect the driver actions have on mileage. If GM is going to succeed with this car they have to target the typical driver and it cannot be to complicated.

Yup...I'm not saying replace the green leaf ball with this info. The leaf ball is nice, intuitive visual reminder to drive efficiently, and it does that well. But certainly showing that actual energy usage on say the "energy usage" display screen (accessed by pressing the leaf) could help drivers to use battery power even more efficiently

[Cybereye]

It seem the green ball is measure in force. It had nothing to do with how much electric power it used.

[scottf200]

I agree that I would like to see better information BUT this display was designed for the average driver. It works well to show what effect the driver actions have on mileage. If GM is going to succeed with this car they have to target the typical driver and it cannot be to complicated.

You are right on the money here. Most of this for[um] is highly slanted [geek/knowledgeable]. The point of the car is to make an EV seem like a normal car.

Also do you want people staring at the dash instead of the road?!?

That being said it could be useful to put a number (relative or actual) inside of the ball for some specific/limited testing (ie. windows down, comfort vs eco setting, fan on low vs high, etc).