63.9 Miles On One Charge

[honoreitiscom]

Started out at 5AM this morning. 62 degrees, full charge. Did not start the car while still plugged in to let it warm up.

photo (26).jpgphoto (27).jpg

Pretty much no cars at this hour on Memorial Day morning on the lonely stretch of road I was driving.

For the entire trip I slowly accelerated in D to 40MPH, dropped it into N to coast down to 25MPH, then back to D to slowly climb back to 40MPH etc.

No Mountain Mode, no additional charging. Tires at 51 PSI. No climate control, radio, or headlights. Windows up.

Ended at 59 degrees, 63.9 all-electric miles later.

photo (24).jpgphoto (25).jpg

Tried to make it a round trip and end up where I started in order to remove elevation from the equation, but I was a bit optimistic, so I turned around at what was more than half way and the battery ran out before I returned to my starting point. I did check my elevation with a GPS app, and the difference was negligible.

My ending time happened to be exactly 7:00, so the trip was exactly 2 hours, making my average speed 32 MPH.

Starting ODO was 6385.3, ending was 6449.5, the delta was 64.2 miles, made up of 63.9 electric miles and .3 gas miles as I pulled over to take the pictures.

You can see I increased my lifetime average during the trip from 64.9 to 65.6 MPG. (My lifetime is rather low (for a Volt) due to the long trips I take, but better than it would have been in my Prius). You will also note I did the trip with only 88 miles of gas in the tank to eliminate the weight of extra gas. Also removed everything from the car for the same reason.

I'm thinking I could do better with warmer temps. I'd also like to test if I do better or worse by simply setting the cruise control to 35 MPH in D.

Time to update my signature....