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Elevation question

4K views 19 replies 14 participants last post by  Juanefny 
#1 ·
Hello
We just purchased a new 2012 Volt (We pick it up tomorrow). My daily commute is about 140 km round trip. I drop over 1000 feet on my way to work and have to climb that on the way home. I was wondering if it would be best to use Mountain mode on the way to work and save the Electric for the way home as I am unable to charge while at work.
 
#2 ·
Try it different ways and see what you get. Personally, I'd probably lean toward going all electric on the trip to work, which is likely in battery range given the elevation change. That way you'll only have to cold start once per day, during the trip back. You shouldn't need mountain mode on the way home for 1000 feet, unless they are in an unusually steep slope.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I betcha have a nice view being so high up.

I live in flat Chicago.

The best way to handle this is to test it out yourself. Keep a log of your gas and miles driven etc., and let us know what ended up being the best for you.

I used MM for the first time last week on an 8 mile trip and picked up approx 13 battery miles. My regret was I did not note the amount bof miles I had in gas when I started and finsihed so I do not know how much it cost me. I have not used MM again though.

Keep a log and report back to us.
 
#14 ·
Agree with Walter than driving to work without having the engine come on would be ideal. One cold start definitely beats two.

Bonaire's suggestion about plugging in at works would be even better, but you probably would still not get home without using gas.
 
#15 ·
I have a 47 mile commute each way (almost all highway) with a similar drop in elevation. I usually get to work with 7 to 10 miles left in the battery.... I have a 2013 so I think there is a bit more range to start, but you should get there on battery - if you don't drive too fast :)
 
#16 ·
Steve, first welcome to the forum :) You should check out 'My MM Games' link in my sig. I had a 145km RT commute where I climbed and then descended about 1800ft. I tested various methods including not using MM at all, turning MM on before the start of the climb and then off at the peak, and turning MM on after the climb at the peak and then off at the bottom.

The bottom line is that I found the ICE is much more efficient at climbing than EV mode. And since you get regen on the way down, EV mode benefits. So for that situation the most efficient technique was to turn MM on and climb with the ICE on, then switch back to EV thereafter. This made up to a 25% difference in EV range and MPG vs. the other methods.

For your case, if you're going downhill to work, then you should stay in EV mode all the way. In fact even if you turned on MM it wouldn't make any difference. MM will not engage until you drop below about 9km of range remaining. If you're going downhill starting out with a full charge and regening, you'll never get there. And on the way back home, you'll of course want to get as many remaining EV miles as possible so there's not point using MM then. In fact you might end up at work with nearly a full charge in which case you might be able to do most of the trip in EV.

BTW, you may want to go to http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ and post an elevation profile here of your commute. For example, here is the profile of the commute I described above:

 
#17 ·
Depending on how steep your initial descent, you might not need to start out with a full charge at the beginning of the trip because you may gain some charge from regen on the way down.

For your trip I'd try different techniques and see what works best, but I'd bet that you'll find the best way is to keep it in sport or normal the whole trip and let CS mode kick in for the final part of the uphill return trip. The ICE will be more efficient on the uphill side than on the downhill side.
 
#18 ·
How steep is the hill? Highway speeds? (75 mph and not a very steep downhill means you are still fighting the wind more than regen)

If the hill is not very steep you want to use MM only until you reach the higher elevation, you want to try to arrive home with a depleted battery... You'll have to try it and see if you can climb your hill with a depleted battery - MM may not be necessary at all for you, other than for playing with range/charge levels. If you are going uphill for 8 miles and only using 40kw to maintain 50 mph (and that's all you need) you probably don't need to use MM.

Lots of variables to figure out. Best way to figure it out is to drive it a few different ways and see which one uses the least gas. There are so many things you could do.
 
#19 ·
Thanks everyone for all the advice. I picked up the car today, unfortunately the dealer had less than 50% charge on the car when I got it.
Sounds like I will be going EV on the trip in. For the most part it is a gradual drop in elevation except for one hill that is about 2 km.
 
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