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Impact of not plug-in the volt

9K views 12 replies 8 participants last post by  chevy_volt00 
#1 ·
Hi All

Weird question

I'm interested by the volt and its potential to run on electricity alone, however in my current situation i do not have access to a plug to recharge the car everyday.

What will be the impact on the car if i run it two three months without plugin the car. We have cold winter -25c and hot summer 20c/30c.
 
#2 · (Edited)
The Volt will run just fine on gasoline. The battery will be kept at an acceptable state of charge by the generator. Cold weather does not negatively affect the life of the battery like hot weather does. So you should see no issues at all. 30C weather won't be very hard on the car. Constant long exposure at temperatures higher than 40C without plugging in and letting the car sit for long periods of time could degrade the battery slightly faster. But you won't really have that in Quebec.
 
#3 ·
The only impact will be to your pocketbook - the car will live happily on a steady diet of premium unleaded for as long as necessary - it just won't have the polished driving experience and low running costs it has as an EV.

Unless I was sure my situation would change and I could get a place to plug it in in the fairly near future (not necessarily at home - a lot of people charge at work,) I don't know that I'd invest in a Volt, though. Several other hybrids do almost as well on gas in the same price range, with similar or better noise and driving experience (Fusion Hybrid, Camry Hybrid, Civic Hybrid.) The Volt magic is certainly tied up with the ability to run it on pure electricity. :)
 
#5 · (Edited)
Ah I noticed you must not OWN a volt yet, unless I knew that I would have access to electricity at some point in the future, from an economic standpoint it isn't worthwhile, but I don't think I can really justify any new car economically so you would have to decide for yourself if a $40k car is worth it to you as it is (aka for other reasons). A prius for gas only use is probably more "user friendly" and economical but my statements below still stand.

The volt is a bit off when it comes to calculating its real MPG when it runs on gas due to the extra EV range that is sometimes made. (especially the mountain mode ev range that doesn't always go to MPG)

Your situation is AN EXCELLENT opportunity to see how many real MPG your volt can get.
And be sure to report your tank to tank at ecomodder.com, many there would be interested.
If I owned a volt (and wasn't just a wannabe that drove one once) I would probably run on just gasoline for about a month to get the hypermiling technique down, get the motor broke in and to report on ecomodder.com with some real data.

Not to mention you might be the only volt owner on this site that will actually get his gas motor "worn in" enough to know the real fuel economy the volt is capable of. Also remember that if the volt motor can actually achieve operating temperature its FE goes up a lot, many here probably never get the motor warm and can never see this side.

As an example my cobalt took nearly 6k miles for my fuel economy average to move from high 30's to high 40's mpg wise as the motor broke in.

I would also use this opportunity to test pulse and glide volt style. Since you have a mountain mode button, you might try to selectively use that button to force the motor to run at its most fuel efficient per HP area when you are accelerating or going up a hill then shut off (switch to CS) and use the EV range it generates at stop lights, in town or even on the highway on and off. (on up hill, off down hill etc) Just like a hypermiler, except the speed up and down would be fully optional (but maybe beneficial) because of the magic of the volt.

Ecomodder.com has a BSFC chart for your volts motor, if you can figure out how and when it runs in the ideal RPM/power range (or close to it) you might find your volt is capable of a real and honest 50-80mpg at certain speeds driving a certain way (but only after you check tank MPG the old fashioned way with the odometer/trip meter and fillup info)
Anyway does the volt log gallons on the display? Never noticed if it did, but if it did you could know I traveled X miles and hid says I used X gallons just for a test.

The prius can be driven to nearly 100mpg by keeping the motor at its peak power (at variable low speeds), I have no doubt your superior volt can be driven to new heights as well if you have the right speed roads and patience.

Good luck and enjoy your opportunity to prove the ideot talkhead "on My volt testdrive I got 25mpg from the gas motor over .2 miles in -40 below weather" folks wrong.

Here is a small amount of inspiration.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/some-real-volt-numbers-curious-19370-7.html
And he isn't even a full on hypermiler by any stretch. 48-50mpg driven relatively normally.

You could also educate other people on how to drive in the sweet spot of the volt drivetrain like Wayne Gerdes did on the prius, this not only would help people to know how to hypermile in the ev mode but also help them to know what to do in the gas mode when they need to use it to get the best FE.

As far as I know, no one has mapped out the volts MPG VRS speed using its various modes and no one has calculated the # of gallons of fuel the volt motor in mountain mode uses to charge up the battery a given # of KW's. Ideally your motor should put all its effort into the EV motor and not into charging but you could find a min/max MPG based on these type of numbers. Also remember in CS your motor typically is not running at its peak rpm/efficiency so the efficiency gain from MM on both the genset and motor may offset the charging loss penalty.

Remember every situation is a chance to learn, make sure you have fun with the situation you have been handed, the voltec drivetrain really is still in its infancy at least from a code perspective, I believe there is a lot of gains to be had on the gas side of this interesting drivetrain that no one has fully explored.

Not to get too involved but you can provide real and usefull data to the whole community if you do this right.

Are you up to the challenge?

Thank You
Ryan May
 
#6 ·
I left my charger at work and had to do 4 days with out plugging in. It SUCKS!!!!! I did get to play around with mountain mode and stuff like that I will have to say I want not happy with it. It seemed to use a ton more gas that way and the engine sounded like it wanted to take off. I'll be sticking to normal cs mode from now on
 
#10 ·
Mountain Mode should only be used to KEEP a charge in your battery, not to replenish it. Last fall, I drove the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive and I didn't use MM at all. I suppose there are some long steep inclines out west, but here in the east, I haven't used it at all.

Sometimes when traveling, I haven't been able to plug in. The Volt runs just fine on gas. Watch for over 40mpg.

Go Volt!

Volt 63
 
#7 ·
Thank you for those who have take time to answer.


I must say i was expecting some official GM spokesman to give me more details ( technical one)..

Like on along driving distance can the motor charge the batteries and stop?

If not plug for long period, will the motor start by itself to charge?

Here why it will be hard to plug the car for the next year

Road Motor vehicle Lane Mode of transport Vehicle
 
#8 ·
Thank you for those who have take time to answer.


I must say i was expecting some official GM spokesman to give me more details ( technical one)..

Like on along driving distance can the motor charge the batteries and stop?

If not plug for long period, will the motor start by itself to charge?

Here why it will be hard to plug the car for the next year

View attachment 5670
If you mean "will the ICE recharge the battery to full if driven over a long distance, or for a long period," then the answer is no. If you mean "does the ICE charge the battery a little when circumstances warrant and shut off in low load periods like sitting at a stop light, then yes, it does. Even with a "dead" battery, the Volt acts like a hybrid - fairly similar in behavior to the Toyota and Ford HSD families (Prius, Fusion Hybrid, Camry Hybrid.)

I'm not sure I understand the last question. Do you mean "will the engine come on to keep the car running if you leave it on and parked?" (Yes, it will.) Or do you mean "If I never plug the car in, will the engine come on while the car is turned off to recharge the battery?" (no, it won't.)
 
#9 · (Edited)
Unfortunately, residents on Montreal especially Plateau Mont-Royal, are in a harsh environment for plugin cars.
And curiously, they ARE the people who would be so well fit with a plugin!
The problem, as shown in the picture, is that there is a public space between the house and the car, prohibiting
passing an electrical extention to the car.

The solution to this is to have public charging stations installed on the side of the street, as are the bicycle stands.
as well as EV parking reserved spaces for those spots. That's a political matter, it will take time, but the Quebec
is pro-EV so this might come up as possible.

I live in the suburbs, I have my own garage with the charging station inside, so this is not at all the same situation
as in most of Montreal streets.

Francois
B2653
 
#11 ·
Thank you for the comments.

At this time i have a Volks golf diesel 2000 and i manage to get my 6l/100 km (around 40 mpg) and on average i drove 12 000km per year but this could change.

Got another question that pop to my mind this weekend

can anyone share a graph where we could see the fuel consumption based on the load of the ICE.


Has i understand, with the volt we should talk in hours of operation instead of KM. the RPM should be in % of load instead of rev/minutes... ( if one exist)
 
#12 ·
It sounds like what you want is a BMEP/BSFC chart. This is the standard industry tool for measuring fuel consumption with load and RPM - it has BMEP (brake mean effective pressure - proportional to torque output) on the vertical axis and engine RPM on the horizontal, with contour lines of specific fuel consumption (g/kWh or lbs/HP*h) through it.

One for the Volt was presented on Ecomodder a while back, but it popped up in a single post with no explanation for the source and some people believe their experience contradicts it. It showed up in this thread, a few post down:

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?3739-VOLT-MPG-estimate-using-BSFC-maps

For reference, your TDI is near the bottom of this page: (I had a 2003 TDI for several years myself)

http://ecomodder.com/wiki/index.php/Brake_Specific_Fuel_Consumption_(BSFC)_Maps
 
#13 ·
Thank's saghost

I will have to take a closer look at the data you point out and refresh my memory about all this.....

From what i can remember in school

We have a Speed/rpm/load where we get the longest run ( most km per fuel consumption) This can be decline in two flavor the OPTIMUM KM per fuel consumption or the MAXIMUM distance per fuel consumption.

we have a seed/rpm/load where we get the longest operational time ( most hour a motor can run but this does not mean we travel the maximum or optimal distance example for a plane it will be the longest time he can stay airborne)

Then we have the max power for a give Speed/RPM/load

So four values for the same motor and each of those value are important, in city i do not travel long distance, so if i can have the best combination to have the ICE run for the longest time. For long distance travel (like vacation) i might wan to get the optimum or maximum speed.


I'm interested by the optimum distance for a given speed/RPM/load. It might be where people say keep the green ball center, but for me that is not real facts data. i was looking at hard number.
 
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