Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard
Yes, virtually all Volt drivers are charging the battery daily, and so the ~8+ gallons of gas in the tank last for over 1,000 miles on average.
Of course the electricity costs something, and of course it should be counted in the overall MPGe. The EPA says the Combined mileage is 93MPGe, so I'm sure that by using a Volt with a large majority of the time in EV mode, that this will easily raise the overall efficiency.
What is the useable capacity on the Volt battery pack? Is it ~12kWh? If it drives 40 miles on that, and if you use the EPA's equivalency of 33.7kWh/gallon, then the Volt gets 112MPGe in EV mode. If you drive it 50 miles then it gets 140MPGe, and if you are a leadfoot or it is *really* cold and you only manage 30 miles, that equals 84MPGe.
If you drive 40 miles a day for 18 days, and then drive 350 mile on 1 day, you would use ~228kWh = 6.77 gallons + 8.5 gallons used for 310 miles (~36.5MPG in charging mode) that totals 15.27 gallons equivalent used to travel 1,070 miles = ~70MPGe overall.
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Well explained Neil!
Though I'm still just concerned about my petroleum consumption as most of my electricity in Ontario comes from Hydroelectric plants and a smidge of Nuclear. So still all I'm paying attention to is my overall mpg. In the future I'm sure I will pay attention to the mpge figure more as we all become more energy aware!
PS. just as a side thought, the MPGe might give you and efficiency reading but it doesn't really help you if you are trying to figure how much a car will cost to operate.... at least not like how mpg works. For that I would rather have a miles per kilowatt figure if I were buying a BEV, to be able to more easily compare cost and efficiency between different models. I still don't like MPGe.