Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG
Why would a Volt be using gas in the city? Seems to me the vast majority would be using the ICE only on highway trips once the battery is discharged.
Or a driver could use "hold" mode to save EV charge until arriving at the city destination.
|
I drove roughly 389 miles today with the volt down to chicago, I averaged 45mpg on the gasoline side and had 45 miles of EV at the beginning and 7 miles (from sitting at Kwik trip an hour, eating and driving like a snail afterword), I went over the trip and there was NO POSSIBLE WAY to drive the distance I needed to go at low speeds all on EV.
Likewise I end up in the situation when I go to Appleton and come back that I might get the volt to my door right on the money or as was the case last week the gasser started at the bottom of the hill leading to my apartment .7 miles away. That .7 miles was at about 20mpg, (yes it was cold on a highway with too much traffic and uphill a terrible combination)
I do not have charging at work yet and am thinking of walking the one mile from kwik trip and leaving the volt parked there all day on those days so I can make it when I do that trip once or twice a month.
Also I drive 108 miles every friday, I have mapped my trip and alternate routes quite extensively and it seems that I am pretty much capped at 51 miles of ev range with an outlier slightly above and several in the lower 40's when I have to drive full blast highway.
After several trials I have found that although I can perfectly time my EV for
1. Beginning,
2. Middle
3. End using hold mode
and maximize EV range...
My actual fuel usage for the trip (not economy) is better if I just use the EV up start to finish at the beginning and then hypermile on the slowish backroads leading to my destination.
Odd trivia, with 41 miles of EV at the begging
I use 1.45 gallons of gas to go the rest of the way (not bad at all)
With 52 miles of EV and gas once on the highway I use roughly 1.6 gallons of fuel (not good at all) this is obviosly only over a handfull of trips so far but I do note that I have an elevation change at the beginning of the highway trip, contrary to popular belief EV must trump gasser usage up hills and flat ground must make up for hills on the gasser.
The volt seems to be VERY sensative to temperature, air pressure in tires (I have to overinflate to achieve EPA) and elevation changes, much more so than any other car I have owned.
This means that it makes optimizing the trip much more tedious and like driving the dodge ram crewcab very easy to get craptaskic fuel economy. (Yes I have gotten 35mpg driving all highway at 50-60mph)
Also if the volt was optimized to get DRASTICALLY better fuel economy around town like the Honda Insight, Chevy Cobalt or even the Prius it would be MUCH friendlier for people like me to hypermile on the 4 lane highways that have amish buggies and farm tractors for the situations where I have to drive too far for my range.
Also my EV % stays around 68% but I use all electric with a handfull of exceptions all weekdays but then on weekends exceed. (trips like the one I just took help nothing in this regard but I needed the cargo capacity the volt had to carry my cargo (wouldn't likely fit in the insight)
The brutal cold short trips during the week are well worth having electric and yes ERDTT on my volt with be disabled or at a minimum reduced once that situation starts to occur.
I need to actually keep the insight around to make the weekend runs but "others" are borrowing that while I put the volt through its paces.
I have been manually logging my EV/Gas miles since my smartphone hates the volt (work provided)
But honestly I rather keep my own documentation of the volt and coordinate it with the terrain and trip.
Cheers
Ryan