[ocnorb]

That's awesome WD!

I may be mistaken on grill shutters. We took the Volt up Big Cottonwood Canyon on Sunday. It's the canyon where Brighton and Solitude ski resorts are for those unfamiliar with the area. Our home is at 4250 ft asl and the route took us over 9700 foot asl Guardsman Pass.

I purposely put the car in Hold mode with about 19 miles left on battery gauge. This forces the generator to run. The car did the climb wonderfully. At one point I passed an Suv and found myself doing 75 mph up the canyon. The generator really revved up after this pass!! Very different feel from most cars because the motor speed is controlled by demand and is not coupled to the throttle. At the peak I jumped out to see if the grill shutters were open, but they had not moved.

After going over the peak I shifted to regeneration (L) and dropped down into Midway. The battery meter just kept climbing until it hit 60 miles!!! I must have actually been charging the top 20% of battery capacity that GM reserves.

Overall we did 138 miles over a very steep route and used about 1.7 gallons of fuel and 10kw of electricity.