Aero-Volt Project

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by conor_v

I'm glad to hear that the mirror delete was not much of an issue for you regarding law enforcement. I have knowledge on the law and I know it is perfectly legal in the states in which I drive. However, just because the law is on your side does not mean that the cops will not be a pain in your butt. You always here stories of that one cop...

Maybe the zip ties will work better for me? I'm not sure though. Did you see the gap between the cover and my wheel? I tried velcroing the edges however it did not help. The wheel covers only gave me positive fuel economy when they were taped down to the wheel... which did not last very long in the sun and the heat nor at highway speeds (55 mph)... I might just give up on them for now and figure out a better solution this weekend when I have time.

I think my favorite thing about my Volt is the torque it has off the line. Sometimes when I'm not trying to save electrons I really just enjoy being the fastest car when the light turns green. It's the little bit of adrenaline I get on these spurts of action that keep me sane haha. Also not having to pay for electricity is super nice as my work pays for my charging. My commute is free!

If they bother you, take them to court, get the ticket revoked and their job taken away for harassment and ignorance of the law.

Zip ties made the gap almost non existent, but the design of my Civic's OEM wheels made it hard to have zero gap. I tried taping the sides like you did, but it didn't last at all. The Civic HX rims I replaced them with had a lip on the edge so the covers were completely flush.

"My commute is free!" <-- lucky!

[conor_v]

Wow it's been a while since I have been on here. Life got a bit crazy with returning to school but I found some time to update this thread.

After looking at all of the data I gathered from driving with and without aeromods I came to the conclusion that they just are not worth it. Aerodynamics are an important part of efficiency of a car however I was able to find far better results just by slowing down on the highway. I drive 55 mph instead of the typical 75 that most people drive and I am getting great results. Velocity in the drag equation is a squared factor, when compared to Cd and Area, which has a much greater impact on the drag.

The mods have cost me upward $80 in material alone and I don't see me recouping that cost in gas and electricity savings. I had a lot of fun during the process of experimenting and testing the mods and gained some good insight.

With the weather now pretty cold where I am, the impact of the mods compared to the impact of the weather is insignificant. The mods were also becoming a pain to keep in good condition. The miles put a lot of wear on the coroplast parts I used and it was getting tedious to keep up with the repairs.

Here's a link to all of my recorded data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

I'm not calling this goodbye forever but it will be goodbye for now. I hope even just one person got something out of this thread. Thanks for all the support everyone!

[Tahoe_Hybrid]

Originally Posted by conor_v

Wow it's been a while since I have been on here. Life got a bit crazy with returning to school but I found some time to update this thread.

After looking at all of the data I gathered from driving with and without aeromods I came to the conclusion that they just are not worth it. Aerodynamics are an important part of efficiency of a car however I was able to find far better results just by slowing down on the highway. I drive 55 mph instead of the typical 75 that most people drive and I am getting great results. Velocity in the drag equation is a squared factor, when compared to Cd and Area, which has a much greater impact on the drag.

The mods have cost me upward $80 in material alone and I don't see me recouping that cost in gas and electricity savings. I had a lot of fun during the process of experimenting and testing the mods and gained some good insight.

With the weather now pretty cold where I am, the impact of the mods compared to the impact of the weather is insignificant. The mods were also becoming a pain to keep in good condition. The miles put a lot of wear on the coroplast parts I used and it was getting tedious to keep up with the repairs.

Here's a link to all of my recorded data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

I'm not calling this goodbye forever but it will be goodbye for now. I hope even just one person got something out of this thread. Thanks for all the support everyone!

even if I get a few more MPG it's still worth it the cost goes down fast per mile gained gas is still 4$ a gallon locally and if this"war" happens it will top 5$ a gallon maybe even 6$ a gallon... the only butter zone is 40 to 45 mph which is not do able on the freeway at that point i can get about 30 to 33mpg in this v8 engine

[cowmeat]

I want to be able to hit 50 miles like you did however I think it was more impressive to see the consistently high mileage from a majority of your trips. I am looking to see if I can regularly get over 38-40 miles on my battery. I don't think 50 is feasible due to my pack size though :/.

I think my 2012 Volt had the same battery as your 2011 does. It's not easy to get to 50 miles estimated EV range in a G1 Volt, but it's definitely do-able.
I have the advantage of daily driving a nearly perfect route for hypermiling a Volt, so my numbers are consistently pretty good, but I did have to change the route 4 or 5 times until I hit the perfect mix of distance/mph/traffic patterns/lights & stop signs/elevation changes for that to happen.

[MeteorGray]

Originally Posted by Tahoe_Hybrid

even if I get a few more MPG it's still worth it the cost goes down fast per mile gained gas is still 4$ a gallon locally and if this"war" happens it will top 5$ a gallon maybe even 6$ a gallon... the only butter zone is 40 to 45 mph which is not do able on the freeway at that point i can get about 30 to 33mpg in this v8 engine

So gas is $4.00 a gallon in California.

That is amazing. I paid $2.05 in Louisiana yesterday.

[Xist]

Gas is $3 in Phoenix, but I filled up for $2.359 last week here in Show Low. It was Circle K and the 87 octane price kept going between the cash price and Easy Pay, so I tried to sign up for it, but I guess that you need to get a card.

You save 30¢ on your first hundred gallons and then 6¢.

In unrelated news, a lady is suing 50¢ for being friends with her son.

[Cd]

I took a screengrab of the data sheet.
I will try and make some sense of it - but if I can't, can you please give a breakdown of the increases you saw with each aeromod ?

And since I assume the aero horsepower sheet in the Tools section of the forum is for ICE cars, how can we see a spreadsheet for EVs ?

There are a lot of variables, but just as a rough guess, how much of a range increase would you see if you dropped the cD from .28 to .18 on a Volt that has a stock 30 miles of EV range ?
The Volts' frontal area is 23.7

The only aero dirty place I see on the Volt is the underside.
It looks like they hit all the right areas - grille block, extremely flush wheel to fender trasitions, and rear quarter trip strips.
- Yet the car has a poor .281 cD
There is not much else a person could do to improve the car besides the bellypan, and airdam delete, so it seems like a very hard car to modify drag on.

A 10 count reduction in drag is close to impossible, but I'm just curious.

Also, @ conor v : did you ever get around to taking off the front spoiler and adding a bellypan ?

The only thing I can think of that might help besides that is a boattail.

At best, ( an educated guess ) what might that do for the range ?

- Thanks

[cowmeat]

At best, ( an educated guess ) what might that do for the range ?

- Thanks

I'd say that falls under the category of "it was a ton of work and I jacked up my awesome car to put it on there and it fell off in traffic on the second time out, but man it was sweet for a minute" category.

Maybe 2 extra mile of range?

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by Cd

I took a screengrab of the data sheet.
I will try and make some sense of it - but if I can't, can you please give a breakdown of the increases you saw with each aeromod ?

And since I assume the aero horsepower sheet in the Tools section of the forum is for ICE cars, how can we see a spreadsheet for EVs ?

There are a lot of variables, but just as a rough guess, how much of a range increase would you see if you dropped the cD from .28 to .18 on a Volt that has a stock 30 miles of EV range ?
The Volts' frontal area is 23.7

The only aero dirty place I see on the Volt is the underside.
It looks like they hit all the right areas - grille block, extremely flush wheel to fender trasitions, and rear quarter trip strips.
- Yet the car has a poor .281 cD
There is not much else a person could do to improve the car besides the bellypan, and airdam delete, so it seems like a very hard car to modify drag on.

A 10 count reduction in drag is close to impossible, but I'm just curious.

Also, @ conor v : did you ever get around to taking off the front spoiler and adding a bellypan ?

The only thing I can think of that might help besides that is a boattail.

At best, ( an educated guess ) what might that do for the range ?

- Thanks

Careful of jumping to conclusions; there is an SAE paper on the aerodynamic development of the Volt, available here (paywall).

[Cd]

Originally Posted by Vman455

Careful of jumping to conclusions; there is an SAE paper on the aerodynamic development of the Volt, available here (paywall).

I'm not sure what you mean.
Does the paper show that the car has areas that can be improved upon by you and I, or are you saying that I am under the arrogant conclusion that I could fix something in mere hours that took a team of experts hundreds of hours to arrive at ?

I'm a "right brain" artist type that does better with visual images than math graphs.
Have you looked at the paper ?
Some papers just explain how they went about overcoming challenges, but there isn't a lot of helpful information.

I found this useful CFD image of the car.
I'm not sure if it is from the paper or not.
It looks as though air curtains would do well on the car.