Aero-Volt Project
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Hi all. I am pretty new here but I wanted to make a thread to document my progress in making the Volt as aerodynamic as possible. I am really interested to see how far I can get my car to travel on one full battery. My car is a 2011 Volt so it has the smallest battery of the entire fleet of first generation Volts.
I have only seen a few threads dedicated to modifying the Volt so I figured I'd start one where I compile every modification I complete and provide adequate data from my trips. I already have a spreadsheet going on my google drive which I will link here. I update it every day! It is not A/B/A scientific however I think my method of collecting averages will end up being a decent enough way to tell statistical correlation between my mods and efficiency. BUT. I have never taken a stats class so correct me if I am wrong in trusting average data. I just feel it is probably the best way to control against the many variables of driving. Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing Current Modifications: 1. Lower air dam 2. Side skirts 3. wheel covers (these frequently get taken off and replaced... still need a better solution here) 4. Passenger mirror delete Future Modifications: (no particular order) 1. Cameras for mirrors 2. Underbelly pan (I will shorten my air dam after this is done) 3. Air redirection from the front wheel wells 4. Make windshield wipers more aero (they are very exposed) 5. 3D print a bracket to replace the currently taped over void that is my passenger mirror mount hole. I have definitely put way more money in to this project than I should have already however I really enjoy working on my car like all of you. I am hoping I can inspire other people with Volt's interested in eco-modding their cars and I hope to learn a lot from you folks. I feel I already have and I can't wait to learn more. Any questions? Feel free to ask and I will answer as best I can! My questions for you all... 1. For those with a mirror delete... how do you deal with law enforcement if you get pulled over? Do you get bothered by the cops? 2. What is the best way to make inexpensive wheel covers for alloy wheels? I've look all over and I cannot seem to find any thread that gives me any info relevant to my situation (being that my wheel covers are not flush with the wheel and I cannot figure out the best way to make them flush...) 3. What modification has made the biggest impact for YOUR car and what car do you drive? 4. How do people react when they see your car? Do you get comments from other people frequently? I always see people looking at my car in the parking lot at work and on the road. I actually kind of enjoy the stares but I have never had anyone comment... Lastly I have attached pictures of my car, Jerry! I'm glad I joined y'all as this is the most encouraging internet community I have ever joined so far. Thanks all. |
Looks good!
1. Check your state laws. Some require just a passenger mirror, others only require a single rearward facing mirror. As long as you're following what the law says, they can't ticket you. Rearward visibility can't be obstructed though, so you can't pull a trailer or tint your rear windows. I haven't gotten pulled over once yet despite probably dozens of police officers seeing my car. 2. On my Civic I used coroplast, attached with zip ties, painted flat black. 48"x96" sheet of Coroplast: $23. 4x15" diameter discs = $3.53 (cost by area; extra plastic was used for other projects) Can of rattle black paint: $1.99 Pack of 100 zip ties $8.99. 4x4 per wheel = 16 zip ties = $1.44 Total cost: $6.96, and I used the paint for many things after, so let's call it $6. 3) Driving style is number one, fuel economy instrumentation is number two, and tire pressure is number three. I drive a 2006 Honda Insight but this is true for pretty much any vehicle. 4) The Insight attracts some attention due to it being a unique and small car. The Civic I owned attracted more attention because it had many more visible modifications. What do you like best about your Volt? Cowmeat on here has owned a couple Volts, and it seems like the EV range can be extended quite far beyond stock through good hypermiling. How is the underbody on the Volt? IIRC from what others have said, the stock underbody is already quite smooth, so you may not see much of a benefit from an air dam, which is usually a quick-fix for cars with poor underbody aero. You may see more gains from finishing the underbody than from adding an air dam. |
It looks like the 2011 Volt has belly pans, but no engine undertray? Is that correct?
http://i.imgur.com/eFusb4M.jpg FWIW, the 2nd generation Volt had an engine undertray, a full airdam, and separate wheel strakes: https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-v...go-2019-05.jpg |
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It's cool to see another Volt on here, there aren't too many of us!
The G1 Volt is an amazing car and a careful driver can drive it many, many miles over the estimated 35 mile EV range. My G1 Volt showed 50 miles estimated EV range at one time with no mods and only using the on-board instrumentation. It wasn't as easy to hypermile as my 2018 Volt (since it didn't have hold mode or the cheat paddle for regen on the steering wheel) but it was an awesome car to drive It'll be interesting to see what you can accomplish with a couple of mods! Here's the link to my Volt thread - I tried to document some of the stuff I learned on the fly as I navigated the ins and outs of driving it, you may find some useful info there https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post524030 |
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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! |
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My Volt is quick off the line! There's a lot of instant torque in an EV that you have to spool up for in an ICE. And if I need to change lanes I don't have to wait for an opening in the cars behind me, I can make my own opening between the cars up ahead. Sometimes on Friday evening I throw it in sport mode and rip it up all the way home and get it out of my system. I hypermile it all week long, but I am still human! Charging for free at work is awesome! I haven't spent money on my commute since they start letting me charge here at work with my first Volt a couple of years ago. |
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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! :) |
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! |
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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. |
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That is amazing. I paid $2.05 in Louisiana yesterday. |
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. |
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 |
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Maybe 2 extra mile of range? |
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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. https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1616974288 |
The 2011 Volt had a partial belly pan
The 2013 no longer did Relatively low hanging fruit add a full belly pan Add rear skirts Set zero toe Beyond that is more complex |
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