Cowmeat learns to drive the Volt
 

Well, here it is!

I replaced my awesome little Insight Ron Burgundy this weekend with a 2012 Chevy Volt. I felt a little bad leaving the Insight at the dealership, knowing it was headed straight to auction, kinda like if I left an ugly pet at the pound I would know how that was going to end. I had a great time modding and driving the Insight, but it was time to let it go since I needed a 4 door.

I had researched several types of EVs and PHEVs, and the Volt seemed like the best possible replacement since I needed more range than a Leaf could give me, and well, it isn't a Prius.

I'm already loving the Volt, and as I learn the tips and tricks to getting the most out of it I'll post my findings here in case anybody else takes the leap.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1475529985

Subscribed. Also, I'll be keeping an eye on auctions for your old Insight.

Yeah, sorry man! I was gonna see if you wanted it, but this deal came up so suddenly I didn't have time to get with you first :( I didn't expect to find a Volt that fast

Once Ron Burgundy heads to auction, somebody needs to jump on it! The car is in excellent shape other than the failing IMA battery, so somebody is going to come away with a great deal

Drop a working IMA battery in it and it'll be set for years

If the price is right, I might buy it for an EV conversion, and keep the lower mile engine to drop in my current Insight one day.

Woo Hoo!

Made my first trip in EV-only last night. I had charged it enough in the morning using "mountain" mode to have 18 miles showing on the battery, and I made the 21 mile trip with a couple of miles to spare!

I finally charged it with the cord for the first time last night, but I forgot to plug it in until late so it only showed a 30 mile range this morning. But on the way to work on the 21 mile trip I only used 12 miles of the range, so I'm sure I'll make it home tonight in EV mode.

Last night's victory pic

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1475664257

I'm curious to see how far you can stretch EV range. One of these days I'm going to EV-convert my Insight, but I dunno how much battery I'll need. If I can get 150-200 miles out of a Leaf battery, it'd be enough.

Maybe I missed something, but why aren't you plugging in right when you get home???

Electric companies charge different rates at different hours of the day so I'm charging my car at night, when the grid sees the lowest usage and they charge less per kwh

During the day at peak usage the electric is a lot more per kwh.

Also, I read somewhere that finishing the charge just as you're getting ready to use the car will keep the big battery at a proper operating temperature

Below is the rate chart at Lakeland Electric, the rates vary A LOT!. So charging the car, running the dryer, etc . . . are way cheaper late at night

Once I add in the fuel use surcharges, etc . . . a kWh costs 7 cents, so an electric equivalent to a gallon of gas ends up being $2.36

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1475684294

I use this power strip:

https://www.amazon.com/Quirky-PPVG-WH01-Pivot-Power-Genius/dp/B00GN92MC6

I'm uncertain if you can use it without a Wink or other home automation hub (you might be able to configure it with just an app) but you can set on and off timers for two of the outlets. Plug the car in when you get home, have it flip on at 9PM (or whenever) and flip back off at 8AM (or whenever) in case you don't leave that day.

Wow, those are your rates?

Your mid-tier is slightly cheaper than my rate here, and the off-peak is about 1/4 of the cheap rate I pay. It's practically free to use electricity off-peak in your area.

You might consider the Edimax smart plug to set charging schedules and track energy and cost usage. It goes on sale for $15-$20 from time to time.

There are plenty of options for remote switches. Here is one that just uses a wireless controller (no phone).

https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Wire...+outlet+switch

Those other ones are very cool too.

You better pump up that front left tire. ;)
Isn't there a way to schedule the charging time so it'll wait till your lower rates kick in? Or am I thinking of another EV?

Prius' replacement will probably be a Volt. I'm just worried how my wife will react when we finally get one and she learns she was missing out on preheating/cooling.

Edit: Any chance we could get some instant MPG values at different speeds (just gas, of course)? I haven't seen a chart showing this for the Volt.

I know, right?

Yeah that tire pressure monitoring system with the live feed is pretty cool. The tires change pressure throughout the drive, it's hard not to watch it. There is so much instrumentation on this thing I'll be learning stuff next year!

Thanks for all the links to the timers, people. I'll definitely be using some kind of timer in the near future.

Cowmeat. The volt has a charge scheduler built into the car. You can tell the car when to start charging. It was built into the car for the exact reason of charging at cheaper rates. I'm not sure how exactly to do it, but Google is your friend.

Yup, thanks Balto. Found it last night: On the charging screen, there was a tab called "charging options" which lets you set a charge schedule! You can set it by time of departure, cheapest rates, etc . . . pretty cool the way they have it thought out

Made it home last night in EV mode with 6 miles (of the 30 miles of charge I started with) to spare. Meaning I used 24 miles of charge but actually drove 38 miles. Today I'll reset the trip odometer and see exactly how many miles my current route is, but I used to take this route in Black Widow back in my P&G days, so I think it's the shortest route with the least elevation changes and the least stops.

Fully charged the Volt last night, which gave me 35 miles of EV range. I took the shortest possible route to my work (exactly 19 miles), and it says I still have 23 miles of range left!

The car definitely beats the EPA numbers pretty easily!

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1475749549

Any chance you can let me know what the deal was?

And good luck with your volt, it beats the insight in cost if you have less than 50 miles per charge to drive.


I lost my scanguage:( but I can say when I looked the volt would be getting like 30mpg engine on at 45mph but then after a period of time shut off for like 5 minutes and mileage would go to mid fifties then repeat.

Number 1 thing I have wanted to do on the gas side was tune it for gas mileage.
Chevy tuned for emissions only so startup is terribly inefficient the colder you get.

Cow meat I could train you, I am #2 on fuel economy and electric range, trouble is the volt runs best around 85 degrees so you can guess the pain in winter.

First mod is get an ambient temp resistor from somms.

Good Luck
Ryan

I ended up getting it for 12 grand. They originally had it for like 17K but it sat on the lot for 5 weeks so they dropped the price a bunch to move some inventory. There are probably cheaper Volts out there, but not in this shape or with the options this one has.

Well, there's one issue I won't be dealing with! Winter here in central Florida lasts about a week

What is an ambient temp resistor?

You made me look up prices of second hand Volts!

I can charge at home but it is free to do so at work (!) and the range would about suit me: 72 km round trip, should be all-electric if I drive it like I drive my Insight.

So... Subscribed!

12k is pretty typical for a low mile car with premium trim.

Check out GM-volt you just need to look up somms
The sensor tells the car the outside temp which is displayed on the center console.

Below 25 degrees and the motor idles to make heat every few minutes.

Also if you drive lots of 1000 + mile trips like me you will wish you had a 13 volt but in another way your car still has the full underbody aero panels :(
Lucky

Does that price include the transmission costs, as well? My generation charges are about 10¢ / kWh and the transmission cost is about the same, so the total is in the 19-21¢ / kWh range.

Link for the lazy: ERDTT Modification Options
What would be the best year to shoot for? Looks like 2013+ from this list:
Are there any other differences that we would care about?

2011 are the best built
2011/2012 have a full belly pan (better undocumented highway )
2011/2012 have thickest most comfortable seats (some care)
Late 2012 onward have 16.5 kW battery (more range)
2013+ have a lower Erdtt setting and a very important hold mode (game the system if you drive further than electrically possible often)
2013+ also has a very important scanguage like energy meter)

For me heated seats and hold mode were necessities along with the Erdtt mod.

I can choose to use gas on the highway for longer trips see above attachment.

Getting ready to see how the Volt handles in a hurricane. The outer bands are already hitting the area, so I'm gonna time it so I drive home in between bands. Hey, at least I'll have a tail wind!

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1475781705

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1475781705

I bet your energy cost is <1c per mile now. Wow!

That's a pretty sweet electrical rate, esp. off-peak. Mine is about $.096 per hour, 24/7 - AND I'm about two miles as the crow flies from the nearest hydro dam! Insult on top of injury.

YKYAEI you look at a hurricane as an opportunity for some awesome tailwinds.

Well, the hurricane blew about as hard as a box fan in central Florida, so I ended up working outside around the house Friday since the office was closed. My daughter did send me a pic of a tree that blew over at her house though!

I haven't used a drop of gas since I started charging the Volt at night. My commute is exactly 38 miles, and I have made that drive with more miles showing left in reserve every day this week.

This morning I started out the drive with the gauge showing a 37 mile range. After driving the 19 miles to work, it still shows 27 miles of range. I'm getting used to feathering the gas pedal like I did in the Insight, using just enough power to maintain speed. I'd love to see if I could make it to work, back home and to work again but that would mean driving on gas the second day.

***UPDATE***

Ended up driving almost 45 miles on the charge today!

I have a question for any Volt owners here: Is there any kind of instrumentation on the Volt other than the green floating ball that tells the instant electric usage? I'd like to see feedback like I had in my Insight, which showed my instant mpgs as I drove. I think that would help me learn the car even quicker than I'm doing.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...0&d=1476009498

In 2010 Chevy was strongly against any instrumentation stating that it was a distraction. The car was smarter than you ( a quote I saw far too many times)

After complaints in 2013 GM finally added a kW meter that unifies gas and electrical flow onto the speedo at the bottom. (One reason 2013 was my parameter for purchase)

Scanguage can be specially programmed to show kW but you take a chance of bricking the car during startup & shutdown. Some plug and remove it to avoid this issue but if you have it wiggle intermittently or aren't smooth that can also brick the car.

The dashdaq is the GM certified solution for all states and measures in the car. It too can brick if the connector is loose or accidentally removed.

Well, I finally drove the Volt in "sport" mode this weekend, and I doubt that I'll ever again get the amount of EV range I was seeing prior to that! It's got a lot of kick compared to "normal" mode, pretty addictive.

Nah . . . . . in reality I'll use it sparingly, but if I need to pass a line of cars I know I can do it, unlike when I was driving the Insight or the Festiva, or even my wife's Explorer.

My cost per mile on ev is bobbing around 1.42Cents to 2 cents per mile
(but then when I'm at work its free, can't beat that)

And I pay 9.8 cents per KW and still am almost to the 1 cent range!

sadly Wisconsin used to offer almost the same deal the OP is getting, they changed off peak by a factor of six 8 months ago :(

Made the 3 tiered pricing almost the same as the normal non-tiered pricing, total stupidity.

Why would I opt into a tiered rate structure to save 3.5 cents 9 hours a day only to pay much higher rates the other 15 hours?

Even with solar the way the times and prices are chosen for the rates there is no way to save unless you can run battery in the afternoon and evenings (when there is little or no solar)

Based on the change I don't think WPS wants the tiered option to be used.

The only thing sport mode does is make the throttle more sensitive to changes. It doesn't change the amount of current the battery draws at the given percent throttle. Just 20% in normal is equal to say, 35% in sport so it 'feels' faster but really isn't, it just doesn't take as much throttle for the same 'oomph'. If you put it in sport and hammer it off the line, 100% throttle, it feels the exact same as normal doing the same.

If the op is real hardcore at the light hold the brake then when he expects the light hammer it with the brake held tight.
Then real the brake a tad upstream of green and you can gain over a half second.

Same trick works coasting in neutral, keep it hammered hen when you shift to d instant fun

I'm thinking of swapping out my HYPRMYL tag to something a little more Volt/EV-specific

Below are some Florida tags still available, I may go with one of these

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1476202699

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1476204199

I like EV FTW.

That dull, slow response time is same reason I ended up pulling the TPS smoothing circuit out of the Insight and giving it to one of you guys, lol!

In sport mode the Volt reacts instantly, but I'll blow through the battery reserve really quick if I use it much. Actually, this morning I eased my way to work, leaving me 24 miles of battery just so I could play around with sport mode on the way home

Also, is the battery reserve it shows you adaptive to your driving style? I charge it every night, and every morning it's given me a mile or two more reserve showing on the screen. This morning it showed 40 miles for the charge

It's funny, I have considered getting a volt, and seeing how you are doing Cowmeat is encouraging me. My commute to work is 45 miles, with elevation starting at 3,000, going up to 4,000 then dropping to roughly ~1,000 feet. Not to mention I can charge 110 at work for 8 hours.

I do want a gen2 volt though, not a gen 1, so I got a couple years before they start coming off lease.

I've owned it for less than two weeks, but it's been a blast so far!

It's pretty satisfying going from using a little gas in the Festiva to very little gas in the Insights to NO gas in the Volt!

Plus, I've used the AC every time I've driven it, and I got a couple of free months on Sirius, so I've been cranking tunes too!

Shame!

Wife and I test drove a 2013 Volt yesterday. I'm in love with the powertrain. I don't know why GM hasn't put it in other cars. The short range EV with gas backup is a great way to get people into EVs while waiting for batteries to get better/cheaper. There was plenty of giddy-up and the silence makes it seem even quicker. My biggest complaint is the poor visibility, but that's probably a side effect new crash test standards and not unique to the Volt.

I'll try and get a 2013+ in a year or two. Hopefully they keep depreciating as fast as they have been.

GM has put the powertrain into the 2016 Malibu hybrid and it gets class leading fe

The EV range went up another mile this morning.

Last week it was reading 35 miles for a full charge, and now it gives me 41 miles of range on the gauge, which will actually get me more like 46-48 miles.

I should be able to drive it fifty miles on a charge pretty soon :thumbup:

I used a tenth of a gallon the other night just to warm up the ICE, I doubt that going long periods without using it would be good for it

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1476355920