vskid3 finally gets an (almost) EV, 2013 Volt
 

I finally got an EV(ish)! I bought a pearl white 2013 Chevy Volt with 97k miles for $10k on Monday. Cloth seats, Bose speakers, and navigation (while better than expected, I'll just use my phone). Goodyear Assurance tires, which aren't LRR. I pumped them up to 50PSI after we got home; they seem to roll ok and have enough traction to keep the electric torque under control.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1504288656
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1504288656

It came from a fleet in California. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to plug it in much, so it only 14k of the miles were electric. Lifetime MPG is 40.9 and hasn't moved yet.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1504288652
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...3&d=1504288440
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...4&d=1504288453

Here's the results of the drive home. If you remove the terrible mileage that was already on the charge, it works out to about 40MPG while using gas. Not bad for mostly 70-75MPH driving. My wife drove it home and I forgot to have her turn off mountain mode until a few miles before home, so the battery wasn't empty.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1504288612

Here's the result of a trip I had to make the next day. Again, gas consumption was about 40MPG for freeway driving.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1504288635

My wife was still slightly opposed to the idea of buying another car as we drove down to the dealer. Unless we do a ton of EV driving, it'll end up costing a little more per mile for energy than the Prius (I'm estimating we'll be about 50/50 gas vs EV miles). The only saving grace for her was preconditioning, as she hates getting in a boiling or freezing car. That was until she drove it. She loved how much smoother it was than the Prius in every way. A condition of us getting it ended up being that she got to drive it home while I drove the Prius. Prius will be sold in the coming months (PM me if you're interested).

I don't really care for dealers, but I like the one we bought the car from. Clean Fuels Utah (formerly CNG Utah) in Orem, UT. They specialize in EVs, PHEVs, hybrids, and CNG vehicles. I highly recommend them if anyone is in the area.

Have fun with your car, the Volt is much more smiles per mile than a Prii
if you want to improve gas mpg the Volt can be easily hypermiled in EV mode, more EV is the easiest economy improver. (Besides airing up tires and slowing down)

Also if you are jealous of Prii MPGs there is a
+ 5mpg & e85 tune available for the Volt which makes Volt gas economy identical to a gen ii Prii.

https://www.hptuners.com/forum/showt...une-(Volterado)

There is also a +20% ev capacity mod
And an ERDTT disable app and mod.

As you improve your familiarity with the car you may find this happens
(See cool weather pic)

Good Luck with one of the worlds most reliable cars.
https://www.voltstats.net/Stats/Details/1579

I plan on doing all the Volt mods as I will likely keep the car through rustout

Woohoo, congrats!

Very fun learning curve ahead!

Thanks guys! I've wanted an EV since I was a kid and the itch kept getting stronger with all the options that are finally available. The Volt is the only EV* that fit the budget and could serve as our sole car without making longer trips a pain/impossible. We also considered a Spark EV to go alongside the Prius, but it's difficult to tell if they have the DCFC option (a must for me) when they're at auction and we wanted to stay a one car household (though we are considering keeping the Prius).
*I know it's technically a PHEV, but I consider it to be a full EV when operating on battery, given that it has full performance and capabilities when in EV unlike most other PHEVs that are slugs without their ICE running.

Charging with 120v is very slow when the battery is empty. I have to use the 8A limit because of the circuit I'm using, which doesn't help. I looking to buy a 240v EVSE or convert a 120v to speed things up. It just so happens that Ben posted a video about a new L2 EVSE he got that's only $220, the AmazingE EVSE. I think I'll go with one of those.

Here's my Voltstats page. I signed up a couple days ago, so right now it only really shows the totals for the car's shamefully low efficiency before I bought it.

There's no denying that the Volt is more fun to drive than the Prius. So much zoom zoom and it even turns ok.

The first time I charged it, it estimated 38 miles of range. The next 2 charges showed 40, and this morning it showed 42. Today's driving wasn't that great, so we'll see what happens tomorrow after it charges.

That tune looks interesting, I'll have to look into that and see how much it would cost to do. Do you have a link for the +20% mod? I couldn't find anything about it in my quick search. I'm already planning on getting some sort of ERDTT disable mod done before winter, even with the heater I should be able to do my local driving on battery.

Is that your picture? 68 miles would be enough to make gen2 owners giddy, in a gen1 it sounds insane.

You may be better off with the hybrid.
Some states have decided the pure EVs are not paying their fair share and are trying to add extra taxes on them.

Fortunately, Utah is fairly welcoming to "green" vehicles. I think part of it has to do with the air quality going to crap in the valleys during the winter. Hopefully if any sort of EV tax is imposed, it'll be like the proposed bill in Wisconsin that exempts any EV that can also use gas.

As far as energy costs vs the Prius, it'll mostly depend on how much EV driving we can do. I didn't buy the Volt to save money, it was mostly to fulfil my lust for an EV. :D

The French Offer a +20% battery capacity tune in Quebec on 2014 Volts

Sadly +20 mod is a 2014 only thing and French Canadian,

My hope is they get the "mod" to a simple tune and bundle the +20 with the 50mpg tune so the price isn't as steep, I'm waiting and watching developments on both fronts until I figure both are mature enough to justify.

I'm close and maybe a grand on mods is worth it since I plan on keeping the car but I would prefer the +20 to get integrated into hp tuners so it's easily self removed

And yes 68miles is nothing above 70 starts getting hard, easiest to hypermile when it's over 85f

Ah well

I think 45-50 miles of EV will probably be my limit. I don't have the discipline to keep my foot out of the go pedal. :D

I have a couple ideas for aeromods. The Volt is a little better looking than the Prius, and I'd like to keep it that way.
The belly is fairly smooth between the wheels. I'm thinking of covering this void behind the rear axle. Shouldn't be too difficult to get a piece of coroplast to stay there. Under the engine bay is another gaping hole, but there's the exhaust and cat to contend with.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1504677241

Another idea is wheel covers, but instead of covering the outside of the wheel, the coroplast will go behind the spokes. They should be able to tuck into that lip, so no modifications needed to the wheels and it'll be out of the way of the valve stem and lug nuts. Would this be smooth enough to have any effect?
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1504677241
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1504677241

The more you get used to it, the better you'll like the Volt

I've had a blast with mine, and in my normal commute of 38.1 miles round trip I've never used any gas. Yours should have a little more range than mine since it's a 2013, and I can squeeze out around 50 miles of range in mine.

I agree though, it's hard to keep your foot off the gas pedal, especially when you drive it in sport mode! Have fun!

Looks like I can hit 50 miles on a charge. :thumbup: Technically it wasn't a single full charge; I drove about 30 miles then let it charge for a few hours before driving the rest. I snapped the pic at 10.6kwh because that's about what most 2013s use on a full charge. 4.75mi/kwh isn't bad for using AC for a bit and lots of hard acceleration.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1505024309

I thought this car would help me get over wanting a full EV, but now I think it's only making me want one more. :P Maybe I'll have to replace the Prius with a Spark EV in a year or two.

Went for a little drive up into the mountains the other day and recorded something interesting with the MyGreenVolt app on the way back. On the 4.9 mile, ~800ft drop, drive home, I ended up generating 0.2kwh. I don't remember how much power it took to drive up, but I think the charge ended up being about the same kwh/mile as usual. Many sources say hills are bad for range, but my experience so far is that they don't make much of a difference overall.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1506288718

I've used preheating a couple times because the temperature here has plummeted the last couple weeks. It was about 42F out when I started it today. Battery had finished charging at least 10 hours prior and was at 48F at the start. The 10 minute preconditioning used 0.5kwh (probably a bit more, took me a minute to get my phone connected), 76% of which was used to get the battery to 59F (which turned the bar from red to green, so I guess that falls into the normal operating temp range). It'll be interesting to see what happens with lower temperatures or having the charge finish just before preconditioning. I'll have to see if I can get the Volt's PIDs working in Torque so I can record and graph the temps and energy usage.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1506288718

So far, I've been averaging just over 50% EV miles since I started using VoltStats a couple days after getting the car. All of my daily driving is electric. I've raised the lifetime average on the center screen from 40.9MPG to 41.6MPG, not bad when you consider how little I've driven it compared to the total miles.

Did my first mod, blocked the lower grill with cardboard (will upgrade to coroplast soon). I'm trying out Velcro wire ties instead of zip ties because it seems silly to try to reduce fuel consumption while throwing away plastic zip ties every time something needs to be removed. They're holding up so far, we'll see how they handle winter. Engine gets a little warm at highway speeds with outside temps in the 70s. That shouldn't be an issue again until spring.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1509764171
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1509764171

I've done some rough measurements for belly panels. I'm hoping the weather gives me a nice day to work on them before winter sets in. I should be able to get it pretty smooth under there. It would be awesome if I could eliminate the need for that giant air dam, it scrapes so much.

Sold the Volt yesterday. :( It was a great car, but we\'re expecting our first and wanted to reduce our expenses.

On the bright side, some of the pics I took for the ad turned out quite nice.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1535923884
Higher resolution if anyone wants it.

Hey, congrats and congrats!


Did you reduce the fleet, or replace it with something else?

Thanks!

Reduced the fleet, just the Prius, bikes, and shoes now.

The new owner is an enthusiast, so at least it'll be appreciated. He showed up in a Gen2 Prius with 230k miles towing a trailer with his electric motorcycle on it. Couldn't have picked a better new home.

Ha - perfect new owner.


Did his electric motorcycle have an electric scooter strapped to the back? :D