1 month update: Life with the Volt

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
2,736
Location
WI
Well guys... It's officially been one month with my 2013 Chevy Volt. It's quickly become my favorite car, and I've had a lot of different yet random vehicles over the years. I have absolutely nothing to complain about so far, the car is more than I expected it to be and impressed me every day. Here's a quick economy rundown, since that's what most people have these things, right?

The efficiency screen after my usual day of commuting:



Trip A is keeping track of the current tank of fuel, which holds 9 gallons:



Trip B was reset when I bought the car. I'm using it as a "lifetime" mileage tracker:



I'm looking forward to many more fun miles with this ride!
 
Congratulations!!

I bought a Volt for my wife in 2014. It is her favorite car of all time. She loves "filling up" in the garage and rarely puts gas in it. I installed a level II charging station in the garage and it will charge from zero to full in four hours.

The car has 42,000 miles on it and has not had a single problem. The lifetime MPG is 89.4

Be sure to have the anti-freeze in the engine and battery serviced at the five year mark, if it hasn't been done. It's not a DIY thing. And make sure they only use the special deionized pre-mix from GM. Deionized antifreeze is electrically neutral... a good thing in an electric car.

There is a very good forum called gm-volt.com that you should check out.

I'm sure your Volt will give you many happy miles. It really is an amazing machine.
 
Already a member of gm-volt.com and voltstats.net! I love those sites. I have an electrician coming out in a week to bid me on installing 240 in the garage.

I'm an auto mechanic by trade. I've already changed the transmission fluid and plan on doing a coolaning system service on all 3 cooling circuits. I've read the service information and have a vacuum filler as recommended by GM. No problem in my eyes should be pretty straight forward, I hope.
 
What is the MPG after the 16.5 kWH battery dies? All the MPG figures I see include the carbon footprint from the electrical grid mixed with the gasoline hybrid mode.
 
That is a great question. MPG using the gas engine alone is 35 to 38 MPG. When the battery is exhausted, the engine will cycle on and off like a hybrid in city driving and on the highway it will run continuously at a relatively constant rpm.
 
Yup that's about right. 36 to 38 MPG. It's certainly not the best long-range car. However, it never claimed to be. It's an "extended-range electric vehicle". It's main function is to allow you full electric in your daily commute plus allow you to occasionally visit farther away places. If you bought a Volt as a highway killer... You bought the wrong car.

That's my personal opinion, of course!
 
Originally Posted By: twoheeldrive
That is a great question. MPG using the gas engine alone is 35 to 38 MPG. When the battery is exhausted, the engine will cycle on and off like a hybrid in city driving and on the highway it will run continuously at a relatively constant rpm.
In the city I think its a "Series Hybrid", just keeping the battery at a certain low-level and/or sending currently directly to the engine. Then in mountain mode it will actually close a clutch and operate like a Prius hybrid to add engine power to electric power to the wheels. A summary at: http://www.plugincars.com/chevy-volts-mo...ies-107176.html

I do prefer a small, lightweight battery I get with a non-plugin hybrid (mine is 1.4 kWH, compared to 10-17 kWH in plug-in hybrids). My Ford C-Max averages 44 MPG in mixed driving, and my all-electric Ford Focus BEV actually has about the same carbon footprint in this part of the country. Smaller batteries weigh far less and are less expensive.

That said, there is a certain lure to a plug-in hybrid.
 
With 124K on the odometer, is it still running on the original batteries? The instant torque of an electric motor has to be perfect for city traffic. My Ecoboost Fiesta is a great highway car, but oddly enough, is not so great in the city. The turbo lag and widely spaced gears makes for a less than excellent city car. I was thinking I could get an old Prius, strip it out, and somehow fit an LS6 under the hood. That would be good for the city, I think.
 
30.6 miles on 8 KWH is 3.825 miles per KWH. What is your cost of electricity per KWH? Figure out how many KWH you can purchase with the current price of a gallon of gasoline and multiply that amount of KWH's by 3.825 and you will have the miles per gallon equivalent that you are getting when running all electric.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: eyeofthetiger
With 124K on the odometer, is it still running on the original batteries? The instant torque of an electric motor has to be perfect for city traffic. My Ecoboost Fiesta is a great highway car, but oddly enough, is not so great in the city. The turbo lag and widely spaced gears makes for a less than excellent city car. I was thinking I could get an old Prius, strip it out, and somehow fit an LS6 under the hood. That would be good for the city, I think.


All original battery. While there have been some problems with sensors contained within the battery, actual battery failures are extremely limited. If it ever does fail, I'm fairly confident I can replace it myself for around $1,500.

I've been using the car mostly in "sport" mode which significantly sharpens the throttle response. With 273 ft lbs of torque available from 0 RPM it's an absolute riot to zip around town with. That, plus a very low center 9f gravity combine to make for an exciting drive.
 
Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
30.6 miles on 8 KWH is 3.825 miles per KWH. What is your cost of electricity per KWH? Figure out how many KWH you can purchase with the current price of a gallon of gasoline and multiply that amount of KWH's by 3.825 and you will have the miles per gallon equivalent that you are getting.


About 11 cents per. Premium fuel here (what I was using, what I based my initial math on, and what the Volt uses) is about $3.05 here. 27.5 kWh per gallon give or take.

27.5*3.825= 105.2 MPGe. I'll take it
 
Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
30.6 miles on 8 KWH is 3.825 miles per KWH. What is your cost of electricity per KWH? Figure out how many KWH you can purchase with the current price of a gallon of gasoline and multiply that amount of KWH's by 3.825 and you will have the miles per gallon equivalent that you are getting when running all electric.


An interesting thought:

For me those numbers would work out to about...
Apples to Apples electric price I pay around 15cents/kwh even though my bill says 5.4cents. that is merely generation.. there is a large distribution component and some static charges/fees.

so that would be just under 4cents per mile...
still quite abit cheaper than gas at 2.29 last week(2.59 now)
which would be 2.29/38 or around 6cents a mile.

If I had an electric company with electric rates that vary by time of day I suppose you could put it on during times of lower demand for cheaper charging.
 
Congratulations. Here is your original posting on the volt. Is there anything we need to visit in the data now that you have real world experience with it? I believe when we looked at it last time the electricity would be about half the gasoline cost. SF

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4696766/Re:_New_ride!_I'm_"sh#Post4696766
 
Last edited:
In the city I think its a "Series Hybrid", just keeping the battery at a certain low-level and/or sending currently directly to the engine. Then in mountain mode it will actually close a clutch and operate like a Prius hybrid to add engine power to electric power to the wheels. A summary at: http://www.plugincars.com/chevy-volts-mo...ies-107176.html


That article was written in 2011 and is not correct saying the engine can power the wheels directly. Mountain mode simply maintains a 50% battery charge so there is plenty of buffer for the electric motor to be able to climb any mountain road in North America. What that author really wanted was "Hold Mode" which was introduced with the 2013 Volt.

But, it is a very complicated system. The bottom line is, the Volt is a pure electric car with an engine powered generator. The electric motor ("Voltec electric drive") provides 100% of motive power for the car from 0 to top speed without needing any assist from the engine. The engine only couples with the motor in certain steady state highway driving when the computer decides that fuel economy can be improved, but even then the electric motor is still providing nearly all of the motive power.


From the Chevrolet press release:


PRESS RELEASE
Chevrolet Volt Electric Drive: Engineered for Efficiency

DETROIT – As GM has started the media launch program for the Chevrolet Volt, some confusion has emerged about details of the Volt’s drive technology.

The engineering of the Voltec electric drive unit is very sophisticated. As part of the media launch, we’re diving deeper into how the system works than we have in the past. We did not share all the details until now because the information was competitive and we awaited patent approvals. Following a small number of inaccurate media reports, we want to clarify a few points.

The Volt has an innovative electric drive system that can deliver power in both pure electric and extended range driving. The Voltec electric drive cannot operate without power from the electric motors. If the traction motor is disabled, the range-extending internal combustion engine cannot drive the vehicle by itself.

There is no direct mechanical connection (fixed gear ratio) between the Volt’s extended-range 1.4L engine and the drive wheels. In extended-range driving, the engine generates power that is fed through the drive unit and is balanced by the generator and traction motor. The resulting power flow provides a 10 to 15 percent improvement in highway fuel economy.

Our overriding objective in developing the Voltec electric drive was to deliver the most efficient, yet fun-to-drive experience in both pure electric and extended-range driving. We think our unique technology lives up to its most important promise: delivering our customers with the only EV that can be their primary vehicle, with EV operation for normal daily driving, and extended range driving for weekends, holidays, and longer trips – all with no range anxiety.


And from Automobile Magazine:
Chevy Volt Surprise (Automobilemag.com)

“To trump both the Prius and the Leaf, Volt combines their merits in one handy advanced-technology sedan. It employs cheaper and cleaner electrical energy drawn from the grid. It provides efficient electric drive without the usual compromises. It uses gasoline intelligently in a supporting role. It is a pure electric, a series hybrid, and a parallel hybrid all rolled into one.”
 
Last edited:
14Accent, so glad you are loving your 2013 Volt!!

I bought my '13 Volt last February with 12,000 miles for $12,900. Have 24,000 miles now. Has safety package 1 & 2 (front and rear sensors, front camera) and heated seats.
Raised my lifetime mpg's from 84 when I bought it to 120mpg now. Loving my Volt too!
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: AZjeff
How would this car work for a 35 mile one-way commute that's 95% 55-70 highway with 1800 feet elevation loss from home to work then obviously back up to home?


That all depends. Can you plug in at work? 35 miles at 55-70 will almost surely deplete the battery in one shot. An 1,800 foot elevation drop might regenerate a good portion of that, however, on the way down. If you can regen/coast most of the way down, you could probably make it most of the way back up on battery. My honest guess is that you would use about a gallon of fuel on a trip like that.
 
Hey 14Accent, I went back to those calculations I did earlier and I had used the info from the other Volt owners who said they go 50 miles for a calculated charge of 14.4 kwhrs. This works out to 3.47 miles per kwhr. You mentioned you got 30.6 miles on 8 kwhr or 3.83 miles per kwhr. Almost bang on and in fact slightly better! That is awesome.
banana2.gif
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top