I have just posted on the other thread you have about a Volt driver posting on the Facebook Chevy Volt Owners group that his Volt has 188,000 miles on the clock as he drives 7,000 miles a month. At that rate he is probably not using the battery as much he would like but has made no comment about his range reducing. I'll need to ask him?
I'm planning the same, so here's hoping that they have Molly-coddled the battery sufficiently
Although in 10 years a replacement battery will be cheap as chips
Realistically the battery will have lost some capacity over that ten years. Maybe 15% or so just for the length of time (calendar ageing) and then a relatively unknown amount from cycling. However, the Ampera does not go very high or very low in the charge cycle, so personally I'd be surprised I that was more than 5%, particularly in our moderate climate. So I'd say a max of 20% loss. It's unclear from GMs strategy whether you then have 20% less EV or just less in the buffer above and below your usable section, I don't think anyone has had enough degradation to find out.
Regardless of whether that lost is actually 5% or 50%, the operation of the car in petrol mode will be completely unaffected.
Long term battery protection. If the degradation gets to the point where there is no buffer anymore and your 10.3kwh usable takes you from 100% to 0% SOC, you will get much quicker degradation from that point onwards.
Shouldn't really be an issue for me as I don't do particularly high mileage and don't tend to keep cars for less than 3 years...but would be nice to reassure any subsequent buyer.
I hope it is just a wee glitch but the last few days I have only managed to get 10.2kwH to 10.3kwH out of the battery before the ICE kicks in. I can't remember it being like that last year at this time.
10.2kw?????? I have never seen more than 9.7kw, 2012 Volt owned by Chevy and never charged for the first 10k. Now ay 28000 miles but still only using max 9.8kw, is my battery duff?
Ok, I've had a reply from the Chevy Volt driver on the Facebook group.
This is the guy who drives 7,000 miles a month and charges at home and work so charging twice a day. He has 188,000 miles on his Volt. When I asked about any degradation on his battery he replied
"No battery change at all. The same as the day I bought it."
A nice thought but I don't think so. Calendar ageing is unavoidable, and while the Volt uses a good cell chemistry it is often discharging or charging at over 1C, which is quite stressful for lithium.
The prius battery is a good analogy, it only operates between 40% and 80%, and discharges/charges at about 15C, which is quite stressful for nimh. They do last a long time, but once the degradation is bad enough that their buffer is gone the pack (or at least some cells) will fail very quickly.
However you look at it, this guy is a heavy user. 2 charges every day for over 2 years, plus a whole load of regen and electric running because of that.
I think it's fair to say that he has put it through more cycles already than most people would in nearly 10 years.
He may not have the 'age' yet on the battery, but it's certainly been well worked, which I guess is what GM planned for, as big miles is more normal in the USA.
Maybe we need to get one of those odb2 dongles plugged in and pull the battery data out of it ?
However you look at it, this guy is a heavy user. 2 charges every day for over 2 years, plus a whole load of regen and electric running because of that.
I think it's fair to say that he has put it through more cycles already than most people would in nearly 10 years.
He may not have the 'age' yet on the battery, but it's certainly been well worked, which I guess is what GM planned for, as big miles is more normal in the USA.
Maybe we need to get one of those odb2 dongles plugged in and pull the battery data out of it ?
Yeah that would be really interesting! I haven't see what sort of tools are available for the volt but assume there's something which will give a capacity reading?
The MygreenVolt app records the kWh/d used in the statistics graph and also the charge states for the each day. I can see from mine so far that it's only charged to 98% on most days despite the car charge light and dash telling me it was fully charged. It's charged to 100% three times so far so I know it will do it on occasions. I think the occasions I didn't preheat coincide with the 100% charges. I preheat a good half hour before leaving so plenty of time for the car to recharge to 100% if it wanted and the light is always back to flashing green when I leave the house, but still usually 98% SOC according to the app.
On the occasions I've run the battery completely down the app has recorded figures in the statistics graphs of 10.7 or 10.3 kWh depending on the charge start % for the day.
It funny you should mention that, I have only been getting all summer long 9.7kWh from my 2012 Volt but today I noticed my wife got 10.3kWh and she has just started to pre heat again. Will look again tomorrow.
Left my Ampera plugged in for two weeks over Christmas and I've just had my highest reading ever.
The car was at 10.6 kWh when new, recently it's been giving 10.3 kWh but tonight I saw 10.7 kWh. It looks like the pack was rebalanced while the car was parked up.
Mine seems to have dropped to 10.2 the vast majority of the time these days. I need to plug in my bluetooth dongle and see if I can make sense of any details there. My car is now 16 months old and covered over 34k, and charged twice a day during the week and sometimes the same over the weekend.
I generally find that I get more out of the battery if I charge at 6 amps, or when the battery is freshly charged. But 10.7 is still fairly rare for me these days.
Not on the newer models, the regen doesn't alter the total used for me. Otherwise I would look for more hills to roll down
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Speak EV - Electric Car Forums
1.7M posts
62.6K members
Since 2011
A community for enthusiasts of all makes and models of EV from BMW to Tesla, Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi and more. Join the electrifying discussion today!