Wife's 1st day with the Volt commute. Complete success.

1168 Views 8 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Steven Barrett, Oct 5, 2014

volt69

Discussion Starter · Sep 29, 2014

Just been out to check the wife's Volt power use age for today. Couldn't have gone better. Journey to work via kids school, 30.5 miles full electric, journey home direct 19.7 miles full electric. Total 50.2 miles.

21 miles of range left. Days mpg 250+ .

Charged at work for free 13.1kwh, cost her company £1.04. They even emailed her with this data immediately after the car had stopped charging so she knew it was ready.

PR photos taken, I have to do them and ev write up about her Volt tonight. But all in all an awesome day when it only cost us £1.50 for the daily commute. Just awsome.

M

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volt69

Discussion Starter · #5 · Sep 30, 2014

Brooktop said:
Not sure if I'm being dense, but how is all that working out? Did you set off with a partially discharged battery? Given that 13 kwh was taken at work, it would imply the battery was empty. Are you saying there was a theoretical mileage of 71.2 miles?

Ahh. Nope. The wife has what I call BMW ICE Lead foot syndrome!! She left yesterday morning fully charged with 39 mile range on the battery and managed to use it all in just 30.5 miles!! She said as she pulled into her work car park the Volt ICE started up as she had used all the battery.So the last 200 yards was on ICE but it was so little the car didn't register it as used. Hence the full charge needed at work.

When I queried her about this last night and asked how fast did she go on the 15 mile streach of bypass to my kids school she replied "oh the usual 85-90". FFS!!! Today I asked her to try it at 80mph tops to help the range.

She just called me, car started this morning with 37 mile battery range and arrived at work 30.5 miles later with 1 mile range, but she limited herself to 80mph max.

She's happy now that she doesn't have to crawl at 60mph yet and i'm happy she at least makes the to work journey all on battery with just a little to spare and no ICE used. Deep Winter may be a challenge though. Will have to try and slow her down if the ICE kicks in to much in the cold weather.

M

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volt69

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 30, 2014

Brooktop said:
Right...that would explain it. Don't make the assumption that just because it's an EV and most people think they are milk floats, that the cops will make the same mistake. I did see an Ampera that had been pulled over by the Police on the M18. I assume it was for speeding...

When I got my Ampera, the estimated range in the morning was 41 miles. I've now got that up to 47 miles, although after the last few days and the colder starts, that has dropped to 46. I do find it very accurate though if you drive consistently. The Leaf's meter was far more 'variable'; probably why they call it the 'guess-o-meter'.

Luckily her return home journey is all A and B roads with heavy traffic, for those that know the journey from Amersham to Aylesbury, so her range creaps up on the way home as she cant get much above 60.

M

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volt69

Discussion Starter · #8 · Oct 5, 2014

First week with the Volt is over, won't be driving it now until tomorrow morning. Up to Friday night was amazing, 299 miles and 0.8 gal fuel used, 231mpg. Then Saturday we had our sons baptism and that meant lots of running around to church and hired hall, several trips and a full battery and equal ice mileage. Today I got it alone with a full battery doing chores and a car wash trip and spunked the whole charge on a 25.4 mile Sport/L fun runaround.

So ended the week @ 369.4 miles, 1.9 gals used and 189.3 average mpg. But this was an unusual week with one evening trip out partly on ice and a weekend day partly on ice. This week coming should be possible to be 99% on EV for all seven days.

Car Vehicle Multimedia Technology Auto part

Still managed to maintain the previous owners lifetime 250+ mpg.

Certainly got the EV grin.

M

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