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No, you know the battery capacity, and how much charge you have left when you plug it in and thus how much per charge you're using per night. You don't need a tool for that other than a calculator. I use ~$10 a month in electricity to commute with. ~3.6 KwH per day of charging (1.8 KwH to get to work, and 1.8 to get back) times 10 c per KwH, times 5 days a week, times 5 weeks a month. That's to go 16 miles round trip with regen.
And how much regen. In my case, I can start a stretch of stop and go traffic with an indicated, say, 27 miles of range left, and end 5 miles later with it saying 29 miles of range left, due to regen.
But in general, the meter is fairly accurate over a longer drive. You can easily beat the range estimates, but it's hard to use more than it says at any given time, at least in my experience with various EVs. It's good at estimating how much you're going to be using, but much less effective at estimating how much you're going to be putting back in the battery with regen.
I'm sure it's negligible, but your estimates on energy consumption don't take into effect the energy losses during charging. Depending on the charging speeds, wiring, charger, and battery, it can be as much as 10%. It may take more charge to top off the battery than the battery actually receives and can use.
Something is wrong with your car's range estimates. If the car thinks you have 27 miles of range left, it's physically impossible to end up with more than you left with since your regen cannot create energy.
I'm sure it's negligible, but your estimates on energy consumption don't take into effect the energy losses during charging. Depending on the charging speeds, wiring, charger, and battery, it can be as much as 10%. It may take more charge to top off the battery than the battery actually receives and can use.
If you do the math on my numbers, you come up with $9. I rounded up to $10 to take into account that charge inefficiency. Sorry, Try again.
Quote:
Something is wrong with your car's range estimates. If the car thinks you have 27 miles of range left, it's physically impossible to end up with more than you left with since your regen cannot create energy.
Um, regen does in fact "create energy" while driving. That's the POINT of regen. You can gain range every time you slow down or coast.
An example, but a bit extreme:
When I went to the Great Smokey Mountains in TN with the Volt, I started in Cherokee with an indicated 23 miles of range (about 2/3rds of the battery left). Used Mountain mode to climb to the summit, and had 8 miles of indicated range (about 1/5th the battery level) when I got to the top. By the time I got back down to the bottom on the other side in Gatlinburg, I was indicating 39 miles of available range (full battery again). That's due to regen in L all the way down the Smokies.
You can't fill up MORE than the battery can handle, but you certainly can ADD range up to that point with regen. Every EV can. Especially if your route has any appreciable downhill (even slight) stretch. The reason is that regen turns the motor into a generator adding juice back to the battery. That's how regen works.
So, what is so great about regenerative braking? Basically, it recaptures some of the kinetic energy in your car and puts it back into the battery so that you can drive further before you need to recharge the battery.
Using regenerative braking has a definite influence on range. Often, I will see my range actually increase while driving as the motor puts energy back into the battery. While driving a conventional car for years and watching the gas gauge go down, down, down, I sometimes found myself wishing it would go back up once in a while. With an electric car and regenerative braking, that actually happens. It’s a pretty sweet feeling when it does.
Regenerative braking is one feature of electric cars that people who have never driven one before will need to adapt to.
No, you know the battery capacity, and how much charge you have left when you plug it in and thus how much per charge you're using per night. You don't need a tool for that other than a calculator. I use ~$10 a month in electricity to commute with. ~3.6 KwH per day of charging (1.8 KwH to get to work, and 1.8 to get back) times 10 c per KwH, times 5 days a week, times 5 weeks a month. That's to go 16 miles round trip with regen.
And how much regen. In my case, I can start a stretch of stop and go traffic with an indicated, say, 27 miles of range left, and end 5 miles later with it saying 29 miles of range left, due to regen.
But in general, the meter is fairly accurate over a longer drive. You can easily beat the range estimates, but it's hard to use more than it says at any given time, at least in my experience with various EVs. It's good at estimating how much you're going to be using, but much less effective at estimating how much you're going to be putting back in the battery with regen.
Well, that's a decent estimate but you are calculating net power, not the gross power including losses. To get 100 watt-hours into your battery, requires more than 100 watt-hours of power from the grid.
But, whatever. Running a plug-in hybrid or straight-up EV costs A LOT less than running an IC car. Even if your electric rates are quite high. Take your example. $10 will buy, what, maybe 3 gallons of gas, little more in low tax states, little less in high. No way is 3 gallons of gas going to do you all month, unless you are driving a Suzuki Swift and not going far. Would be hard to do it on a bike.
Exactly, all vehicles have trade offs. An electric vehicle is not a good choice for a road trip and a lifted F350 is not a good choice for a single passenger commute. Electric vehicles are perfect daily commuters, that is what they are designed to do.
Well, that's a decent estimate but you are calculating net power, not the gross power including losses. To get 100 watt-hours into your battery, requires more than 100 watt-hours of power from the grid.
As I told Ziggy, I already rounded up to account for the charge inefficiency (which isn't very much in reality). I know what my average electric bill was in every season before I added the car and I know what it is after. And that estimate is pretty much spot on for my actual usage.
But as you said, it's a lot cheaper than a standard car to commute with. My $8k used Volt replaced a car that was getting 14 mpg on the commute. I sold that car for $8k so I did good for the money. The reason I went with the Volt vs a Spark EV or Fiat 500 E is that my commute is 16 miles round trip, and the drive from my house to downtown Baltimore and back is about 25 miles. So the Volt's all electric range, even in winter, serves me well for the commute and errand running, while the gas generator allows me to make easy long distance trips, which I knew I was going to be making at least monthly (took it to TN the week I got it, then up to upstate NY a few times to see my kid and grandkids). I get 40-45 mpg on the generator, so it's an efficient road tripper, too.
If you do the math on my numbers, you come up with $9. I rounded up to $10 to take into account that charge inefficiency. Sorry, Try again.
Um, regen does in fact "create energy" while driving. That's the POINT of regen. You can gain range every time you slow down or coast.
An example, but a bit extreme:
When I went to the Great Smokey Mountains in TN with the Volt, I started in Cherokee with an indicated 23 miles of range (about 2/3rds of the battery left). Used Mountain mode to climb to the summit, and had 8 miles of indicated range (about 1/5th the battery level) when I got to the top. By the time I got back down to the bottom on the other side in Gatlinburg, I was indicating 39 miles of available range (full battery again). That's due to regen in L all the way down the Smokies.
You can't fill up MORE than the battery can handle, but you certainly can ADD range up to that point with regen. Every EV can. Especially if your route has any appreciable downhill (even slight) stretch. The reason is that regen turns the motor into a generator adding juice back to the battery. That's how regen works.
No it does not. You’re violating the law of conservation of energy. If you spend energy to get up to speed and slow down to a stop, you cannot regain all of that energy back. You spent energy going up the Smokey Mountains. Your lack of experience with physics is showing.
Your Volt’s estimated range was off to begin with.
No it does not. You’re violating the law of conservation of energy. If you spend energy to get up to speed and slow down to a stop, you cannot regain all of that energy back. You spent energy going up the Smokey Mountains. Your lack of experience with physics is showing.
Your Volt’s estimated range was off to begin with.
Come ride with me Ziggy, I'll show you. Mountain mode uses the engine and the electric motor to drive the car so you use less battery power. Cherokee is higher altitude than Gatlinburg so it had a longer run downhill from the summit than it had going up. So it got to add more power back in. Every time you run th electric motor as a generator you add power back in the batteries and you can make the estimated range go up. ALL EVS do this, as the article even states. But you're going to argue as you usually do as you k ow really nothing.
Come ride with me Ziggy, I'll show you. Mountain mode uses the engine and the electric motor to drive the car so you use less battery power. Cherokee is higher altitude than Gatlinburg so it had a longer run downhill from the summit than it had going up. So it got to add more power back in. Every time you run th electric motor as a generator you add power back in the batteries and you can make the estimated range go up. ALL EVS do this, as the article even states. But you're going to argue as you usually do as you k ow really nothing.
Well, sure, but no energy was *created*, what you did is put some of the potential energy you lost going downhill into your battery, rather than just waste it as a straight IC car or bike would.
This is analogous to the "paradox" that a Prius will get better mileage in town than on the highway at a steady cruise - as you know but maybe most non technical readers don't, an IC Otto Cycle (gasoline) engine is more efficient at higher throttle openings, which means accelerating. So as you accelerate the Prius (or Volt) you burn fuel more efficiently, and then when you decelerate, if you are doing all this right, you are mostly on dynamic braking, so you recover some kinetic energy into the battery.
How many modes does that Volt have anyway? I know there are ways to "optionally" use the IC engine so it does not have issues related to not running for months at a time. Is there a way to tell the car to run the battery down as you get closer to home, so as to maximize the amount of charging done with mains power? Of course a guy like you would learn all these modes, so many American "drivers" are just Luddites, and won't do anything but "put it in Drive and go", and can't be arsed to use special features, watch gauges, or otherwise really learn to drive the car.
I'm still surprised at how poorly the Volt sold. For many people wanting a 4-door sedan, it would do what they want to do, and do it burning quite a lot less fuel, but would always have the option to use ordinary gasoline to continue on a long trip, no range anxiety, no waiting to charge.
Come ride with me Ziggy, I'll show you. Mountain mode uses the engine and the electric motor to drive the car so you use less battery power. Cherokee is higher altitude than Gatlinburg so it had a longer run downhill from the summit than it had going up. So it got to add more power back in. Every time you run th electric motor as a generator you add power back in the batteries and you can make the estimated range go up. ALL EVS do this, as the article even states. But you're going to argue as you usually do as you k ow really nothing.
Don’t tell me I don’t know anything when you’re trying to argue against laws of physics.
As M3 Mitch points out, you’re running more efficiently, but you aren’t creating anything. You can never capture more energy than you spent. When I drive down a bridge in a gas guzzler, my mileage jumps to over 100 miles per gallon and my range goes up. The range didn’t factor in the fact that I cannot continue going downhill forever. I am running more efficiently, but I didn’t put gas back into the tank.
Don’t tell me I don’t know anything when you’re trying to argue against laws of physics.
As M3 Mitch points out, you’re running more efficiently, but you aren’t creating anything. You can never capture more energy than you spent. When I drive down a bridge in a gas guzzler, my mileage jumps to over 100 miles per gallon and my range goes up. The range didn’t factor in the fact that I cannot continue going downhill forever. I am running more efficiently, but I didn’t put gas back into the tank.
It bothers me when people ask "so does it charge itself?" My 2012 Volt is not a perpetual motion machine.
*** Alert *** due to my model year being a '12 and not a '13, I do NOT have "EV Hold" as a 4th drive mode to strictly lock out input from the traction battery.
However, here's my take on the different modes. Chevy Volt is starkly different from a Prius in that its engine truly is a "range extender". It is a generator, and does NOT rev in lock-step with throttle application - in general, it most surely does, but not every nuance.
When the ICE is running, it's lowest speed is pretty much "high idle" or ~1500 RPM. It has no usable output at a standard 600-700 RPM so that's not part of its operation. It can idle higher to produce energy at sustained (interstate) speeds at around ~2200 RPM. Inclines and acceleration can raise this number further. I don't think I've seen it rise above 4-5k RPM momentarily, under the highest demand, per my cheap ELM327 OBD2 tool.
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Now, Mountain Mode. There is a lot of "use-case" documentation on it, but I want to describe what I've experienced the car appear to do when in Mountain Mode. Assuming 0 miles on traction battery, the engine will begin to high(er) idle at ~2-3k RPM until the battery reaches approximately 11 miles of range. It is not meant to fully charge your battery, just as one can only expect to drive up a steep incline for so long before you start going back down.
I HAVE EXPERIENCED WHAT IT IS LIKE TO DRIVE A CHEVY VOLT WITHOUT USING MOUNTAIN MODE. If you have 0 miles left on the traction battery and choose to continue to drive up a steep incline (several miles) without enabling MM prior to the ascent, your Volt CAN AND WILL display "Propulsion Power Reduced" and your speed will limit to something like 45-50 mph. Likely lower with a steeper incline. CONCLUSION: The range extender in the Volt can produce enough output to power the vehicle at interstate speeds on relatively flat ground for as long as it has fuel. It CANNOT do this indefinitely up an incline. It continues to draw from both real-time ICE output and traction battery to maintain speed until the traction battery reaches its minimum 20% SOC (state of charge) and then the aforementioned message will display.
In another test, I have enabled MM during normal city driving just for the heck of it. Don't. During the high-idle charging phase to ~11 mi range, you will average 19-20 mpg. It's just a waste. It's inefficient, and doesn't "help" you get more MPG. In my experience, I achieved the best efficiency in "D" and "Normal" (Sport did not penalize my MPG). I read an article how "driving in MM and "L" was some secret combination to hyper-miling. It's not. It's a secret recipe for 19 mpg and making your passengers sick.
Thank you.
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