Volt's maiden voyage

[Doug Coulter]

To the beer store, of course. After really driving it hard on the way home (and almost making it on just battery all the way from Salem, over 50 mi), I plugged it in here. Sadly, I didn't have even one full sun day, so I didn't get it all the way up - 21 miles indicated out of 36 or so. But I couldn't resist, so I took it for a spin to the general store. Here's some vids I took along the way there and back. I didn't just run the camera the whole time - that thing makes huge videos that would take till next week to upload, and so far, compressing a long one to decent size with the tools I have makes them fairly crappy and not worth it that way either. I'm learning kdenlive editing but it's a slow slog.
http://youtu.be/NLLEKmTLkfI

I skipped some boring stuff here. After about 2 miles on the next road, I go downhill for a long time. Just taking your foot off the gas makes it regenerative brake, and shifting it to "low" makes that severe. That hill is somewhere between where it's happy in either mode, so I switched back and forth, and by the time I got to the bottom, I'd recovered everything it took to get to that point.
http://youtu.be/VpsbY6hrQts


Testing the cruise control. This one works a little differently, and IMO, bettter than most. It will let you lose a couple mph, then really kicks in, but with little overshoot. The funny thing I noticed is that this most often happens and applies serious power right at the apex of a turn, just like a real driver would do when running and gunning. Neat!
http://youtu.be/aAKWgFJ2zFc

And, the stereo kicks - the camera doesn't do it justice of course - particularly that bottom octave of bass.

Now out onto the flat plains, where I find other people going too slow for me.
http://youtu.be/Sdwhn2y_Fac


At the general store with plenty charge left. But we lost almost 1000ft altitude along the way, the drive home is another story.
Like any snazzy looking new car, it got some attention and people wanting to sit in the driver's seat. I let them, it's fun.
But I didn't take their pictures - not polite around here.
http://youtu.be/ewPAFEmiJ_Y



Checking out the regeneration and cruise control.
http://youtu.be/oWzWyWysWEw


The final hill from hell - transfer to engine mode, so I hammer it - why not? It's just as quick on battery only, but then your battery range is lessened. This thing is astonishingly good power-weight all things considered. I'm going to have to set up a drag with this and the turbo Cruze to see. Subjectively the Cruze might win, maybe, but maybe that's because it *feels* faster with that stiffer ride, and is making all kinds of winding and howling noises when you hammer it. I've never hit that turn at 60 before in the Cruze, but it would probably have been eeking the tires.
http://youtu.be/flZQ_5mpm3k


Rear view camera. It also has ultrasonic oops detectors at all four corners, and the warning beeps come out of the corresponding stereo speaker corner. Sounds cool, but if you're in a really tight place, all 4 can go at once.
http://youtu.be/tIJjhVyxFAU


And, the data at the end of the drive:
http://youtu.be/stFwRenKPYU


Apparently it doesn't reset the data for a charge unless you fully charge it, so this data is for the drive home from the dealer as well as this trip (on the center console). The data for just this trip is in the "speedo" which GM calls a DIC (pardon my french).

I knew this had plenty of horsepower after climing a couple k foot hills on the ride home - passing everyone, even the other speeders. But I'd not had the opportunity to just hammer it from low-mid speed before this trip, and that was one heck of a surprise. No turbo lag, just blam, back into the seat and hang on. It seems to handle better than the Cruze - all the weight here is at or below axle center, so you're not going to roll this thing no matter what. It holds quite level in hard turns to the point (I'm guessing, but I'm sure I got real close) the tires are going to give up.

If this doesn't degrade too rapidly, I'm going to declare myself 100% satisfied and very pleasantly surprised. That drive around traffic near the dealership didn't tell me all this thing had by quite a bit.
Did I mention the stereo kicks, and it attracts nice looking women? So the only thing the Camaro has over it is about .4g on the skidpad and some raw power. This is actually more fun to drive most of the time, and you can see where you're going. The backup camera is outstanding, but it's going to take some getting used to - my driveway is a 30 degree grade, surrounded by sheer drop-offs, with a sharp turn in the middle with a tree on either side, and I tend to back in. For now, the mirrors and the old head out the window, mostly!

I'll report more later. It will be interesting to see how well I can solar-charge this at what is my worst season - Fall. In fall, we already have the short (and cloudy) days, but the freezer still runs and draws power, worst case for a solar system.

[Doug Coulter]

Well, I sold the Cruze (I'll miss that one - very very nice car) but I came out cash ahead doing it and have a $7.5k tax rebate coming as well, so now the Volt is my only car (still have the truck) and I had to do some errands. I started with a full charge from here, gotten on solar (YES! ). I had to go to the bank (the check from the Cruze) then the insurance company (take off the sold cars and get some refund there), then the DMV to turn in some plates and get another refund, then to the computer store to show it to the other geeks, and then to friend Dale's house so he could se it - all in hideous weather, raining hard, cold etc, so I cranked the cabin stuff to max comfort, and used headlights and wipers along with the defroster. I actually made it halfway through the trip on half the battery - to Dale's house. We did a little spin but by then it wasn't worth it to be outside even in a car, so I put it in mountain mode to conserve about half a charge, and drove it home.
This caused it to use some gasoline, and drop my "lifetime" MPG a little (ah, shucks), but it kind of shows how it's working out so far. Oh, I also got a 1.2kw inverter for the back area, now that I know how to tell it to keep the 12v batter charged off the main one - even run the engine to do that - so I also get emergency backup for my house solar system. This is the worst time of year for solar - short days, clouds, but freezers still run, and so it will only get better from here (especially when I move the other 2kw worth of panels off the ground and out of the shade).

Remember, MPG here counts "equivalent" MPG for the electricity input too - that counts as some of the "G".

The other display.

Remember, the MPG counts kw hours of electric input too, but I don't know what number of KWH they count as a "gallon" at the moment. In my case, when I have them at all, they're free.
And I mean really free - I'll only be charging the car when I'd be letting KWH just go on the floor, as my house batteries can't hold any more.

Yeah, I'm obsessing a little about my new toy, but hey - it really is cool, I'll be back to normal in the usual time I guess. I'm glad to be back down to the right number of cars (need a new avatar now) and not going to be paying so much taxes and insurance as well. Fairly big deal around here. Financially - I paid a little over 40k for the camaro, and a little over 20 for the Cruze. I traded them for a 43k car (the Volt is loaded), for even money, after 2 years of driving the camaro and half a year on the Cruze - a sort of expensive lease for 20k miles of driving those, but not so bad. I'm roughly zero out of pocket, and have a 7.5 k tax refund coming in January for doing it. So it cost me 10k to drive the other two cars for awhile...could be worse. And everyone has to know that the Camaro was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. For awhile. I'm too old for that speed level on an everyday basis.

I'll get some more worst case and mostly gasoline running on it today - gotta go get some parts for the inverter install, and some groceries, and it's dark out there - I won't get any more charge on it today. And it's still cold, rainy, and I'm still a wimp so I'll be cranking the climate control power. The displays shown here won't reset till it sees a full charge again, so the next pictures will look a lot worse...so be it, reality is what it is.

[chrismb]

You are having too much fun there, Doug! I agree it is good clean fun, this new tech, in more ways than one. If you are getting anywhere near sufficient recharge just on solar too, then you really are detouring around all the profiteers and middle-men between you and the energy you need to run stuff!!!

Also, you are no doubt aware that not only are you benefitting from tax breaks while Govs are sponsoring this stuff (because else they'd not find so many takers for the new tech, and they need to be able to declare all the other research they are funding is useful! - hey, always the old cynic!!) but the vehicle manfacturer's are likely making no profit on these first generations of cars, maybe by as much as 2:1. That is - at this stage they will be pumping these cars with expensive tech just to make sure they work, and work well. This isn't the stage of production to think about short-changing the customers for it with cheap cost-downs... that'll come later!!

I guess the other way to generate power from the car is to fit a rolling road that you can strap the car to, set it in drive, and use the power off the driven wheels! That's just a jokey comment, but there again, with your schemes, I expect you see most anything as possible!!

[Doug Coulter]

Doing my best to have the most fun possible in one life - so far I seem to be winning by that metric.

Today's test will be the crucial one - can I make a round trip to the beer/munchie store on a single charge in "normal, full electric mode". The car will be fully charged off all solar in about an hour my time - I got some yesterday after thrashing the crap out of it on mixed electric/IC mode (which did draw down my mileage somewhat). If I can do that, I'm declaring this a victory.

After a long drive - I'd put it in "mountain mode" so when I got back, I still had 48% battery charge, so this could have shown better numbers. But it was rainy then, and I wanted to keep some charge just in case. As well as - with the engine running, there's a mode where all 3 motors can drive the car and it becomes a hot rod. I took FULL advantage of that one which also cut mileage.

And yes, in this case the tax rebate is a factor. I got nothing on the solar system, as I was doing another dodge there - skipping property taxes via not having to declare my house a house. If you skip power company power, drilled wells, on-site heating fuel tanks, and suchlike you get taxed for a "barn". In effect, that's a larger rebate than the normally offered one, and it's paid for the solar system a few times over already. Cutting to one auto amounts to a tax cut also - insurance and property taxes go down.

I note you're supposed to be able to preheat the car by turning it on while still on the charger. I'll try that before I leave. And when I get back, I'll be at or near zero charge probably due to the mountain climbing on the way back, so I'll get to test the 1.2kw inverter I installed in the back battery compartment yesterday, and see if it can force the IC engine to run and keep the 12v system charged well enough for emergency house backup. Since it's sunny today, I'll just use a dummy load and monitor the 12v system voltage. The switcher in there is supposed to be able to deliver 175 amps to it - plenty, off the traction battery, or the combination with the IC engine. So, does that work? Can I force the IC engine to run in the driveway in park? "Mountain mode" is supposed to force it to run while driving, till there's at least a 45% charge in the traction battery, and there is also a maintenance mode you can get. It would be nice if I can get this without leaving the car able to be driven away by some random stranger - I will find out if it dies when I walk off the the keys and so on. There is an app on their website that allows remote starting, which is a little bit scary - as you'd not be in range with the key at that time, but I think that just locks the shifter in park and locks the car, so maybe that's OK.

At any rate, I can't find out most of those things easily unless I first run the car down, and as it happens I'm low on beer anyway, so....that's today's program.

I have to agree with most of the rest of what you said. A car of this build quality and content elsewhere on the GM lot would be more like 60k right now. And even at the 42k - rebate, not terribly many people are yet jumping in (You can get the same car as IC only, almost, that turbo Cruze, for about 22k after all). Those that do get Volts remind me a little of the Apple crowd - I joined up on the Volt website and well - a lot of the same attitudes seem prevalent there, but with a more real-geeky twist, as in people are actually writing PC code to do Volt things (start the car and suchlike), and modifying their cars in interesting ways. You don't see that in Apple fanbois (why desecrate perfection, they say), just the worship.

Edit:
The rolling road thing has been done by a few, and not that recently. It's a fairly reasonable thing to do if you can't figure out how to get enough power off the fan belting. But in most cars, the efficiency to the wheels is really terrible. There can be a bit of danger if the car jumps off the stand, in gear, as well... Essentially the rolling road thing is what hot rodders call a dyno - a way to test wheel torque and horsepower on a fixed stand. Instead of putting the resulting power into a big resistor, the alt energy guys charge batteries with it. It's far too much power for me though. I have about 20kwh of house batteries, and they prefer not to go much over 2kw in or out at a time for longest life. This ~~1kw ability I just added (not tested beyond it lights up a power strip) should be fine for my needs.

[chrismb]

Doug, What is the actual electrical capacity of the thing (at the moment - I trust you know it will 'bed down' and you'll lose around 5% in the first few months, then maybe as much as 20% after 2-3 years)?

Does that gauge-thingy pie-chart show total sauce at FSD? - viz. is it showing ~1/3rd of ~20kWh used?





***********

I have to agree with most of the rest of what you said.

- Thanks! Well, it's better than the back-chat I am getting from folks in several other quarters at the moment who are just plain wrong but who don't have the logical discipline for their ego nor concentration to last long enough for me to explain it!!

[Doug Coulter]

The Ball (??) chart is showing the ratio of pure battery to IC usage on the combined trip - that stuff only resets on a full charge so there's various ways to make it read funny by doing part charges and short trips and so forth. In this case, I'd started with a full charge, but then switched into "mountain mode" which causes the IC engine to run whenever batteries get to 45% of the allowed lower limit (which is 20% of their capacity in normal mode). The idea behind that, they say, is to allow you to use the IC engine to build up battery before you climb a mountain, but of course it's just a "knob" I can twiddle to get the IC engine involved before I run the batteries all the way down. Even with it running, it spends a lot of time backing and forthing with the batteries, regen charging and so forth, the IC engine coming on and off as it thinks is good - it has some decent hysterisis on that, maybe not even enough - I'd like to see the engine fully warm and stay that way if you were cycling it much as it's just about got to be more efficient when warm. Ah, another thing to test! I can hang a thermocouple on that and see.

Same issues apply with the battery - it's liquid "cooled" which can also be "warmed" - they try to keep that inside some fairly tight limits, and will even use some battery or IC engine in the driveway to do that. From what I'm reading the thermal management going on is even more complex than the electrical management. The engine will start and run on cold days to keep the battery warm if the battery is low, else it will use some battery power to do that. Ditto if you're in the desert - the AC will run for the batteries (!). If you happen to be driving the car at the time, the cabin climate stuff will get a helping hand from all this too - when I was driving on IC engine, the heat worked real good, and the display that shows how much the climate control stuff was using dropped way low.

Ah, just hit 100% charge, so I'm off to the beer store now. I'm going to try the "precondition" mode before I leave, warm the cabin (and batteries) off house power first, since my house batteries are also at full charge. Darn, it's use as a diversion load just went away - I'll have to turn on an electric space heater or pull the big switch down on the solar panels! And it's supposed to be nice tomorrow too!

I'll report when I get back how it went. Since I don't know if I'll make it all electric, I'll be driving "grandma" style this time and it will take longer than it did in the Camaro. Next charge - we try "sport" mode. If I can get tire smoke (likely - I know the tricks to get that happening, like starting in a puddle) then I'll make a movie of that just to confound people who think this stuff is purely for grandma.

[Doug Coulter]

Well, I'm baaaack - and have some battery left - in fact, had I been in mountain mode, the IC engine wouldn't have fired - I had plenty to spare, despite dragging my next door neigbor on the last 1/4 mile home (and yes, it WILL spin the tires in "sport" mode"). That last blast took 1 mile off the predicted range, though - no surprise (and, I beat him - take that, Volvo).

Dash stats after 26 mile run

Console stats

This was a pretty asymmetric test. I made it almost 8 miles before the predicted left over range dropped at all from the driveway, though I'd used 10% of the battery according to it - it's mostly downhill going out, and I was doing grandma mode to the max. The numbers went down a lot faster coming back - but not so bad. It would be saying about 15-16 miles left had I not dragged it a it. At that, I can't yet do my "will it make power int he driveway tests" so easily now, as there's too much battery left! I suppose I could put it in mountain mode, hook up a dummy load to the inverter, and see if it will start the IC engine to prevent further drain, but it might take over an hour for a space heater's draw to get there. Not bad at all! Victory! That's the single most important drive I do - to the "good" general store (there's one 3 miles closer, but I don't like it).

And, my lab was all toasty when I got home from the space heater running to prevent my house battery from overcharging...

[Doug Coulter]

OK, the real tests begin. I just did my errand loop - to Blacksburg (on its own mountain) with a bunch of stops on the way back to get some clothes, groceries, and so on.
45.0 mi, 9.8 kwh indicated used, 3 miles left on pure battery. Since I wanted to find this out, I then re "turned on" the car and put it into mountain mode, in which the IC engine is supposed to put the batteries back to 45% - a handy number since the other 55% is about the spare power I have to charge it on a sunny day in winter. And yes, sitting there in park, it ran the IC engine for about 12 minutes, and used .36 gallon of gas doing that. It ran I'd guess about half power, about 2400 rpm (ear-balling this) and obviously in some efficient mode, since that was 20 mi worth of charge or thereabouts...so it's not a gas hog even in that mode. And I got back in time on this sunny day to plug it in again, since my house batteries were overcharged even with the space heater running whilst I was gone. Heh, this is really going to work!