[bjrosen]

I've had my Volt for almost a year so I've learned a few things in that time. I just took my first long day trip of the year, 320 miles round trip to the Berkshires. I used hold mode on the highways and normal the regular roads, I managed 68 miles with 2 miles of range left on the battery and 45.4 MPG on the gas. Last year I never did better than 63 miles on the battery although the gas MPG was pretty much the same.

 

[alfon]

You did good; as the EPA states 53 miles on electric with the 2016-17 Volt. Also EPA is 42 mpg on gas, you beat both. I also noticed that its quite easy to beat the EPA on electric in warmer weather. Right now were at 60 miles of range with our 2016 Volt with warmer spring like 50 + degree weather. Gas mpg's is also over 45 mpg as well. last couple of trips we average a little over 48 mpg's on gas, with an overall average of 60 miles of electric for both trips.

 

[sosmerc]

I only have about 1200 miles on my new Volt, but today I got about 58 EV miles on a short trip that I started with an expected EV range of 54 miles. Got home with 2 miles left of EV range. After washing the car and then going to park it in garage the EV mileage was down to 0. That kind of surprised me, but I guess it was using battery to maintain temp? It's kind of a fun "game" trying to maximize EV usage and avoid use of gas. Good training for the next anticipated "pure BEV".

 

[KenC]

70 miles on a 55degree day is excellent! You might get another 6 miles in range on a 75 degree day, which I think is optimum temp-wise for maximizing range.

 

[bjrosen]

70 miles on a 55degree day is excellent! You might get another 6 miles in range on a 75 degree day, which I think is optimum temp-wise for maximizing range.

On a 75 degree day the air conditioner will have to do some work. The 55 degree number was at night when I got home, it was in the 60s and raining most of the day so it didn't have to do much, I had it set to ECO. The summer tires make a big difference, during the winter I was only getting 40MPG on the gas, battery of course suffered more because they don't work well in the cold and the defogger (which I flipped on and off as needed) sucks electricity. In all conditions speed is the most important thing, staying around 35 gets the 70 mile number. If you hold it to 30, which is the speed limit on a lot of roads around here, can push the MPGe up to 160 which is an 80 mile range. Last week I managed to get an MPGe of 155 in 50 miles of local driving, but I was really focused on pushing that number up because another poster here showed his Guess-O-Meter at 80 and I wanted to see if it was possible. BTW on my trip yesterday the highway speeds, all done in Hold mode, was in the low 70s.

 

[BAZINGA]

EV's are "fair weather" vehicles. This time of year my GOM hovers around 64 miles + or - a few. But come late fall and winter and it dropped to the high 40's/low 50's here in southern IL and we had one of the warmest winters on record.

That's the nature of the beast. Electric heat is so inefficient. That's an area EV manufactures need to work on.

But I'd bet anything if I wanted too I could hop in my 2017 Volt right now and drive in real world conditions (no hypermiling) and get 65+ miles from my charge, maybe more.

 

[canehdian]

Electric heat is so inefficient. That's an area EV manufactures need to work on.

Technically, electric heat is 100% efficient.
It's in comparison to ICEs that are so inefficient that they have "free" heat to spare, it looks less efficient to you from a fixed energy supply perspective

The only way to work on it is to pack in more energy storage, siphon heat from drivetrain like in ICE (though there's much less to grab) or use heat pumps (which can only be used in certain temperature ranges). Or break physics

 

[SSonnentag]

On my drive to my work location from home last night, I forced myself to drive 55 mph in order to see how far I could get on battery power. I doubt I'll be that patient very often, but the results are fun to look at.

 

[SSonnentag]

How do I get the MPGe and MPG to show up on my summary screen?

 

[bjrosen]

Tap the MPG icon on the left so that it says combined.

 

[SSonnentag]

Tap the MPG icon on the left so that it says combined.

Cool, thanks! I didn't even know that was a button.