IF THE BATTERY IS EMPTY, IT TAKE AROUND 15 KWH TO FULLY CHARGE .

 

I'm curious too. I know the Gen 2's usable ranges from 13.9-14.2 KwH...

 

Here are some numbers from my experience with our 2016 Volt. Depleted a fully charged battery - 14.1 kWh indicated on the central display. Fully charged overnight on my Blink L2. Reached full charge, with the Blink showing 15.68 kWh. The difference is due to the inefficiencies of the charging system. Hope that helps.

 

I use a Kill-a-watt meter to measure the electricity I use to charge my 2016 Volt. It usually takes between 16.2 and 16.5 KWH to charge it after fully depleting the battery.


The range is highly dependent on the temperature and the speed you drive. I've gotten anywhere between 40 to 66 miles on a full charge.

 

Non-DC charging is usually about 85% efficient. According to the Kill-A-Watt meter I used while I was still charging with the supplied travel charger, my ELR goes through about 12.5kWh before the battery is depleted, and it takes about 14.5kWh to completely recharge it.

12.5/14.5=86.2% efficiency.

Your mileage may vary...buy probably not by much.

--Chris

 

Non-DC charging is usually about 85% efficient.

Does current affect the efficiency? For instance, is charging at 8 amps more or less efficient than 12 amp charging?

 

Many factors affect the efficiency of electricity transmission. Larger wire, better conductive materials such as gold and silver, and shorter distance to a battery pack increase efficiency. Cold weather has a tremendous detrimental effect. Driving off-route to recharge obviously reduces range. Traveling 45 MPH is far more efficient that ramming against air friction at 70 MPH. Regarding comparative costs between gasoline and electricity: I pay $0.06 per mile for gasoline, while I pay $0.00 per mile for electricity. I have a free charging station that only costs me a half-mile of hiking every day and a couple hours of lost sleep to pick-up my car in the night.

 

To answer the OP, the last time I checked my numbers, I pay PG&E roughly $1.88 to equate to a gallon of gas, which today is fluctuating around $2.65. I am getting 67 and 77, respectively, mpg.

 

Volt happy

I bought a Volt to replace my 99 Rodeo, getting 12-14 miles to the gallon. What I pay in a car payment is what I used to spend on gas - and my car is new and has no issues, it is very reliable. I was a bit worried about the cost of charging so I replaced 4 light bulbs in the house with LED bulbs. My electricity bill did not go up. $20 in LED bulbs from Ikea and it offset the cost to charge......

 

I bought a Volt to replace my 99 Rodeo, getting 12-14 miles to the gallon. What I pay in a car payment is what I used to spend on gas - and my car is new and has no issues, it is very reliable. I was a bit worried about the cost of charging so I replaced 4 light bulbs in the house with LED bulbs. My electricity bill did not go up. $20 in LED bulbs from Ikea and it offset the cost to charge......

No doubt you will save monthly compared to the feeding and care of an older suv, but the few 10's of watt-hours you save with led lights is like barely 1% of the 10000-16000 watt-hours (10-16 kwh) per day it will take you to recharge a Volt. Maybe you are just driving a few miles per day and not taking that much- you probably wouldn't notice an extra 3 kwh per day as a large change on your electric bill.

 

For my 2017 Chevy Volt Premier, a full charge requires about 16 kWh. (Reported by my ChargePoint home charger, a CPH25-L25-P.)

So if we were to compare between the 2017 Volt and a 2016 Toyota Prius (which I think is a very reasonable point of comparison), for an owner living in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada:

• The Volt's full electric charge would cost me about $1.22USD at off-peak pricing.
• Gas would cost me about $3.09 USD per gallon.
• A 2016 Toyota Prius gets roughly 53mpg per gallon, which is conveniently in-line with the electric range of the Volt.

This means that the 2017 Volt owner would pay about $1.22 and the 2016 Prius owner about $3.09 to cover roughly 53 miles, a savings of ~60%. Of course, the outcome of this calculation depends heavily on the gas car which you compare against, whether or not you can charge at off-peak rates, as well as on the driving conditions. (Also, since I reported in USD$, my values are subject to the CAD-to-USD spot rate.)

 

Today, regular fuel is $2.55 outside Anchorage - I am charged 0.18/kwh from utility co.
I commute 21.2 miles regularly - and when "zipping' around on errands, I return home with between 15-10 miles on battery. I don't fully charge overnight since I don't deplete the battery each day. But I am figuring these numbers based on full charging on the average 16kwh.
Full charge costs ~$2.88 for ~50miles or 0.0576 cents per mile (if I'm doing the mathematics correctly).
Prior, I owned a Mazda 3GT (short lived but 29mpgs) & a Jeep Renegade and averaged 19mpg.
For 50miles range Volt = $2.88 on the same range on Jeep = $6.71.

However, yesterday at 621miles, when pressing down and releasing the brake from a stop, the noise began re: For a "squeaking" type noise at the brake pedal during apply/release there is an updated braking "push-rod retainer" that alleviates the squeaking. The dealer should refer to Bulletin #16-NA-147 -- not sure if this is the exact culprit, but it happened regularly in stop and go in line at a drive through last night. I will pay particular attention to this today when I have it out and about.
Good luck, I can only say, I wished I had bought this car much earlier in life and encourage you and others to do it too. No car is 100% in all aspects - but this is really a fantastic driver - get the optional Confidence Package 1 though as a minimal : )

 

I am surprised that there are not more plug in electric type cars on the road in the Greater Vancouver area. The current price for electricity here is "8.29(CDN about 6.3US) cents per kWh for the first 1,350 kWh you use over an average two-month billing period. Above that amount, you pay 12.43(CDN 9.45) cents per kWh". And the current price for regular gas is $1.189/l CDN or $3.42US/us gal.
I am guessing this is probably one of the lower electricity prices, and one of the highest gas prices around. A perfect spot for a Volt.

Could someone please figure out the savings per charge in Vancouver vs some other city? Thanks.

 

I am surprised that there are not more plug in electric type cars on the road in the Greater Vancouver area. The current price for electricity here is "8.29(CDN about 6.3US) cents per kWh for the first 1,350 kWh you use over an average two-month billing period. Above that amount, you pay 12.43(CDN 9.45) cents per kWh". And the current price for regular gas is $1.189/l CDN or $3.42US/us gal. I am guessing this is probably one of the lower electricity prices, and one of the highest gas prices around. A perfect spot for a Volt.

And the icing on the cake is that virtually all our power is hydroelectric, so it's about as "green" as you can get.

I see a decent number of Leafs and the odd Tesla here and there, but Volt sightings are pretty rare. Of course it's possible that they just blend in better with all the other Chevys out there.

 

I'm one kwh off on a full charge; measuring 15.85kwh vs the EPA 16.85kwh.

The gen2 has an EPA 53 mile range and 106mpge. So the 53 mile range is exactly "1/2" of an EPA mpge, where an EPA mpge is defined as 33.7kwh = 1 gallon. So, by EPA's definition, it should take 16.85kwh to fully charge a gen2 Volt after driving an average of 53 miles to drain the battery.

But nobody sees 16.85kwh. I've drained the battery twice, and myvolt reports averaged 15.85 kwh in 4 hours 20min and 4 hours 21min. Maybe myvolt isn't terribly accurate; though 3.6kw on a ClipperCreek L2 times 4 hours 20min = 15.6kwh which roughly matches. Or maybe the 16.85kwh number accounts for a lot of TMS battery cooling in hot weather, which I did see with our gen1 in the summer. There are more I^2R losses for L1, so maybe 16.85kwh means charging from an L1 at 120v/12amps instead of from an L2 at 240v/15amps. Or maybe is a combination of all of those. Just curious. FYI, I am seeing 14.2kwh used on the dashboard display, but that is battery kwh, not plug kwh.

 

I've looked at this and came up with the following: The Gen II volts EPA range (53 miles) is approximately 1/2 gallon MPGe for 33.7kwh. Using 14.0 - 14.1 kwh as the Volts available battery capacity and assuming 20% range extension due to regen this is 16.8 - 16.9 kwh of effective capacity. I know that the GM engineers must have analyzed a mountain of data to come up with the 20% regen factor but in the end the pareto principle applies.

 

The on board charger is supposed to be 86 percent efficient if i recall right. anyhow 14.2 kwh divided by .85xx is 16.7kwh so that's how I see the math. There could be a bit more loss in the evse as well so the house meter and your utility sees that.

I roughly estimate the 15% loss in my head...so 10kWh on the car's screen will take 11.5kwh actual...give or take.

 

Today a full charge required 15.73 kWH, with 49 EV miles showing on dash and temp on center display showing 52F. On Aug. 10. 2016, a full charge required 16.11 kWh, with 54 miles and temp of. 73F. The energy is read from my Blink charger. The ambient temp has a strong impact on the charging results, at least for me.

 

Our 2016 Volt with a full charge from empty is around 16 KWH. Electric cost, this is the true delivered price with all fees and taxes, is .117 / KWH. Cost to charge for us, $1.872. Our current winter range on electric is 45-48 miles, summer 55+. Our 2010 Prius winter driving is averaging 45 mpg on regular gas at $2.379 / gallon. Winter does take its toll on both the Prius and Electric range of our Volt. Now driving on the gas engine on the Volt when the battery is depleted is just about the same as the mpg we are getting with our Prius. Seems like the Volt's gas engine does not take a big a hit on mpg on gas as our 2010 Prius does in winter. Now summer the Prius is 55 mpg...

 

When someone says that they get a free charge, they just mean that there is no explicit cost being paid for charging. Everyone knows that electricity is not actually free.

It's no different than free parking. Of course we all know it's not free. Land is not free, and nobody builds a parking ramp for free.

If it's public parking, it comes out of taxes. If private where you work, I guess you could say it comes out of your wages or is built into the price of whatever the company produces. If it's at a shopping mall then it's built into the price of everything you buy there.

Still it's normal convention to just say it's free parking and not go into a big song and dance about how it's not actually free.

I know what someone means when they say they got a free charge, and respect their intelligence enough to trust that they know that electricity is not actually free.

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In Los Angeles, many city agencies offer free public charging. For example, there are many City Public Work facilities that offer free public charging stations, as well as Department of Water and Power facilities. Is it paid for by taxpayers, most likely. But as a taxpayer myself, should I feel like I'm stealing from the City for utilizing these facilities. I don't think so.

 

Free charging is a way to support and encourage the purchase and use of EV's. Everyone benefits from an environmental standpoint.

Do those driving ICE vehicles think that it's really free to dump their exhaust fumes into the atmosphere?

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Your comment reminded me of an arrest that occurred in 2013:

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/ga-man-arrested-charging-electric-car-local-middle/story?id=21098590

Reading the Comments Section is interesting.

 

I have OpenEVSE charger that reads out current and total charge - the last Volt juice up consumed 15.65 kwhr AC power, and my Volt's used up capacity was 13.8 kwhr, garage charging temp was ~85F; ~12% lost to AC to DC conversion and battery conditioning. I have seen Volt take anywhere from 15.2kwhr on colder days, to 16.0 kwhr on really hot days.

 

myvolt.com indicates for our 2016 Volt from a fully discharged battery reading 0 miles it takes 16 KWH from the plug for a usable 14 KWH of energy. Price per KWH with all cost, this is computed by your total bill; for example $150.00 for a total of 1380 KWH used. Now by dividing 1380 into $150.00 you have $.1087 / KWH. Our rate is .114 KWH, even though the bill states is .07-09 KWH.

Unlike any other commodity the more you use the more you pay for KWH up here in N/W Oregon with Pacific Power.