ICE adventure

I've taken three long trips (each more than 600 miles total) in the Volt and it's perfectly fine.

You really can just drive it and forget it. You can use Mountain mode if you are worried about keeping an extra battery buffer, but unless you are truly in the mountains, don't worry about that.

If you like to play around with efficiency, I put the car in hold when I get up to speed and then if the SOC drops below the red Hold line, I'll toggle back to Normal for a few seconds to reset the Hold line so the car isn't trying to recharge the battery. Volt Stats reports ridiculously high MPGcs numbers for me using that method which are almost certainly not accurate, but I do regularly exceed the rage guess-o-meter by 80 miles or more at interstate speeds. On the interstate over a full tank of gas, I'll reset the Hold line two or three times on average over the 380 miles I'll drive on a tank. If you use this method, just remember to switch to Normal far enough out to deplete the battery before you reach your next charging opportunity.

Or just drive it and don't worry about it.

ScottinMA said:

I'm about to take my 2017 Volt for a long ride using ICE pretty much exclusively. Since I've owned the car for the past 6 months I have never used ICE except for intermittent highway rides lasting just a few miles. Is there anything to concern oneself about running about 600 miles one way on the ICE in a Volt with it's tiny gas engine?

Click to expand...

Hey! No need to give the Volt a size complex It's actually a 1.5L 4-cylinder... bigger than many cars out there. But it is detuned to only 100hp, which is pretty low for a car this heavy. Luckily the 160hp combined electric motors know how to make up for it.

Yes, you can just drive like a normal car. The only caveats are if you'll be in big mountains, be sure to engage Mountain mode ahead of time if you have no battery left. Now, if you want to, you can play all sorts of efficiency games, but you don't have to. My personal road-trip method is to let maybe 1-2 bars get used, then switch to Hold for all my highway miles. This saves electric miles for around town at my destination (low speed driving is pleasant on electric, less so on ICE as it can be noisy at low speeds... but it's hardly noticeable at highway speeds). It also takes the place of worrying about Mountain mode (Hold with a giant buffer like that is even better at climbing), and it gives me many electric miles in case I have an ICE issue (run out of gas or have other failure) so I can hopefully get somewhere for help if needed. If I am charging at a destination, I'll switch out of Hold when my estimated distance there matches the battery I have left... most efficient to use it up. But I often don't bother charging on road trips, unless it's very convenient. Not worth a lot of hassle to save $3 (free charging vs 1 gallon of gas). YMMV.

You're not going to have an issue with your '17. Heck, there is a crop of Gen 1 Volts that were run for years and never plugged in.

I only dipped too low once into the remaining battery buffer in my Gen 1, resulting in the "Propulsion Power Reduced" message for a second. I started the car in a rest area with an empty battery, and put on toasty Comfort Mode Heat. I then engaged in low-speed parking lot maneuvers for a minute while making my way to the on-ramp (the ICE did not turn over yet). I then floored it to get to 80MPH quickly for the merge onto I-95 (to not get run over). For a split second I saw the "propulsion power reduced" on the display, as the engine had started at this point but was still "idling" for 30 seconds before providing max power.

The high-speed merge onto I-95 must have used too much of the remaining buffer for the Volt's liking. When the engine finally revved up, it whined at its highest available RPM. However, the message went away in a few moments and there were no driveability issues whatsoever.

I think it was just one off event that was interesting and fortunately not dangerous. The '17 needs even less of the remaining battery buffer, so you're unlikely to ever notice an issue. However, it wouldn't hurt to keep it in Mountain Mode just to make sure you'll never dip too far.