[Cutaway]

I have a brand new 2018 Chevy Volt. It's fully charged each night. And my driving is mostly city condition.

I drove 2 miles to with the Max heat on while taking kids to school. The EV Range goes from 52 mi. to 40 mi. (2 ticks removed on the gauge)

I drove 12 miles to work with nothing on. The EV Range goes from 54 mi. to 50 mi. (only 1 tick removed on the gauge)

Is something wrong with my car or is this typical for Volt? Other than this odd observation. It's appears to be running just fine...even used the gas a few times.

Thank you in advance.

 

[VoltAP1]

Read this:

https://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?232241-Getting-to-Know-Your-2016-Volt

 

[eDreamin']

Read this:

https://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?232241-Getting-to-Know-Your-2016-Volt

...paying particular attention to the Efficiency sections.

But, in a nutshell,
Use heat, lose miles.

 

[El Dobro]

It's not called the Guess-O-Meter for nothing.

 

[obermd]

Electric heat is "expensive". Try preconditioning your Volt while it's plugged in. This will reduce the battery costs of electric heat.

 

[Cutaway]

It's not called the Guess-O-Meter for nothing.

Thanks. "Guess-O-Meter" is the magic word I was looking for to validate my hunch...

 

[Cutaway]

...paying particular attention to the Efficiency sections.

But, in a nutshell,
Use heat, lose miles.

Gotcha! Wow, I live in California. And because we are wussies, we run the heater to in the morning.

What is the world people do in the cold states with their Chevy Volt? They must get terrible mileage for running the heater OR they suffer without using it.

Good to know...interesting...

Thanks all!

 

[jcanoe]

I have a brand new 2018 Chevy Volt. It's fully charged each night. And my driving is mostly city condition.

I drove 2 miles to with the Max heat on while taking kids to school. The EV Range goes from 52 mi. to 40 mi. (2 ticks removed on the gauge)

I drove 12 miles to work with nothing on. The EV Range goes from 54 mi. to 50 mi. (only 1 tick removed on the gauge)

Is something wrong with my car or is this typical for Volt? Other than this odd observation. It's appears to be running just fine...even used the gas a few times.

Thank you in advance.

Precondition the Volt with the heat set to Max, temperature set to at least 73F, in the A.M. for up to 10 minutes, while your Volt is still plugged in. After preconditioning you will be able to drive the 2 miles to the school with the heat on Economy or even Off. The pre-warmed coolant in cabin heat exchanger will continue to blow out warm air for at least 10 minutes. For the 12 mile drive, continue to drive with the heat off or on the economy setting, set to 73F. Use the heated seats and steering wheel (if equipped.) If things get too cold inside the cabin you can cycle the electric heat on and off until you are warm.

 

[Cord]

and now you know why fuel flow and range were left out of gas cars for so long.

What is my BTU per drop of gas number today ;-)

BUT soon Google will be able to guess where your are going and how fast and the range numbers will get better.

 

[Runion]

I have a brand new 2018 Chevy Volt. It's fully charged each night. And my driving is mostly city condition.

I drove 2 miles to with the Max heat on while taking kids to school. The EV Range goes from 52 mi. to 40 mi. (2 ticks removed on the gauge)

I drove 12 miles to work with nothing on. The EV Range goes from 54 mi. to 50 mi. (only 1 tick removed on the gauge)

Is something wrong with my car or is this typical for Volt? Other than this odd observation. It's appears to be running just fine...even used the gas a few times.

Thank you in advance.

---------------

Unless GM made changes to the logorythm that computes mileage, your mileage is computed like all the other Volts.

If you drive in the cold weather you are automatically being dinged mileage.
If you are using Air Con or the Heat, you are being dinged for the mileage.
If you hit the gas hard (jack rabbit starts), you are being dinged for the mileage.
If you drive on top of the stop signs/lights and hit the break hard, you are being dinged for mileage.
If you don't use cruise control you are being dinged for mileage.
If you do not use regen/coast while approaching stop signs/lights, you are being dinged for mileage.
If you drive over 40 miles per hour for any length of time, you are being dinged for mileage.
If you drive over hills or up mountain grades you are being dinged for mileage.
The Guess-O-Meter was called this by owners because they don't know what else to call it and they need an "out" for poor mileage readings.
The Guess-O-Meter is a computer. It takes hard readings from all the above listed sources plus quite a few others and it runs
through a logorythm and comes up with the mileage reading you see on your dash after charging.
This mileage reading is entirely fed by the way the car is driven, how hard/soft you drive, how you respond with the brakes,
the temperature, energy use(lights/heat/AC/etc), if you use regen to slow down/or not, and others.
It all gets results and is thrown into a formula and the result is more or less what you would expect.

I can tell you on flat land with little hills, under 40mph, in D (drive) using cruise control, IN SUMMER HEAT, the best I have
had come up repeatedly above 80 miles after the charge.
In the Winter when it is cold it drops below 40 and if you use the heat, even less.

The Guess-O-Meter responds to everything you throw at it, computes it and will tell you what mileage you should
expect IF YOU DRIVE THE SAME WAY YOU DID THE PREVIOUS DAY.
If you drive easy, flatlands, no hills at 30 mile per hour and get a reading of about 60 miles after a charge, then the next day
go out and tear down the highway at 55mph, run over hills, slam on the breaks, put the pedal to the metal when starting off
from a stop, you miles are going to be much less next charge up.
The car is sensitive to everything that it experiences and critical to speeds, take offs, regen, hills and driver input.
Any variance in any of these or combination of these will give you different miles readings.
Basically, the controlling factor is the DRIVER(includes comfort settings like HEAT and AC), THE TERRAIN and THE SPEED.

 

[mjones21]

In response to what do people in cold states do, precondition as jcanoe said, make very liberal use of seat and steering wheel heaters (in my opinion, the single must-have option on a Volt in cold weather states, and presumably any EV that doesn't have a heat pump), and I tend to kick it into hold mode when travelling 50+ on the highway, as the gas engine is quite efficient at those speeds, and I get "free" engine heat.

 

[JoeReal]

Better than the preconditioning is you get into the car, turn it on while plugged in, set to max comfort, heated seats on, steering wheel heat on, and 80F cabin temp, get out and prepare for work, come back 10 minutes later and turn off the car. Then eat your breakfast. By the time you're done with breakfast, the car is fully charged again, and so you simply unplug and drive with a really comfortable conditioned car.

It is quicker to heat the car by turning it on, and quicker to full recharge than preconditioning it with fobkey or app as it would sometimes take 20 minutes or more for car to fully recharge again from preconditioning. And that 20 minutes of recharging can quickly cool the cabin again.

 

[jcanoe]

Better than the preconditioning is you get into the car, turn it on while plugged in, set to max comfort, heated seats on, steering wheel heat on, and 80F cabin temp, get out and prepare for work, come back 10 minutes later and turn off the car. Then eat your breakfast. By the time you're done with breakfast, the car is fully charged again, and so you simply unplug and drive with a really comfortable conditioned car.

It is quicker to heat the car by turning it on, and quicker to full recharge than preconditioning it with fobkey or app as it would sometimes take 20 minutes or more for car to fully recharge again from preconditioning. And that 20 minutes of recharging can quickly cool the cabin again.

Are you using Level 2 charging? When I precondition my 2017 Volt using Level 2, if I set the climate control to Max, recirculate with temperature set to at least 80F the worst case battery SOC deficit is 0.6kW - 0.8kW. This is 2 - 3 miles of EV range and not worth waiting to top off before driving. In the time it would take to eat breakfast, unless you eat very quickly, the cabin will start to cool down.

Whether you turn on the Volt or use the preconditioning, assuming the engine assist heat is set to deferred, the maximum amount of energy used to heat the cabin is 9kW (typically 6kW) for the 10 or 20 minute preconditioning period. The electric seats can be programmed to turn on automatically (this includes the preconditioning period.) The heated steering wheel can also be set to turn on automatically in the 2018 and later Volt with this option.

What I have experienced in my 2017 Volt when preconditioning using the MyChevrolet app, is the app will set the climate control to what it feels is optimal, override the vehicle's last climate control settings. (I call this mode the Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want" method of preconditioning. If you precondition using the physical key fob instead of the app the preconditioning cycle will use precisely last settings for the climate control and temperature, even if you forgot and had the blower fan set to minimum speed and/or the electric heat turned off (oops!)

 

[Cord]

Just to be clear the car computer does take some real world data into account when you start the car.
one being the state of charge numbers.
WOT had a post on this long ago.

 

[Steverino]

Better than the preconditioning is you get into the car, turn it on while plugged in, set to max comfort, heated seats on, steering wheel heat on, and 80F cabin temp, get out and prepare for work, come back 10 minutes later and turn off the car. Then eat your breakfast. By the time you're done with breakfast, the car is fully charged again, and so you simply unplug and drive with a really comfortable conditioned car.

It is quicker to heat the car by turning it on, and quicker to full recharge than preconditioning it with fobkey or app as it would sometimes take 20 minutes or more for car to fully recharge again from preconditioning. And that 20 minutes of recharging can quickly cool the cabin again.

Your is example IS what we all call preconditioning, JoeReal. The only change you introduced was getting into the car and changing the existing settings instead of using the fob. You don't have to do that. The car will use what it was last set to when it was turned off the night before.

Or did you mean turn on the gas engine when you said turn on the car? Two different things.

 

[hellsop]

Your is example IS what we all call preconditioning, JoeReal. The only change you introduced was getting into the car and changing the existing settings instead of using the fob. You don't have to do that. The car will use what it was last set to when it was turned off the night before.

nnnnnn.... Not exactly, at least not for all years. On my 2012, if I've a preset fan speed that's low, it'll override that on precondition. If I set to Fan Only, it'll switch to Comfort/MAX on precondition. It'll also turn on auto-defog during precondition. It'll RETURN all those settings to what I had when I turn the car on to drive, but the precondition does not fool around.

 

[JoeReal]

Your is example IS what we all call preconditioning, JoeReal. The only change you introduced was getting into the car and changing the existing settings instead of using the fob. You don't have to do that. The car will use what it was last set to when it was turned off the night before.

Or did you mean turn on the gas engine when you said turn on the car? Two different things.

Did you really try it?

The speculation is that for level 2 EVSE, when you turn on the car while plugged in, the HVAC when turned on draws more from the EVSE than the batteries. When remote preconditioning with fobkey or app, the HVAC draws more from the battery than the EVSE.

The effect is that it takes longer to recharge the car back to full when doing remote preconditioning than physically turning it on to precondition while plugged in. For me the difference is about 15 minutes of recharging between the two methods, Max comfort, temperature set to 80F, and ambient air is about 35F.

That's how it is with my 2017 Volt. Anyone else tried this? I know this was mentioned here some time ago, but the preconditioning was during the summer to achieve cooler temperature in a hot garage.

 

[jcanoe]

Did you really try it?

The speculation is that for level 2 EVSE, when you turn on the car while plugged in, the HVAC when turned on draws more from the EVSE than the batteries. When remote preconditioning with fobkey or app, the HVAC draws more from the battery than the EVSE.

The effect is that it takes longer to recharge the car back to full when doing remote preconditioning than physically turning it on to precondition while plugged in. For me the difference is about 15 minutes of recharging between the two methods, Max comfort, temperature set to 80F, and ambient air is about 35F.

That's how it is with my 2017 Volt. Anyone else tried this? I know this was mentioned here some time ago, but the preconditioning was during the summer to achieve cooler temperature in a hot garage.

The Volt always draws its power for heating and air conditioning from the high voltage battery (assuming there is sufficient battery charge.) If not, the gas engine will start to maintain the battery at minimum state of charge (SOC.) If the Volt is plugged in (either Level 1 or Level 2) as soon as the battery SOC starts to drop the on-board charger will begin recharging the battery.

It may help to visualize a sink full of water where you partially open the sink stopper and water starts to drain out, then turn on the faucet part way open and fresh water starts to fill the sink up again. If perfectly balanced, the amount of water draining out of the sink will precisely match the volume of fresh water being added from the faucet. Level 1 charging is like only providing a trickle water into the sink while the water continues to drain out. Level 2 charging enables more than twice as much water to flow from the faucet. There is still more water draining out than coming in but the difference is very slight, over the 10 minutes that preconditioning is running the net deficit to the battery using Level 2 is ~ 0.6 - 0.8 kWh.

The reason that preconditioning using the MyChevrolet App can use less energy from the battery than preconditioning with the key fob is that the app always selects the minimum amount of heating or cooling needed to make the cabin comfortable (not necessarily super heated or super cold) while the key fob will use the last HVAC settings regardless of whether this is the most efficient way to heat or cool the cabin. This difference in the behavior of the App and the key fob pre-conditioning is true whether or not the Volt is plugged in. I find it helpful to think of the following songs by the Rolling Stones:

You Can't Always Get What You Want - Preconditioning using the MyChevrolet App
Start Me Up - Preconditioning using the key fob.

 

[wordptom]

The comment made above by jcanoe awakened a recollection I had from several years ago that the climate settings used for a remote start done using the key fob are not necessarily the same as those used for a remote start done using the app or the mychevy website.

About five or six years ago there were a number of discussions on remote start on this forum. The various comments suggested that a remote start with the key fob merely starts the engine and uses climate settings at whatever they were when you last turned off your car (so plan ahead for the morning and set them before you turn off the car, including any "auto" settings). A remote start using the smartphone app, apparently, used the cabin temperature as a guide for climate settings used when starting the car.

I seem to recall comments have over time since then been posted debating whether or not such distinctions continue to apply.

Currently, the app text says: "Electric Preconditioning/Long Range Remote Start: During Long Range Remote Start on your vehicle: The climate control system will default to an appropriate heating or cooling mode...."

Whereas, the 2018 Volt owner manual says: "During remote start: The climate control system will typically default to the last climate setting. If the fan is off or if eco and MAX are not selected, the air conditioning or heat will turn on as needed... If equipped with heated seats, and the vehicle personalization setting is enabled, the remote start auto heated seats may also come on... If equipped the heated steering wheel may also come on... The rear window defogger will turn on during colder outside temperatures... Selecting [symbol for defrost] during colder outside temperatures before shutting the vehicle off will help windshield clearing... Shutting the vehicle off in eco mode without [symbol for defrost] selected will minimize the impact to electric range. Shutting the vehicle off in other modes will maximize heating or air conditioning."

 

[ssl92677]

There's no such word as logorythm. The correct word is:

Algorithm: a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.