[darylVOLT2017]

Hi, I'm excited to join this forum, having purchased my 2017 Volt in February last year!

I haven't had this car in cold temperatures before (last winter was mild) but when we got the latest cold snap here in Ohio, I noticed that my mileage rating for the battery went down significantly in just a few days. I was getting 50-62 miles just on the battery, but once it got cold I was down to only 35. I realize that the ICE runs first thing on a cold morning, and it will kick in from time to time, but the drop is much more severe than I had expected.

Anything you can think that I might be doing wrong to cause such a drop?

Thanks!

Daryl

 

[Steverino]

This is normal. It's winter. Cars, all cars, are less efficient in the winter.

 

[Coppersnowboarder]

Battery range drops by about one-fourth in winter, so a 35-mile range is not abnormal. On my 20-mile daily commute my overall fuel economy drops to about 100 MPG when the engine runs at temperatures below about 13 F degrees. While I go through less than a half-charge on the battery pack during the summer, I nearly consume the entire charge in winter. Charging takes me about 3 hours in winter compared with 2 hours in summer. Since much of my driving is through remote areas of the mountains, about 5,000 miles per year entirely on gasoline, my overall lifetime efficiency is about 80 MPG with the 2013 Volt.

 

[Slotracer577]

Normal, last winter we ended up right around 30 mile range when it was really cold. Back into the 55-60 range in the summer. My Bolt went from 210 to 130. I expect it will go back up come warm weather. Sucks, but that's life with current battery technology.

 

[TSquare]

Anything you can think that I might be doing wrong to cause such a drop?

The only thing you are doing wrong is living in a place that has winter.

 

[viking79]

The electric heater in the Volt requires more than 1 kwh of battery charge in 10 minutes at full power. If you have a 30 min round trip commute like I do around 3 kwh of my 10 kwh usable would go to powering the heater and another 3 to 4 kwh to driving on a very cold day (like 0F high).

If you need your range back or want to use less gas, you can precondition so you dont need the heater as much. But this works best if you have L2 charging so you can let the car charge return to full before setting off.

 

[cougsfan]

One thing that the Volt has made me realize is how much energy it takes in the winter to heat the interior of a car. On a normal car, a vast excess of wasted engine heat is available to heat the car (Its one of the reasons they are gas hogs!) The Volt doesn't have that waste energy, so it has to rob from the energy that would otherwise be used to power the car. Add to that the less holding capacity of a battery when it is cold.... whammo your e-range drops significantly in the winter. Of course none of the advertising literature talks about that. None the less, the Volt is still so much more energy efficient than any conventional vehicle. I am not at all sorry I bought one.

 

[hellsop]

One thing that the Volt has made me realize is how much energy it takes in the winter to heat the interior of a car. On a normal car, a vast excess of wasted engine heat is available to heat the car (Its one of the reasons they are gas hogs!) The Volt doesn't have that waste energy, so it has to rob from the energy that would otherwise be used to power the car.

Every gallon of gasoline has about 30kwh of power: 1/3 moves the car, 1/3 heats the engine (and much of that can be recouped to heat the cabin), and 1/3 just goes straight out the tailpipe for no good effect.