[barbyoung]

My husband has a friend with a 2012 Volt who says that if you pop the hood, the Volt will charge faster. This would be in a garage. Not sure if garage is heated, or whether it's charging on 110 or a Level 2. BS or ?????

 

[Tomt]

Nope! It makes no difference whatsoever.

 

[Qinsp]

Uh... Time for a test. When you have the ign on, and pop the hood, the generator runs.

Will it charge while the ign is on in park?

If so, it is possible the charge rate could be higher.

It would be a neat experiment.

 

[srmarti]

I'm guessing the rationale is cooling for the electronics is better and more of the input goes to the battery instead of cooling. Not so sure the difference if any would even be measurable.

 

[canehdian]

Uh... Time for a test. When you have the ign on, and pop the hood, the generator runs.

Will it charge while the ign is on in park?

If so, it is possible the charge rate could be higher.

It would be a neat experiment.

The engine runs unloaded while in the under-hood maintenance mode - you generate nothing.

This mode exists solely for the benefit of the technician, not the vehicle's operation.
1. safety - know the vehicle is on and not be sticking your fingers into moving parts that could suddenly start up if you didn't know it was on
2. force the engine to turn to test various functions instead of having to wait for buffer level to reach a certain endpoint and have the engine kick on via normal programming

 

[eDreamin']

And you can make ice cubes faster by filling the trays with hot water.
And premium gas gives you better mileage than regular.
And the paddle recovers more energy than the brakes.
And using the "Volting" technique--- well, I better stop right there.

 

[ampera_jed]

Not a thing I would ever consider testing for.

Mine takes a fixed amount of time each and every night to charge up, namely..... one night's worth of charging.

Doesn't matter to me if it charges at 1kW or 30kW so long as it is charged before the next morning.

If it were to charge 10% more efficiently, then wake me up and let me know. This I would strongly doubt. The laws of electrochemistry, physics and thermodynamics don't change with an open bonnet, as far as I am aware.

I'll stick with 'volting' for my free energy needs, for now.

 

[rdunniii]

The engine runs unloaded while in the under-hood maintenance mode - you generate nothing.

This mode exists solely for the benefit of the technician, not the vehicle's operation.
1. safety - know the vehicle is on and not be sticking your fingers into moving parts that could suddenly start up if you didn't know it was on
2. force the engine to turn to test various functions instead of having to wait for buffer level to reach a certain endpoint and have the engine kick on via normal programming

3. Circulate the oil after an oil change.

 

[Joe67]

My husband has a friend with a 2012 Volt who says that if you pop the hood, the Volt will charge faster. This would be in a garage. Not sure if garage is heated, or whether it's charging on 110 or a Level 2. BS or ?????

Ask his friend why he believes that to be the case.

 

[canehdian]

3. Circulate the oil after an oil change.

I'd lump that into (2), but yes. Whatever reason a tech would need to have the engine turn on immediately.