[Genghis]

I was under the impression starting the car while it's plugged in would not use up my charge but I noticed it has.
Is my assumption wrong or am I doing something wrong?

 

[TSquare]

Is my assumption wrong or am I doing something wrong?

Yes & no you are not doing anything wrong.
The 110volt supply can not supply enough power for the Volt's heater, it will use some battery.

 

[itzdaniel]

I was under the impression starting the car while it's plugged in would not use up my charge but I noticed it has.
Is my assumption wrong or am I doing something wrong?

Unless you're using a 240v charger, preconditioning will use some battery.

 

[ViperRT10Matt]

Preconditioning can still use battery even with the 240v charger. It's just a question of how fast it gets put back in.

 

[ckk]

just to be clear, "preconditioning" means the remote start thing either from the key fob or the myvolt.com/app thing.

it sounds like the original poster here meant actually getting into the car and pressing the power on button? but yes that will use power too, same as a remote precondition start will. (maybe less because with an explicit power on you have control over the climate settings and could have it on Fan Only perhaps)

 

[saghost]

I was under the impression starting the car while it's plugged in would not use up my charge but I noticed it has.
Is my assumption wrong or am I doing something wrong?

The electric heat can draw about 7kW (including blower fans, pumps, etc.) The electric A/C can draw almost 5 (including the radiator fan.) At 12 amps, a 110V wire is delivering ~1.3kW, some of which is lost in conversion to DC. Even the 220V line at 15 amps is only 3.3kW.

It isn't as bad as that makes it sound, because it doesn't run wide open for the whole ten minutes.

 

[Neromanceres]

Preconditioning can still use battery even with the 240v charger. It's just a question of how fast it gets put back in.

Correct.

On 240V the Volt can draw 3.3KW of energy from the wall. On 120V (on 12A setting) it can draw 1.4KW max from the wall. Yet the heating system in the Volt can consume as much as 7KW of electrical energy. The balance comes from the battery in both situations. But obviously the car uses less from the battery and recovers the charge much faster using 240V.

 

[Genghis]

Awesome, thanks for clearing that up everyone!
And, yes, I sometimes turned the car on (not just remote start) so that I could get more than 10 mins.

 

[Chevrolet Customer Svc]

I was under the impression starting the car while it's plugged in would not use up my charge but I noticed it has.
Is my assumption wrong or am I doing something wrong?

Genghis,

The cabin heater on the Volt will use up to 5 kW of power. If the vehicle is started or preconditioned while plugged in, the 120v cord will provide 1 kW from the electrical grid, and a 240v cord will provide 3 kW from the grid. The Volt will not limit itself to the available grid energy for pre-conditioning.
I hope this answers your question. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

-Ian Chevrolet Volt Customer Service

 

[silvercorvette]

just to be clear, "preconditioning" means the remote start thing either from the key fob or the myvolt.com/app thing.

it sounds like the original poster here meant actually getting into the car and pressing the power on button? but yes that will use power too, same as a remote precondition start will. (maybe less because with an explicit power on you have control over the climate settings and could have it on Fan Only perhaps)

I disagree that when you precondition remotely that you will not gain the full benefit of the whatever heat the car can produce if the climate control is set to fan only

I make it a practice to leave the heat control temperature thermostat set to 88°, but l have the fan control set to off and the mode set to fan only when I exit the car. Even though the fan is turned off and the mode is set to fan only the climate control is still going to do whatever is necessary to get the car interior temperature as close as possible to the temperature you set the thermostat (Limited only by the electrical heat System to produce heat BTUs). On a very cold day the electrical resistance heating system may not be able to produce enough BTUs to bring the car up to temperature but it will come as close as possible limited only by the amount of BTUs it is able to produce. My main point is that whatever settings you have be they fan, economy, comfort or whatever it is irrelevant because when you do a remote start the system will take over and automatically configure your climate control system to get the interior of the cabin as close to the temperature that you have the thermostat set to. If you're calling for maximum heat the heating system will just do whatever is necessary to the climate control settings and take over the system settings to do so. In cold weather I make it a practice always leave the thermostat set to the warmest setting that way when I get into the car it will be warmer than I need it to be so I can leave the heat turned off for a while. Sometimes I'm able to get to my destination before the interior of the car cools down to the point where I need to turn climate control system back on again so basically I'm driving with climate control totally turned off and am still comfortable.

I had my car for a couple months before I had the 240 V charger installed and for the couple months that I was charging with 120 V I noticed that it almost was not worth preheating the car because I was still depleting the battery trying to preheat the car while plugged into 120 V. You do gain a little bit by preheating at 120 V, but to really get the most benefit from preheating you really need a 240 V charger

 

[ckk]

sigh. re "silvercorvette" yes, you misunderstood what I wrote, and you're actually agreeing with me.

If you remote-precondition, you don't have to set the climate controls beforehand; you get something like, "Comfort" with a high temperature, so it uses energy accordingly (even when plugged in).

But if you actually get in the car and turn it on, your climate control settings apply. So you might use, say 3 kw of energy if you've set it to Comfort with a high temperature, or you might just use 0.5 kw if you've set it to Fan Only (even when plugged in).....

judging from sitting at a stoplight this morning (NOT plugged in), outside temp. around 37F, noticed 3kw power usage in DIC with climate = Comfort/72F. Changed climate to Fan Only, power usage immediately dropped to my more usual 0.5kw.

 

[TSquare]

Directly from the manual:

During remote start:

. The climate control system will typically default to the last climate settings. If the fan is off or if Fan Only was selected, the air conditioning or heat will turn on as needed.

 

[Joule]

So, for 110v x 12a plugged in folks in cold places, if they want to leave with a full battery- should they "pre-pre-condition"? That is, precondition like 45 minutes before departure time to pre-preheat the car, then allow time to replenish the charge so that less energy is needed to reheat it when it's closer to departure time?

 

[jsmay311]

The cabin heater on the Volt will use up to 5 kW of power. If the vehicle is started or preconditioned while plugged in, the 120v cord will provide 1 kW from the electrical grid, and a 240v cord will provide 3 kW from the grid. The Volt will not limit itself to the available grid energy for pre-conditioning.
I hope this answers your question. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

-Ian Chevrolet Volt Customer Service

Thanks for clarifying, Ian. This lines up with what I've observed with some battery energy being used up after a remote start even when on a 240V EVSE. (I can also attest to the fact that you get heat during a remote start even if you left the climate controls on Fan Only.)

However, I must point out that the OP can't be blamed for being misinformed on this subject because only 2 weeks ago a GM representative stated precisely the opposite of what you just posted during the "Cold Weather Driving Tips" web chat:

"12:51 Kevin Kelly: Mark W: This is a great question. If you have your Volt plugged into the grid and activate the remote start function 100% of the power used to precondition the cabin comes from the grid and no energy is used from the battery."

WOOPS!

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread...ving-Tips-(Live-Web-Chat)&p=289977#post289977

 

[cadillackid]

I see all this talk about heat.. does the ICE provide cabin heat if used? meaning if I drive my first few minutes im HOLD mode am I still operating the 5Kw strip heat or am I going to use heat from the ICE? then switch to Normal drive mode where stored heat can help hold cabin temperature? since a lot of an ICE operation produces heat, i just wonder if running it in the beginning of a trip helps with heat and then you can switch to Normal mode and utilize the stored heat instead of the 5Kw strip heat.
-Christopher

 

[ckk]

does the ICE provide cabin heat if used? meaning if I drive my first few minutes im HOLD mode am I still operating the 5Kw strip heat or am I going to use heat from the ICE? then switch to Normal drive mode where stored heat can help hold cabin temperature? since a lot of an ICE operation produces heat, i just wonder if running it in the beginning of a trip helps with heat and then you can switch to Normal mode and utilize the stored heat instead of the 5Kw strip heat.
-Christopher

You got it right. I did that all the time this winter. There are various threads about related subjects here if you search. Just yesterday someone reposted a link to a diagram of how the Volt's various heating/cooling systems/radiators work together, showing a bypass switch that lets heat from the engine, when the engine's hot, warm up the liquid in the passenger cabin heating system. When the engine is off/cold, the switch toggles off so the passenger cabin heater (electric) doesn't accidentally just try to heat up the engine!