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I am visiting Summit county, CO and drove up I70 from Denver, unfortunately not with my Volt (due to the four passenger maximum in the Volt). My minivan had trouble keeping up with traffic on the steep inclines and driving in low down the inclines stressed the van tremendously. I wondered how my Volt would have taken this and read some interesting threads on this: http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread...y-NEED-Mountain-Mode-for-its-intended-purpose. Apparently Volt handles this well in mountain mode. My question is what happens if you start down a major summit with a full charge? Suppose your condo is at elevation 9900 feet and you start from there with a full charge and go down to 5000 ft. Does the car use friction brakes only because the battery is already charged? Has anyone ever done this? Is this not recommended?
I calculate that a 5000 ft drop of Volt has a potential energy of about 10 kWh, which at 50% efficiency should give about half of a full battery charge. PE = mgh = 2000kg x 9.8m/s/s x 1667 m = 33 MJ/(3.6MJ/kWh) = 9.2 kWh.
I calculate that a 5000 ft drop of Volt has a potential energy of about 10 kWh, which at 50% efficiency should give about half of a full battery charge. PE = mgh = 2000kg x 9.8m/s/s x 1667 m = 33 MJ/(3.6MJ/kWh) = 9.2 kWh.