It's not that simple. The car will shut down on it's own if it doesn't see any driver control input after a certain period (90 minutes?) You need to finagle things to keep the car running.

 

What year Volt are we dealing with here?

 

2013, and judging from the Candian Goose volume triple honk when leaving the car, I'm assuming the auto shut down update was already applied before I bought the car.

Suggest:

1. Use Hold from the start of the trip instead of MM if your car has it. Save the full charge on the HV battery. Only when SOC dips below 40% change to MM; you don't want the engine to cycle on in the middle of the night if not necessary. Given only a few nights, you may never dip below below 40%.
   
2. Connect directly to the battery by running the wires under the floor and up through the access cover on the driver's side of the trunk if possible.

But I'll be going through/over actual mountains here. The Rocky Mountains, and several passes through Colorado to be exact. I would imagine if I'd want Mountain Mode anywhere, it would be there?

I suspect that I won't be needing the HVAC running during the over-nighters. I'll be going through Colorado, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan, so it won't be hot enough at night to need AC and I know from prior experience that my sleeping bag will keep me plenty warm enough even in sub freezing temperatures when inside a shelter at night (I was homeless, and living in my truck for a bit in the middle of a Detroit winter some years ago).

Connecting directly to the battery will not be an issue. I already have an additional fuse block that I added down there to connect my ham radio and GPS to.

 

Suggestions

Suggest:

1. Use Hold from the start of the trip instead of MM if your car has it. Save the full charge on the HV battery. Only when SOC dips below 40% change to MM; you don't want the engine to cycle on in the middle of the night if not necessary. Given only a few nights, you may never dip below below 40%.
2. Assuming you've had the update to prevent the car from staying on in Park . . . when camped, use a heavy duty rubber band to depress the button on the gearshift, and shift to Park. The depressed button will prevent the car from realizing you've shifted to Park and turning off after ~2 hrs. Select Normal mode and put the emergency brake on. Leave car ON.
3. Lock doors if you exit the car, leaving one fob inside and use the second to lock the doors. If you don't leave a fob in the car, you'll get the dreaded triple honk when you shut the door.
4. Connect directly to the battery by running the wires under the floor and up through the access cover on the driver's side of the trunk if possible.

 

Suggest:

1. Lock doors if you exit the car, leaving one fob inside and use the second to lock the doors. If you don't leave a fob in the car, you'll get the dreaded triple honk when you shut the door.

With regards to this, I'd actually recommend just rolling the drivers side window down before opening the door, fob in hand, close door with arm through open window when door closes. This "fools" the car into thinking the fob is present when the door is shut and prevents the triple honk. Reach down and pull window switch up enough to complete the "auto up" function making sure your arm is pulled back out. This will seal the car up, allow you to lock the door using either the key blade or the remote. Additionally it doesn't require a second remote, or leave a fully functioning remote available to someone inside the car.

 

The 12v battery is Group 47
Capacity 20hr: 60AH

If your fridge is running while your driving you won't have issue. However, if your running it overnight you will need to leave the car powered up to maintain the 12v battery.

Use the calculator on this website to determine the recommended battery sized for the load draw.


https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tools/calculator-sizing-a-battery-to-a-load.html

I ran yours at 5 amps for 10 hours it calculated 108AH Battery to handle the continuous load. This is assuming no continuous HV inverter charging.

The Volt Battery is 60AH.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I ran yours at 5 amps for 10 hours it calculated 108AH Battery to handle the continuous load. This is assuming no continuous HV inverter charging.

The Volt Battery is 60AH.

It's not a continuous load. As I said, it's like a house fridge, but tiny - it will cycle on and off as needed to maintain temp. I don't recall what the AH rating is on my deep cycle, but going off the standards chart, it would be 70-85AH, and that battery will run the fridge for over 24 hours in the middle of a Phoenix summer day.

My suspicion is that the 12V battery would be plenty enough to run the fridge on it's own over night given that the nightly low temps I'll be seeing will be in the 40-60 degree range, but I just want to be covered just in case. If it won't be getting auto recharged off the HV battery, then I should probably carry a small jump box with me in case I draw the battery down too much at night.

 

So what happens if the 12V battery goes down over night? Does the ICE auto start to recharge it as well as the traction battery? Or should I bring along a small jump box as well?

The Volt only requires the 12V AGM battery to be connected in order to initially turn it ON. Once the Volt is successfully started and as long as the 14V APM is providing voltage correctly , you can then remove the 12V AGM from the circuit by lifting the negative lead off of the 12V AGM battery terminal and the Volt can be driven around normally and won't latch any CEL warnings either (at least my Gen1 acts this way). Granted, if you were then to shut OFF the Volt with the 12V AGM still disconnected you would be unable to turn it back ON until you were to reconnect the 12V AGM once again.

As srmarti pointed out, the auto-off timer 'feature' added to Gen1s during the reprogram of the K9 BCM as part of the N140617 recall prevents the Volt from being left on overnight w/o some form of intermittent action to reset the timer and prevent the inevitable shut-off. Some folks have used the workaround of keeping the gear shift button depressed to prevent the shut-off. I instead chose to install a simple Pushbutton Mod to in order to be able to bypass on-the-fly this timed Auto-Off 'feature': Pushbutton Mods to Enable/Disable Triple-Honk Vehicle ON Warning and Auto-Off recall

Having a small jump pack avail as you mentioned is also a good idea especially since it could be used in lieu of the 12V AGM in order to turn the Volt ON: Small & Cheap lithium-ion replacement for the 12V AGM battery

 

Detroit, you seem to missing what actually happens here. You don't have to be plugged in. You simply have to leave the car on. If you don't do the "push" on the stick, the car will shut off after 150 minutes. This allows the car to stay on and keep the 12 volt battery charged.

 

Yes, you are absolutely correct - I wasn't fully understanding how this stuff works, which is why I was asking for clarification

Heck, up until today, I didn't even realize there was a APM module, or DC-DC converter. I was under the impression that there was a separate 12 volt generator inside the transmission that was spun by either the electric motors or the ICE, and that was what was charging the 12V battery. Obviously, I was wrong about that one too, lol. But after reading a bunch of threads, mainly about people sleeping in AC bliss while it was 95 degrees outside, AND charging the car too, I was even more confused on whether I could do what I was planning.

So in short, I arrive at my destination, clamp down the shifter button, shift to park, apply parking break, leave car on. HV battery will keep 12V battery charged through APM, and if HV battery depletes, ICE will fire up to recharge HV battery. Rinse, lather, repeat?

 

If you run the battery down, you shorten the life of the battery, which is a bad idea.

Leave the car powered on, absolutely.

 

You got it As a precaution, I would check after the 150 minute window just to make sure all is well. I would also keep a small battery boost like a Noco Genius as a back up just in case (I actually keep one in the car at all times). Enjoy your trip

 

If I recall correctly, the HV to 12v battery charging is done differently with later Gen1s than early models. This may affect what you are trying to do. You will have to search to find the details, I can't do it for you right now.

 

The differences were during charging, shouldn't matter when the car is on.

 

If cell service is available, I would also recommend OnStar to lock/unlock the car.

 

I'm all for using our fancy toys in neat ways, but for a single overnight... I'd just get a decent cooler and some ice and not worry about it. Roto-molded ones are great, but not necessary for one night.

 

I'm not sure where you got the single overnight from...but even ignoring that, I don't know of a single person that has gone from a cooler to a fridge, and would want to go back to a cooler for any reason, lol. I have never once experience a soggy sandwich because the Zip-Loc or Tupperware leaked a tiny bit since having gone to a fridge. Besides, why would I spend another $100 on a decent cooler, and concerned about where I'm going to get ice when I already have a perfectly good fridge?

As it turned out, it worked just fine. I ran a couple loops of electrical tape around the shifter knob, and settled down for the first night near a river just outside of Silverton, CO. Lost 7 miles of battery range running the fridge, and a couple battery chargers. 2nd night I had access to 120VAC power, and slept in air conditioned comfort, ran the fridge and chargers, and woke up with 100% battery.

Also found out my claustrophobia has gotten MUCH worse, so I'll be sleeping in hotels on my way home, and likely doing any future trips like this one in my F350 with camper in tow, lol.

 

The tape wasn't without it's issues, though - it did leave a bit of black sticky residue behind. A quick wipe with an adhesive remover, and it's off, but it was a bit annoying at first. I actually had "big rubber band or clamp" on my pre-trip shopping list, but as luck had it, I kept forgetting those items when shopping, and didn't think about it again until my first night stop. I always carry a couple rolls of electrical tape, and a bundle of zip ties in the vehicles for those "just in case" moments, and the tape was the first thing I grabbed. It was also a cheap generic brand of tape I used, and I suspect a quality 3M tape would have fared better. Regardless, it worked, and my fridge kept my water bottles at a lovely 40*F through the night

 

Another option is that you can run the refrigerator off of a portable jump starter. I have heard it works really well, even the new small lithium ones. Might be easier and more efficient, especially if you have one along anyway.