[CurrentEvent]

This morning I woke up to 8 inches of new snow. This is actually good. It's what you want on Christmas morning. After I dug my car out I needed to run an errand. Everyone is familiar with the procedure for getting a gas car moving when stuck in snow. You give it some gas. If it doesn't move, you stop because it will just make it worse if the wheels just sit and spin. Then you try to rock. Hearing the speed of the engine is an important part of the process. When I got stuck this morning, I wasn't worried because it was level and I knew I would get moving eventually. I discovered something about electric cars in general. The whole process is silent. I couldn't hear anything. Is there some way to know the speed the wheels are spinning? Electric cars don't have a tachometer. This could be a problem that I've never thought about before.

 

[llninja]

Traction control should kick in and not allow you to spin your wheels too much. Snow and ice tires make a world of difference. I have Yokohamas, but many swear by Blizzaks. Plus if you turn traction control off, I think the speedometer will actually show the speed of the spinning wheels which might help.

 

[don shaw]

how did you get unstuck?

 

[Dutch]

Stuck like that generally means that you should probably just stay put.

 

[CurrentEvent]

How did I get unstuck? I pressed on the gas and after a while the car started moving. I forgot about the traction control. The point I'm making is it feels odd to not have any idea what is going on. You're relying totally on the traction control to get you out. I guess if you don't ever move after a few seconds then you are really stuck and you should get help. I'm not sure you could rock a Volt. The transmission prevents abrupt direction reversals.

 

[calebh2002]

I was rather impressed with the traction control during the ice storm in St. Louis and whatever tires I have on mine. They are not the Goodyear ones that came with it though. I rolled up to a Walgreens, the parking lot was a downhill slant, everyone else leaving was having an issue getting up the hill to the exit as I silently rolled up the hill and away. I drove in L through the ice on the interstate, in L the entire time, it was a beautiful experience.

 

[Qinsp]

Your speedo should show, or roll down your windows and listen.

With FWD, you gently saw the steering wheel, from left to right and back while gently applying throttle. Rocking seldom fixes anything that sawing won't.

 

[ampera_jed]

How well do these cars (gen 1 or 2) 'rock' (assuming it's bad enough you need to switch gears)? Some transmissions take an age to flick between r and d and you lose momentum on the tougher stuff. Some do it very well. I once managed it with a stick shift but it took some working the stick!

 

[Park2670]

Each time I have driven in the snow, I have been able to hear the tires slipping. Its quite fun to floor it and have tires spin, but no real noise happening at all.

 

[llninja]

If you turn off traction control, you can rock the volt.

 

[voganni]

The traction control is very aggressive and will not allow a wheel to spin. Works well MOST of the time, but I've already encountered a few times this winter where I had to turn it off and do some spinning to get unstuck. Today in fact! Fortunately they provided a way to deactivate it. You can easily hear the wheelspin when TC is off.

 

[KenC]

I usually open the driver side door and one can hear the drive wheels spinning or not. I'm not usually listening for the engine. Also, if the wheels spin, I just put a snow track device under the drive wheels. That always takes care of any slippage when stuck.

 

[Roostre]

Commuted into visit our kids on the west side of Salt Lake on Christmas morning... the further west I went the deeper it got.

My kids home has about 12" of fresh snow and plow had not yet been through... I pulled to the curb and slid into the bottom as I parked; wondering if I would be able to get out in a few hours. 20 minutes later a plow came through and buried my car.

When we left my son volunteered to come out and push if I needed it. Opening the doors pushed a few inches of built up snow. As I pulled forward the car moved, but would not steer out of the gutter and up onto the street. I backed up into my tracks and then tried again. Traction control was kicking in so hard that we were barely moving, but within a few feet the car clawed its way up onto the road and we headed home!

I put Michelin Premiere A/S tires on it about 3 months ago. They are MUCH, MUCH better in the snow than the stock GY tires were. I'm sure we would have needed some pushing with those tires.