Doubtful they're adding battery capacity. Just playing with the operational parameters. There goes your Voltec warranty and conservatively treated battery life, even if it does work. Is it worth it?
This is how you tune any modern car - find and reverse engineer the engine operation parameter table. GM is especially conservative to reduce warranty costs so there's usually about a reasonably safe 20% increase in various operating parameters. In the case of the Volt I would look at the ICE engine's HP output, overall torque to the drive train, and battery reserve capacity.
The description seems to suggest a ~20% increase in the size of the usable power window, not an increase in the size of the battery capacity, i.e., the 2014 might get ~12.3 kWh usable instead of 10.3 kWh for a full depletion, the 2015 ~13.1 instead of 10.7. To quote the English translation of the article:
"The number of kilometers of autonomy will be increased by about 20%.
So, if you are used to 75 km in summer, you will add 15 km for a total of 90 km."
So, for $500 and a chance you will void your warranty if something goes wrong with the system while the module is installed, you may get an additional 15 km of range... and you may choose to have the module removed for $75... and reinstalled for another $75...
The section on recharge time and regeneration seems to suggest this is accomplished by getting your battery to overcharge itself, filling the overflow buffer at the top and eliminating the ability to do any regenerative braking until that battery power has been used. To quote the article:
"RECHARGE TIME AND REGENERATION
Charging (240V) will take about 45 more minutes (for approximately 2kWh more).
When the battery is full, there is no regenerative braking on the first kilometers traveled."
We can do that here in the states and have for some time for a few friends. If people are really interested I'll revisit this conversation with our liability insurance carrier (had some issues with us when we were doing OEM hold mode retrofits on 2012's).
Sometimes, you need to look a gift horse in the mouth. Drawing-down the full charge of the battery pack does not sound like prudent practice. I let my Hotronics footbed heater battery packs drain from one winter season to the next and the system failed, could not be brought back to life with a re-charge. Volt battery pack may have similar limits.
To prevent breaking the "warranty", you could use a safer method...The driver and passenger WEIGHT loss method, 4 people at 200 pounds , or 4 individual at 175 pounds...over 100 pounds weight improvement, more then the tires, more the a full gas tank, 1/4 of the battery weight !!!..In short , good for your health, good for EV range, and no warranty issues...LOL
Sounds like they're doing exactly what I suggested in another thread - the easiest way to get more use of the battery is to reprogram the charger to charge above the standard 83.5% setpoint. In 240V mode, the charger seems to be autonomous, simply reporting back to the main computer "I'm done!" when it hits the programmed point.
In 120V mode, the computer is always involved because of the 8A/12A nanny mode, so likely no fooling it there. It would ask the charger to shut down at 83.5% max.
If they're charging to 96%, that would give you the extra 20% usable capacity. The volt would operate otherwise normally once you dropped below 86.66%, but limited regen above that.
yes,for a 2014...but a 2011-2012 it is 90% max soc???
I think dat the charger not able to report any wh,but the charger can give more volts with reprograming
11-12's had higher normal charged SOC, so if they work in the same way with the charger doing it's own thing, it would still be possible, but much less room to overcharge. You might only gain 10%, and is it really worth it at that point?
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