Volt (and other hybrids) for newspaper delivery

3492 Views 17 Replies 11 Participants Last post by TheYonderGod, Apr 13, 2017

TheYonderGod

Discussion Starter · Apr 3, 2017

Does anyone have experience with the Volt for newspaper delivery or anything similar? Basically its a lot of accelerating and decelerating/stopping at each house, and a lot of idling when we have to porch some papers.

I'm looking at a used 13/14 Volt.

I figured a hybrid would be amazing for this kind of driving, since it should regen a lot of power from the slowing and stopping, but I asked a co-worker about his Prius and he only gets ~27mpg during a Sunday delivery session.
Although, now that I'm doing the math, this doesn't seem correct. That's like 55% the rated mileage.
My other friend in his newish Corolla gets ~22mpg while delivering, for like 70% the rated mileage.
My 1999 Chevy Prizm is old and doesn't have an automatic mpg calculator, but looking at the numbers when I fill up, I get around 25mpg overall. Seems about right comparing with the Corolla.

I thought a hybrid should do better in lots of stop-n-go, not worse.

Anyways, does anyone have an idea how many miles I should be able to do in a Volt? My typical work day is about 50 miles, with about 15 of them being on the highway to work, so I was figuring 15 miles on gas and 35 on electric would be about right. Here in California, summer nights should be perfect weather for the battery.

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llninja

· #3 · Apr 3, 2017

The big pain will be when you stop and get out with the key in your pocket to deliver a paper to the porch, the car will emit the dreaded triple honk to remind you that the car is running and wake up the neighbors.

A workaround could be to leave the keys in the car, the. Someone could steal it while you are on the porch.

The problem with trying to get better fuel mileage is that it's always cheaper to drive what you have and pay for gas than to get a newer, more expensive car. The money saved on fuel won't pay for the car.

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llninja

· #13 · Apr 4, 2017

hellsop said:
Folks, we really REALLY need to get past this whole "L maximizes regen" misconception. It maximizes nothing. When you take your foot off the long pedal in D, the Volt applies the regen brakes a little bit and you slow down slowly. When you take your foot off the long pedal in L, the Volt applies the regen brakes harder, and you slow down a little faster. The amount of energy recovered doing that from 30 to 4 MPH either way is basically the same, because that's how physics works. E = (m)(v1-v2). The same thing applies to the brake pedal. Unless you're panic-braking, 30 to 4 MPH still regenerates the same as L or D.

(And you're not regenerating, even in a Bolt, below 3-4 MPH. That last stopping is USING energy from the battery to slow the car, not giving it back (either by reverse torque or applying the friction brakes for you. I don't know for sure which, but I suspect the former). It only does that because people think "One-pedal driving is cool".)

The goal is to minimize regen, because regen is only about 70% effective at recapturing your momentum. If you don't waste that momentum in the first place.....it reall pisses me off when I'm pulling up to a red light, coasting, and someone celebrates to pass me only to slam on their brakes to stop. Meanwhile I'm rolling to a slow crawl and the light turns green. The guy accelerating and braking wasted all that energy while I conserved mine.

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