This is my 5th northwest Indiana winter in my volt and I've grown accustomed to the battery range degrading with the low temperatures. However, in the past 4 winters I've never had a battery range less than about 28 miles on a full charge. That range will get me to and from work without charging with plenty to spare, or has in the past. I did notice this summer that even on warm days my battery range seemed to have decreased by a few miles per charge. That is very apparent now that cold has set in. I'm lucky to get 20 miles on a full charge now. My routes throughout the area have not changed nor have my driving habits. At what point do I take it to the dealer and ask what's going on with my batteries? The other fact is that the volt has experienced much harsher temperatures that we have seen so far this winter and never had this low a range. The temperatures have actually been rather warm for this area and this time or year with temperatures reaching mid forties and even fifty a couple of days in December. We are currently in the teens but this range issue has been present even when temperatures were in the forties.
When should I really begin to worry?
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Any actual problems with the battery pack should trigger a check engine light, including excessive degradation/internal resistance from what I've read.
As others have said, some more information would be useful - any maintenance performed recently? What does the energy usage screen show when the car switches the engine on? Consider charging on 110V for a night and using a kill-a-watt type gauge to read how much power the car actually takes to charge?
As others have said, some more information would be useful - any maintenance performed recently? What does the energy usage screen show when the car switches the engine on? Consider charging on 110V for a night and using a kill-a-watt type gauge to read how much power the car actually takes to charge?
Tires would the first possible explanation. My 2011 consistently shows 26 on the quess meter. However in today's weather of 10 degrees I'm probably getting 20. Heat on comfort, seat heaters, erdtt as well. Any tire other than OEM Goodyears with the TPC 1406 give less range.
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My 2013 has been getting 26-28 miles of range, but it also often dips to 23-24, but the reason is because I've stopped hypermiling, added a new set of 18inch wheels with deeper tread tires, recently swapped in snow tires, and now drive more like Jeff Gordon, less like a grandpa. Also, check your tire pressures. Cold tires have lower pressure, thus lower mileage.
About the only way for you to tell how your battery is degrading is by calculating how much energy input during charging equates changes how much energy output is available over many cycles. If you put 13.5 Kwh in to get 10Kwh out when you know the battery is good and now that same 13.5 in only gets you 7.5Kwh out the cell resistance is increasing and is an indication of degradation as more and more energy input is being turned into heat vs usable charge. The increase in cell resistance is not linear it is exponential, so for the first ~90% of the battery lifetime it doesn't increase much, but during the last ~10% it is increasing very rapidly. So, for example, if you are putting 13.5 Kwh and only getting 50% out the battery probably only has a very short usable lifetime left, probably counted in weeks.
How many miles you are getting per charge is irrelevant.
How many miles you are getting per charge is irrelevant.
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It's bizarre but in a different part of the world I am experiencing similar. I have never seen such low mileages this winter than as before. Same tyres, all completely normal and the kWh all come up saying the same thing. The car is simply being less efficient this year than before. I can't figure it out at all. I have a near melt down when I think I am doing a gentle drive and then look at the gauge and see I am getting less than 5km/kWh.
Similar temps. Similar humidity. I'd burn a litre or less on my commute, now it is over 1.5. kWh saying the same thing as last year.
A mystery!
Similar temps. Similar humidity. I'd burn a litre or less on my commute, now it is over 1.5. kWh saying the same thing as last year.
A mystery!
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Tyre pressure?
Stuck brake caliper?
Driving the mother-in-law around?
600 pound anvil in the hatch?
Heater set to comfort 26 degrees C?
ERDTT set to the lower temp setting (causes resistive heat to work harder to warm the battery)
Autodefrost?
2000 amp amplifier with bazooka bass tubes in the hatch?
Towing something?
Too many twinkles and ho-hos in the driver's diet?
The brake caliper is a good thought. We have a history of folks getting them jammed on the rear brakes (not a lot, but there have been some posts) and nothing showed up except reduced efficiency until they figured it out.
After your next drive, use a thermometer to check the temperature of all four brake discs.
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dang, I thought for sure it had to be the twinkles and hohos...
It's not quite as cold here in the Southern Rockies but on a 15-20 degree day the range on my Gen1 Volts was about the same, maybe 30 miles. On my Gen2 it's 42-44 miles. If nothing has substantially changed you may have a warranty issue as your mileage has dropped almost 30%. Your Volt has an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty.
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You mention indicated estimated range. Are you actually getting that range? What is your KWh used display showing?
Have you had a recent dealer visit? Did they reset your cars setting and now the auto defog is default turned on?
There are many things that can lead to decreased range. The battery is very far down that list as a probably culprit.
There are many mechanical things that can decrease your efficiency.
Have you had a recent dealer visit? Did they reset your cars setting and now the auto defog is default turned on?
There are many things that can lead to decreased range. The battery is very far down that list as a probably culprit.
There are many mechanical things that can decrease your efficiency.
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110 Posts
Loss of MPGe
Similar issues seen here.
It seems to me my KWH available has been steady at around 10 kwh. But my MPGe and MPG as seen from voltstats.net seem to have dropped. (loss of data in the middle due to voltsats/on-star connection issue)
![Green Text Map White Line]()
![Green Text Map Line Diagram]()
Does anyone see anything from the graphs?
Similar issues seen here.
It seems to me my KWH available has been steady at around 10 kwh. But my MPGe and MPG as seen from voltstats.net seem to have dropped. (loss of data in the middle due to voltsats/on-star connection issue)
Does anyone see anything from the graphs?
"MPG" on VoltStats is overall, including EMM, etc. You won't be able to diagnose anything from that other than "something changed". What you need is to regularly discharge your entire AER in a consistent way (which is hard with ERDTT, and varying between freeway and city miles causing a difference in the RATE of discharge, which will in turn affect how much you can get out of a battery) and seeing if the KWh used changes. You can't even just go to the same place and note how much kwh is used because THAT'S a conditions thing, not a capacity thing.
Battery capacity and capacity used is probably the trickiest of all parameters to measure involving batteries. There's a lot of simple measurements surrounding it that are kind of proportional and also wrong. But "kwh-used under same conditions" is as close as you're going to get without a "constant current time to discharge" test that's utterly impractical for mere mortals to even try. (At minimum, you'd have to disconnect the battery pack from the car and attach some specialized measuring equipment instead.)
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Nope everything is precisely as any other time, particularly last year. Just variability, it seems.
I did recently get new tires but they are exactly the same as the originals. I keep the pressure at 38 PSI same as always. Today on the way to work I saw a message on my display that I haven't seen before that is really troubling. It said, "Battery too cold Plug in to warm". Today is a relatively warm day at 41 degrees F when the weekend was around 0.
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I am only getting about 30 miles per full charge, but dealing with snow, slush, single-digit temperatures, full comfort defrost-heating, and the friction grab of winter tires seems reasonable. I have decided that driving a few miles on the generator on very cold days is worth the pint of gasoline.
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