confused prius vs volt

Well if you want to point to one data point...my 2011 Volt 110MPG on 88.4 miles in a day with just one charge.

(Rem, I charge at midnight where my hourly rates are lowest so ~12 kWh (10.4 + overhead) times $0.05 or so = $0.60 for the day. My Util ComEd Dec 2011 Envir Disclosure is 40% Nuc and 43% Coal and 12% NatGas. Considering windpower sourced after my 12 mo hourly rate plan commitment is up - love buy USA domestic fuel !!! From my hourly rate plan website just now at 1am: "ComEd RRTP price for May 1, 2012 Hour Ending 1:00 AM CT 02.3¢ per kWh")

My 2011 Volt a few weeks back when it was 64F on my way to an event and I got 48.7 electric miles on the battery. No climate controls needed because of temp. 35-45 MPH with a lot of stoplight (which I don't think were good - stop/start acceleration kW usage)

Notice that my ICE/gas_generator mileage was pretty good as well. 39.7miles / 0.79 gal of gas = 50MPGused. Yes, the ICE stopped/started multiple times.

 

and the KWh usage (consumption)? the MPG is great...but doesn't the Volt...um...use volts? shouldn't that be part of these equations? I get the using less gas. great! more power to the volt...well...more KWh power that needs to be accounted for.

 

Not really most plug in drivers just know its on one charge. So for scottf200 its 12Kwh which cost him 60 cents add 0.79 gallons of gas and go 88 miles.

His range and mileage aren't typical, just as some prius drivers do well. His electric rates are also lower than most of ours. But it does show those that want to use low figures for the volt and high figures for the prius that they should compare fair trips. Most volt drivers use very little gas.

 

One charge for the Volt = 4 charges for the Prius PHV in term of electricity consumption.

If Prius PHV gets the same amount of electricity (with 4 recharges) on a 88 miles trip, it would probably consumed about half a gallon of gas (instead of 0.79 premium with Volt).

Yup, it boils down to individual recharge pattern. However, if you compare the consumption of energy, Prius PHV is the most efficient (and largest interior) plugin. Well, until Ford releases C-Max Energi which appears to be larger but it may not be as efficient.

50 CS MPG on that trip is good. Do you know what's your average CS MPG?

 

Well, 40% of all the Volt miles were driven with premium gasoline. I guess it depends on your definition of "very little".

40% at 37 MPG would use the same amount of gas as 54% at 50 MPG. I doubt all the Prius PHV owners will average 54%. It'll likely be higher but gas consumption will be pretty close.

No doubt electricity consumption is much higher with the Volt.

 

Let me get this straight, your idea is that a phv driver, should stop 3 times in his day, find a charger, charge up, then compare the amounts

Why don't you try to drive the way he did, and tell us how much fuel it takes. FInding those plugs and waiting to charge will probably cut into your energy efficiency and your time.

0.79 gallons and a charge to go over 80 miles. Do you think that's a lot. Now on short trips no gas at all. I don't feel that a premium gallon takes up a great deal more volume than any other gallon of gas. If volt drivers and prius drivers get epa and the volt driver uses 60% ev miles, then a volt driver would only use 54% as much gas as a prius driver. If those were freeway miles the volt would use only 48% of the gas. Many volt drivers car do better than that.

I don't mean to piss. Enjoy all the prii and volts, but lets be accurate about it.

 

There is no pissing contest here. All I am saying is, take account of all the energy and not just gas.

A full picture paint a different image.

 

Since it has been 6 months since my week-long trip in the Volt (from San Diego to Las Vegas and back), it is possible that I am mistaken about getting 35 MPG for highway driving. That may have been an average for the entire trip, so for the sake of this discussion I will give you the benefit of the doubt and defer to your statement that the Volt gets 40 MPG using the recommended premium gas on the highway.

As I think back to that trip, I remember that I began that trip having to make an unexpected backtrack to downtown San Diego to do something. As a result, when I finally did depart my home in San Diego for Las Vegas there was no charge left in the battery. Also, I saw no charging stations in Las Vegas (or, naturally, along the way). For that reason, I had to do the entire trip in hybrid mode only. A Prius Plug-in would have been considerably more economical in that real-world situation.

If my hotel (The Tropicana) had charging stations, I could have driven all around Las Vegas during my attendance at the convention using no gas -- just electricity, but a significant negative with all of these cars is that the charging infrastructure is a long way from where it needs to be.

As an aside, I have a vague recollection that per the owner's manual the Volt works best if the driver plans ahead and accumulates some charge in the battery, to enable the car to maintain speed while driving up long hills on the highway. There is a long, steep upgrade on the road to Las Vegas. The Prius Plug-in does not need any special preparations to maintain its speed on long hills.

 

must be difficult to measure KWh consumed. oh well. Trying to see the "dual-fuel" vehicles by only measuring one fuel is not productive. thanks anyway...

 

Reading this post has made me want to buy a volt. Then I will have 3 efficient vehicles.

 

Yeah I actually in the end may get just a prius V or something. At the moment I rarely even drive except long distances so no PHEV/EV would make much sense. But who knows what the future will actually hold when I am ready to purchase a new vehicle again. I am just a huge fan of vehicle electrification in general regardless of the flavor.

 

Sorry bajapat, it was just annoying to see him use avgs for the Volt then point out one exception case.

The 2011 models like mine do not show kWh used by numerous folks show ~12 kWh to charge up the ~10kWh worth of charge. The 2012 models show kWh and they match this. If you empty the battery like I did then it is not hard to measure since it is very consistent.

 

I'm definitely interested in some side-by-side test drives to clarify how the two cars perform under various road conditions. In most situations I expect the PiP to be around 10%-20% more efficient in EV driving and 20%-30% more efficient in hybrid mode based on various EPA, Japanese, and European test cycle reports and from individual reports here.

It seems clear, as a generalization, that it's easier to exceed the EPA EV estimates than it is to exceed their gas mileage estimates. Many folks here will get 23-28 kW/100 miles in EV on the PiP during most of the year and I get 25-27 kW/100 miles. At that efficiency, EV in a Volt is a win vs. gasoline in a PiP in HV in many areas of the country with cleaner electricity. Under those conditions, the Volt's larger battery range can be a clear advantage for many common driving patterns.

 

Cool. I'm still learning the whole KWh terms and how it relates to replacing gas usage. Just seems odd that KWh is so...'hidden'? Anyway, i love the fact the MPGs are high...really high! Want more info on that electricity portion that I and many other are not used to. Even my house (well, rental, since our Oregon move) KWh usage is a learning area. also trying to figure my electric bike consumption (366 Whr battery) and my electric lawn mower consumption. (288 Whr battery). Maybe then I can apply this to a plug-in or EV.

 

I don't think anyone is really trying to hide it. Think of it this way, do you figure out how much gas you use on every trip? It just doesn't make that much difference. What does make a difference is how many times you need to fill up, and how many gallons or dollars are at each fill up. I pay my electricity each month, so a volt might be 12kwh/day - 360kwh a month and for me its wind at 11 cents a kwh = $39.60 /month and get 1050 EPA miles. Add in the gas and look at the mileage and you are good to go. The prius phv would be about 3.2kwh per charge so
96kwh = $10.56. Your prices/grid efficiency/mileage will vary. Most days I would not go through a full charge on a volt. For many people filling up with sun or wind it doesn't matter as much how much electricity is, for others it makes a big difference. But if a phev or bev driver is only talking about gas you can figure electricity also.

If you charge that electric bike battery once a day on your electric bike and their is 20% charging overhead and do a 90%dod, you will use about 12 kwh/month about the power a volt uses for one full charge.

 

We have people assuming a charge is a charge without quantitative numbers. Yet, we have gasoline consumption with big MPG numbers.

An attempt to quantify electricity consumption in kWh resulted in accusation of pissing contest.

A car that uses two fuels need to report both in quantitative numbers.

 

But the drawback is that the battery is similar to a fuel tank bladder in this situation, where the effective charge is relative to the efficiency of the pack due to temperature. And that number also fluctuates as regenerative braking does 'put back' fuel into the battery pack. You have no real good way to effectively judge the miles per KWh as these two factors aren't nearly as consistent.

While we know MPG is not an exact science either, given an engine would be running, burning fuel while idle, the electric portion of the car is doing the same thing so that is not really a 'factor', but temperature affecting the effective power state of a battery and the 'gains' with regenerative braking can kilter how one can gets the quantitative numbers as the number of times you brake and how effective the driver gets from the regenerative braking would not be taken in to account and we have no real 'decent' way to measure how effective a battery is at one temperature to another temperature time.

 

This is definitely all true. The volt and tesla condition its battery for temperature, which means in hot or cold temperatures there will be overhead to heat or cool the battery and cabin, but battery will be fairly consistent. The leaf and prius phv do not do this, which means in extreme hot or cold their batteries will be affected more. The prius phv does have that one trick up its sleeve though, it burns gas and uses the waste heat to warm the cabin and pack. This leaves the leaf at a disadvantage in cold weather places (the others also take a hit, but the leaf has the most problems).

YMMV, and this depends in a phev even more on distance between charges and temperature. Those wanting an instantaneous miles per/kwh gage would often see negative numbers during deceleration or even just driving down hill, and get very confused. I know they added a cumulative gage to the volt, which is a good thing. Really kwh/mile on a monthly basis is a much better measure than on a single hot/cold/moderate day.

 

I don't think monthly is a better measure, its a different measure. Which is better depends on your objectives in using the data. Monthly accumulates data to reduce noise from natural variations but also limits the resolution of decisions one can make. Given daily measurements from say voltstats.net I can accumulate to make monthly totals but can also decide that what I did yesterday was more efficient than what I did the day before (presuming I am considering similar temp/terrain.)

A user would not be confused by a negative.. we call it regen and its very simple to understand. An instantaneous kW measure might be a geek moded but would be useful for those that want to getter understand small behavioral changes. There is probably a reason my lifetime EV mode is 17% below EPA estimates, and on good days I can be 25% or more below EPA. its because I tried to learn what improved my efficiency. But I used tools outside of the car (torque+OBDII) + voltstats to make quantitative measurements of different actions/choices.