My first 500 mile "tank"

Miles Per Tank of Gas 4970.33 Miles 8/24/2012 - 12/15/2012

I get to charge during the day.

Miles Driven Without Gas 734.69 Miles 9/19/2012 - 10/3/2012

I think I did better than this while VoltStats was offline, perhaps as far as 1200 miles.

 

Congrats.

But its really your first 500 mile "No tank" -- 500 miles without using anything in the tank..
that will likely lead to a few thousand mile tank.

My best No Tank so far has been 690 miles. Best tank 4667 miles.

I don't get to charge during the day :-(, but only do about 12K miles a year

 

but I think we are all beating the PiP fleet.

 

After more than 9200km driven with my Ampera, my Lifetime average is 1l/100km.

 

I'm a 2006 prius owner and interested in the whole debate over which is more economical etc.

What is the price of electric power where you live?

I'm in New Zealand (think Islands 1500 miles off southeast coast of Australia).

Our 24/7 electric power price is about 22c/kWh.
Petrol 91 octane (regular) (what people in the USA call "gas" - I'm guessing short for gasoline) is just over NZD2.00. (exchange rate is about 0.82 with USD at the moment) That equates to about USD6.20/US gal.

I'm picking this would make the picture look a bit different - or similar with higher figures.

I do a reasonably long commute, 52km (32.3miles) each way, over some pretty hilly country side and some suburbia and some high speed (freeway) driving.

At the moment, I'm averaging about 22.7km/l (53.4mpg) which looks pretty good to me... not sure how precise the fuel use figures are though.

 

Drafty01,

It takes about 12kWh to fully charge the battery.

If you map your driving route on this site you should get an idea of how far you would get in the EV mode, although you need to adjust the battery size for the Ampera to 10.8kWh rather than the full 16kWh.

www.jurassictest.ch/GR/

Once the battery is depleted, you should assume that you would get 38mpg (US gallons) but you might do slightly better since your 2006 Prius number is also slightly better than EPA rating.

If you can charge at both ends of your commute you should do very well.

is your 22c/kWh in NZD ?
is your gasoline 2.00 NZD per liter or gallon.

for simple math, use the cost of a full charge compared to the cost of a gallon of gasoline. 22c x 12kWh = $2.64 = 38 miles.

 

Quite a cool link. Nice to see a profile of my commute. The green forest part of the map pretty much matches the big lump in the profile. Now the scale of it is a little clearer... although it's really to compare different electric cars... The power fuel price is in NZD, and it's NZD2.03/liter.

 

It looks like you can make the commute to work on 100% ev. Can you get a charge at work as well?

my quick math indicates 2.63 NZD electric (12kWh) will get you as far as 7.69 NZD of gasoline (1 US gallon).

The 300m climb and decent is rough. If there is a route to go around the hill instead it might be worthwhile. you can model that on the same tool by creating a waypoint on the alternate route.

 

Hi John, I'm afraid there's only one road, and it is quite a climb for the first few k's in the morning. I haven't tried the battery out yet to see how far up the hill I can get on it in EV mode, but don't want to break it either. The other options don't use the road (air & water, both of which are waaaay out of my league). My car isn't a PiP or PHEV either. Should my employer be benevolent enough to allow me to charge in the future - probably not. Maybe the next car...
Hey the pay-off is that I live in an absolutely stunning piece of countryside, and one of the best surf beaches in the country - doesn't put bread on the table though - and I don't even surf!

 

How much electricity consumed from the grid though? $$?

 

EV mode in a volt will climb just about any hill. My daily commute is about 300m down then 75m up (about 225m net) then the revrese home. Its 56km R/T, and I do it on battery almost all the time (except really snow/cold days when the engine runs a bit). I've taken the volt up 6% grades at 120kph in EV mode.. no problems at all.

The only problem I can see is the crazy prices for Volts in NZ..

 

What's the price of power in Colorado? Does it vary much in different states? Ours is about 17.5c/kWh... But then gas is pricey too...

 

I'm in rurual corlorado with power from a non-profit coop, and I pay extra to get all renewable energy. My rate on TODU was $20.c/kWh OnPeak, ,09 midpeak and $.05 off-peak. They just changed the pricing structure significantly (15% price increase in part to help build /buy more renewable), and as I'm expecting to add solar we decided it will be better for me to switch and drop TODU, so I'll be moving to a flat rate of $.105/kWh. For now it will cost me about the same as before (less then TODU after the price changes), but it will allow me to sell back solar to the grid at a better price (they alway buy at the lowest rate so TODU is much worse), and still buy wind as well. (SInce I charge at night, buying wind makes more sense as its plentiful at night, often more than is being bought so they just shut it off).