considering trading my PiP for a Volt

Out of the 2014's 16.5KWh, there is only approximately 10.7KWh usable. In the 2015 (and supposedly late 2014) the 17 KWh battery changes this to slightly over 11 KWh usable. If you have a May build date on your 2014, you may have the larger battery. Mine matches the date, but I haven't discharged fully to see if I go over 11 KWh to a full battery. It was rumored that if you got the Chargepoint cards in your Manual package that you have the larger battery... I consistently get to 10.8 or 10.9 with a few miles of electric range left.

I'm looking forward to seeing how low temperature operation works. It's programmable to not start the engine until 14*, although I've seen some modify the temp sensor to spoof it similar to the Prius ECT spoof. Going from memory of something I haven't experienced yet, I think it runs the engine until the coolant is 150* and lets it cool to 105*ish before restarting.

I didn't want to wait for the next gen Volt because of the rumors that they'd be de-contenting one model to hit the 30K MSRP price point, as well as creating a higher price point with greater range ala Tesla.

 

Thanks! for the response. Good info.

 

You do have some charging losses of about 18-20 percent, but even then you're using 12-14 max kWh per session.

I agree that the green ball is pretty useless. I assume you've found the instantaneous power display on the center dash like this one... http://www.girr.org/random_stuff/130114_volt_battery_only_mode_dsc00559.jpg

It's way more useful.

So far I agree on the Volt threads being fairly quiet. I guess that's the difference between a community with 60k potential members to several million...

 

I've had my Volt for a year.

This was a cold winter. I have a 38 mile round trip commute with no charging available at work. On days that were below 15 degrees for both directions I burned about .45 gallons of gasoline (and about 90% of my battery range).

Often things would get up above 20 in the afternoon and I'd get away with about .25 gallons and the full battery charge.

The engine isn't used very efficiently in "running due to temperature" mode. If my commute were farther (or uphill in the morning) I would have been better served using Hold mode for heat and propulsion.

Overall I was very pleased with how the car handled the cold.

Minor correction here--you're paying for the kWh out of the wall socket which is probably closer to 13 kWh with the inefficiencies.
[Note: The little blue link in my reply was nothing that I did].

 

Who's not tired of waiting? What's wrong with "instant gratification?" Samsung promotes, "the next big thing is already here." All things considered, you're decision makes sense.

 

59EV !!!! Coooooool,

 

Congrats on the 59 EV estimate!

You are measuring charging speed in two different ways that are not equivalent.

One way is a measure of how fast energy is being supplied to the car and therefore the battery. The Volt is faster at this than the PiP at 240v. You are seeing consistent numbers from ChargePoint, as expected.

The other way you are measuring charging speed is in miles of estimated range added per unit of time -- 10 minute intervals, in your example. This way is dependent upon both how fast energy is being supplied and also how efficiently you are driving. Since your full EV range is now estimated at 59 miles you will see more miles of range added every 10 minutes than you would if your estimated range were a mere 40 miles shortly after you started driving the car with the same amount of energy in a full battery. Since 40 is about 2/3 of 59, if you are now getting 3 miles of range for every 10 minutes you would have previously gotten 2 miles of range every 10 minutes.

So, when comparing between a PiP and a Volt you could easily see the PiP adding more miles of EV range every 10 minutes if it is being driven noticeably more efficiently than the Volt is even if the underlying rate of energy going into the battery from the ChargePoint station is actually faster on the Volt.

At 3 miles of range every 10 minutes you are adding 18 miles every hour which is about the same as a mildly spirited Model S driver charging more than twice as fast in terms of energy at the same ChargePoint station (7.2 kW vs 3.3 kW) but who is only getting 400 Wh per mile or 2.5 miles per kWh.

 

forty,

You can set the 'Delayed charge' to a time after you actually take off for work, that way you will consistently stop the charge at whatever % you are shooting for.
That way you arrive at work mostly depleted and can get a full charge at work.

But that's gaming the system. A good employee would not do that and charge only the amount it took to get them there, right?!?
Why, that would be like getting an extra 20-40 cents a day at their commercial rate.
That's as bad as someone who drinks company coffee all day. Way more than 40 cents, compared to the non-coffee drinker.

Also charging starting in the early morning hours requires less energy going the advanced Thermal Management System to keep the battery cool and happy. The battery cools naturally from the commute home and charging later uses less energy in the long run.

 

I guess I misunderstood your question. I'm less familiar with the detailed charging behavior of the LEAF but it would surprise me if it charges faster in middle. As far as I know, the LEAF, Volt, PiP and all other plugins will quickly ramp up how fast they are putting energy into the battery and will reach their peak rate within a minute or two. Under extreme cold temperatures (below 32F) it may take longer to reach peak charging since the battery may have to be warmed up first.

At the lower 240v rates of 15-30A on a ChargePoint station these cars should maintain a steady rate of charging until the battery gets above around 80% full at which point the rate will slow down until the charging completes.

The Volt slowly ramps down from a peak of 3-3.3 kW down to around 1.2 kW when it stops. This slowdown takes about 5-10 minutes. The Volt battery stops charging when it is 87% full.

The PiP is roughly similar but instead of slowly ramping down it suddenly drops the charging rate from around 2.3 kW down to around 1 kW (I forget the exact rate) until it stops when the battery is around 85% full.

I'm not sure exactly how the LEAF handles things when the battery gets above 80% but I'm guessing it ramps down like the Volt.

At faster DC charging rates like CHAdeMO at 50 kW or the Tesla Supercharger at 120 kW the charging rate ramps down slowly during most of the entire charging time. It might quickly jump to 50 kW or 120 kW when the battery is empty but within a few minutes it begins to slowly ramp down because they battery can take less charge as it gets full and they are stuffing in the energy as quickly as they can.

 

You know you are from California when...

You call the teens or 20's "extreme cold."


Just giving you a hard time, Jeff.

Holy moly, that is a lot of energy.

 

Can't add much other than the fact you won't hear half the Volt crowd crowing about estimates greater than 50 AER, since they've stated the estimate calculation maxed out there for the 2011-12 model years. Congrats on 59 miles! I can't force myself to drive that conservatively

 

I've walked to school in January in Montana so I have a personal appreciation of cold temperatures.

Let's put it this way, when icicles are growing on your eyelashes your battery may need to warm up before it can recharge at its peak rate.

 

The charging pattern is pretty much dictated by the LiIon chemistry. The chargers in cell phones follow a similar pattern, falling off quite a bit as the charge cycle approached completion.

 

forty,

I'm sure you heard this by now, but, that 'miles' number is just a guess-0-meter. It uses how you drove the day before to guess what today might bring.
When showing 59 miles it does not know you are about to drive up the Rockies at 80 MPH, with the heater blasting, with all your fat budds in the back. You'd get way less than 25 miles on a trip like that.

The bars on the battery icon are the only real indication of what is in the battery.

Do you know about the 'killawatt' Kwh meter for L1 charging?
I have at home a EMW juice box L2 at home. Cost me $285 total to have L2 at home. I have the components to add a Kwh meter to it, but haven't installed the extra (?) $35 in parts and a new SW load.

But it sounds like you can almost not care about home charging ! What a progressive state you live in !!
L2 is nice on the weekends especially. Multiple trips are not a problem.

 

I skimmed the answers you got on the Volt forum. They were roughly consistent with each other but various small mistakes crept in.

Several of them said it slows in the last 5-15 minutes or so which is correct.

The business about "slow when first plugged in above 60 degrees" was a bit confused. The ambient temperature doesn't matter. The active cooling using the A/C compressor etc. kicks in when the battery itself is above 86F during charging. That obviously will take away some of the energy when the compressor cycles on for a few minutes. At other times, some energy efficient pumps may just circulate the coolant through the radiator without much of a negative impact. Doing that keeps the cells at an even temperature and also dissipates some heat.

The charge does indeed slowly ramp down. You said it didn't seem to show that when you checked ChargePoint. I think you should try again and check more diligently.... The stations show the slowdown in charging rate and I know the iPhone smartphone app will show it as well. I rarely look this up using the website but my memory is that it also will show the rate ramping down. Make sure you are getting updated data every minute or so during the last 15 minutes of charging.

There is also some confusion about the usable amount of the battery. It varies depending upon model year. In 2011 and 2012 the battery is 16 kWh and 65% is usable. In 2013 the battery went up to 16.5 kWh. In 2014 the usable range went up to 69%. In 2015 the battery will go up to 17.1 and the range will presumably stay at 69% although that detail has not been confirmed. Many 2014 Volt owners have not heard about the 2014 change to using 69% instead of 65% of their battery so they may mistakenly assume that their greater usable capacity is due to getting one of the new 2015 batteries.