Chevy stops Volt production (temporarily ...)

...not off topic. The thing wrong with your Plasma is lousy 3D you need the passive 3D of the LED/LCD to really enjoy your set, go for LED TV as it is more energy efficient too . Seriously, it is good to try to find some way to "visualize" that filling an EV with electrons, is a lot of energy demand, green or otherwise.

 

I'm amazed someone with such strong feelings on carbon efficiency would have such wasteful TVs.
However, kudos on your overall efficiency! 4kwh/day is outstanding. 120kwh/month is about 1/10th the national average. You could offset the rest of that with a very small PV system.

I'm guessing the Plasma is used so little the inefficiency of it doesn't impact your overall electricity total?

 

That is also from the batteries. We use about 8kwh/day to charge the Volt.

 

Gasoline usage can be measured by the quantity (gallons), period. What does it has to do with the miles? Why include the electric miles in the gasoline usage?

 

I'll take a pic of my charge screen when I get home at the end of the day. This will show my typical day's useage on the car.

 

I have a 50 inch plasma in my house too, and my wife will attest that I am an electricity miser.

We just do not use it enough to spend the money to make it worthwhile to replace it, when the money can be spent on other things that save much more. Conservation is always a question of opportunity costs unless the person is fanatic, quite rich, or someone else is hoofing the bill e.g government subsidy.

Moreover, it costs a lot of energy to make these devices. Trashing them during their useful lifetimes is quite wasteful. Needless to say, if the low energy LED TVs had been available with I bought the plasma I would have bought an LED.

 

Funny, that's exactly how I feel about the ICE in the Volt. I would be happy if it was more efficient, but the cost differential would have to be small because I use it so infrequently its not a huge deal if its only 40mpg on the highway rather than 50mpg. I'd rather put the cost differential into buying renewable energy to drive the 80% of the time I'm on EV.

 

Agreed, one can (and I do) report gallons used. But gallons without knowing how much traveling the person did is also pretty useless.

MPG does not include electric miles in gasoline usage, it includes electric miles in the total miles and then divides total miles by gasoline used. It gives people an idea how much traveling can be done with how little gas. To those people that are worried about how much foreign oil they use, its a very useful measure even for a PHEV.

 

I just remeasured the TV electricity consumption in standard picture mode. The wattage swings widely when watching TV depending on the scene. It swings from 140 watts to 200 watts. Sometimes it peaks at 300 watts, sometimes rockbottom 80 watts. I think it depends on the amount of white on the screen.

The previous 320 Watt I measured happened to be a web page (mostly white) under custom picture mode. I agree, the TV is a huge opportunity for me to cut down on my electricity usage.

The 3D on my Viera ST30 is pretty good. The 3D glasses are light and even my wife has no complain. This year model ST50 is supposed to use even less electricity and the glasses are even lighter. When I am in the market for another TV, I'll surely be looking at everything available.

For $495 including tax and 3 years extended warranty, I couldn't pass it up for a 55" 3D TV.

 

I wish I could fit a 55" TV in my house. That has to be one sweet experience in 3D mode.

 

So, provide both EV and Gas miles on the odometer. There is no need to divide electric miles with gas gallon.

That's the problem. Electric miles included in the total miles is being divided just by the gasoline used (leaving out the electricity usage). The MPG displayed on the Volt is a smog-coated figure to promote trophy mentality.

Here is a simple way to state how much gasoline you are saving to fight foreign energy dependency.

I drove a total of 10,000 miles. 6,400 miles on electricity and 3,600 miles on gasoline. At EPA rated 37 MPG gas engine, I saved 173 gallons. Since US produces a third of our petroleum, I prevented 115 gallons of gas from importing.​

​

In order to do that I used 2,359 kWh (183 recharges @12.9kWh per charge) of domestic electricity.​

If I look at the first screen Wolfman provided, I can tell he put on 3,724.3 miles on his trip B. He got 56 mpg with 66.5 gallons used. What much electricity was consumed to "boost" it to 56 MPG? I can't tell from that picture.

That's the critical information missing (or purposely hidden). For a vehicle that starts in EV mode by default, not having the electricity consumption is terrible.

On the second screen, his lifetime mpg is 78.8 mpg. How much electricity was used to boost the 37 mpg (EPA HV mode) to 78.8 mpg? Perhaps if he had a Prius PHV, he would've needed less electricity to boost 50 mpg to 78.8 mpg.

I am not suggesting he should've bought a Prius PHV instead of a Volt. It is just a thought after seeing his driving pattern (seems to take very long trips) and wondering about the kWh usage (due to the lack of data).

 

Edit: It should read "smug-coated".

P.S: I still can't edit my posts.

 

Yes, it is very sweet. I'd rather watch a 3D movie for an hour than driving Volt for a mile.

 

This trip was not planned. I ended up having to take an emergency trip to TX to visit a critically ill friend who ended up dying from cancer the very evening after I left to return home. As such, my stats are now seriously out of whack, with only 36% of my miles being listed as EV miles. Before, I was averaging about 50/50 on the EV vs gas miles, and that ratio was continuing to adjust in favor of EV driving. A PIP, nor any other hybrid for that matter, will work where I live. The distances between points are short enough that a gasoline car cannot get out of its open loop stage for warming up.

That said, this trip underscores why I opted for my Volt. It is an EV first, not a hybrid. I can still take that EV, and drive it across country as a hybrid car. The PIP will override the EV mode if you make the "mistake" of asking for much more than the power output of one hamster to move the car forward. The Volt's engine simply will not come online at all until the battery has reached the minimum SOC.

 

Does the PiP show combined electrical and gasoline usage for a 3000 mile odometer trip ?

 

They relaunched the website last night .... figures.

Plug-In Partners for Drivers

I don't buy my residential electricity from Austin Energy, just my EV charging subscription.

I think I can keep my signature's claim of 100% renewables for my EV charging subscription.

 

I did not see a screen showing combined electrical and gasoline useage on Toyota's website.

 

Next time you are looking for a TV, check out Samsung. They are much more energy efficient than their competitors. HD will also up the energy use over standard use.
My Samsung 50" smart tv is rated at 100 watts. My former Pioneer was rated at 345 watts.

I'd rather watch TV for an hour rather than drive as well. However, since the TV doesn't serve the same need I use a car.

And as the Plasma TV gives you a better user experience, the Volt gives me a better user experience than our former Prii. The bonus is it is more efficient with my driving patterns as well

 

Is the 121mpg in the second display somehow figure in the kwh?