First 2 days with a Volt

[Dr Mordrid]

This guy got a Volt for a few weeks as a kind of betatester before it goes on sale. GM does this with new-tech vehicles. The Volt panel display can be configured to display a combined EV/fuel mileage.

BTW: General Electric will be purchasing a fleet of 25,000 EV's, 12,000 of them Volts.

Also: GM's IPO is next week, and the bid prices so far are almost 2x the asking price. Looks like they're going to make a killing. This on the heels of good quality reports from Consumers Union (up 50%, now ranking above BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz, among others)

My First Full Day With the Chevy Volt
>
The first leg of my journey was from my home to the first hospital I work at. The actual distance was 22.8 miles, and when I arrived, the car showed 15 miles of EV range were left. That drive took place mostly on the highway at 70 + MPH. Outside temperature was 49 degrees, and I kept the cabin at 72 degrees using ECO mode. Comfort mode setting indicated it would drain twice as much power if I had chosen it.
>
The second leg of my journey was from my first hospital to my second hospital. Upon arriving there I had traveled a total of 32 miles, and the display showed 6 EV miles remained. I spent most of the morning rounding at that hospital, and had no place to charge the car. After that I drove to my office and plugged in at 120-v via the portable charger at 12:15 PM. At that point I had travelled 34.4 miles and the display showed there were 3 EV miles left.
>
I left the office at 5:15 PM, and over the five hours of 120-v charging the car had accumulated 21 miles of EV range.

The ride back home was pure highway and in the high 60 MPH range. The engine turned on 18.4 miles later.
>
I arrived back home having traversed a total of 63.5 miles and having achieved an effective 200.7 MPG for the day.
>

Living with the Volt Update

In my second day of driving the Volt, my love for the car grew stronger. It's really an amazing car. Solid, sleek, satisfying and brimming with technology and real-time connectedness.

I began the day with a charged battery reading 36 miles of EV range. I reached my first destination 22.7 miles away with 15 miles shown remaining. My office was another 7.5 miles and I got there with 7 miles EV range remaining. I was able to charge at 120-v at my office from 9:30AM to 5:00 PM and when I left for home, 33 miles of EV range remained. I made it home for a total daily drive of 59.3 miles with 4 miles of range left, and never burned any gas.

Thus for my first two days in total I drove 122.8 miles using .32 gallons of gas, or 384 MPG.
>

(NOTE: two full charges would run <$1.50 in these parts)

[cjolley]

Very encouraging.
However, my parking garage at work has no (zero) outlets, so no charging at work.
OTOH, I only work 4 miles from my house, so who cares

[Brian Ellis]

And what would his CO2 emissions be, knowing that most electricity in the USA is from burning coal and other fossil fuels? Some facts and figures (units in quadrillion BTUs, data DOE/EIA-0384, 2009)

As a baseline, transportation totalled 26.98 of which 25.34 (3.3) was from petroleum. 6.74 was used and 20.23 was wasted as heat etc., giving an overall efficiency of 25.01%

Total electricity generation was 38.19, broken down as:
Solar 0.01
Nuclear 8.35
Hydro 2.64
Wind 0.70
Geothermal 0.32
Natural gas 7.04 (2.74)
Coal 18.30 (3.60)
Biomass 0.43
Petroleum 0.39 (3.3)

(the figures in parentheses = average tonnes of CO2 emitted per tonne of fossil fuel burnt)

Note that these figures do not include the energy used in winning the fuel (e.g., mining coal/uranium), losses of energy during the winning (e.g. methane emissions) or transport of fuel into the USA (transport within the USA is counted) nor is refining counted.

This generation produced 12.08 of electricity and 26.10 of wasted energy, giving an overall efficiency at the power station of 31.63% but there are losses at the consumer level, including transmission, of an estimated 20% so actual electricity used is 9,66, dropping the overall efficiency to 25.31%, as near as dammit the same as for transportation.

The useful consumption of electricity is 3.72 for residential, 3.61 for commercial and 2.41 for industrial. As charging will be mostly in the first two categories, I'll take an average of 3.65. Fossil fuels account for 67.6% of US electricity generation, so 2.47 of electricity are used from fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, you give no figures for the kWh consumed by this guy's charging, so I'll have to go into generalities. 1 kWh averages at about 100 g fossil fuel in the mix shown above, producing about 325 g CO2. Taken that electricity is 67.6% fossil, this translates to 220 g CO2 at the consumer. We have to take into account the 25.31% generation efficiency, so this becomes 868 g CO2/kWh (some authorities round this up to 1 kg/kWh, but there are variables in efficiency and fuel mix in different places). I've not found the Volt portable charger characteristics but EV portable chargers that I did find are 117 V 12 A input or 1.4 kW or 1.22 kg CO2/h, equivalent to 0.4 kg or 0.51 l or 0.133 US gallons gasoline fossil fuel equivalent (FFE).

He charged for 5 h the first day or 0.67 USgal FFE eq. to gain 18 miles of EV range (assuming the calculator was accurate and he didn't use aircon, wipers, headlights etc.) so the equivalent would be 26.9 mpg FFE which is not outstanding and emitted 6.08 kg of CO2. This works out at 209.9 g/km which is almost double my Honda Hybrid (115 g/km, manufacturer's figure). Not very impressive as a greenhouse gas saver under US conditions. It would be even worse here, where all the electricity is generated from oil.

There isn't much else to say, except that, in practice, the 21 mile indicated range was, in reality, 18.4 miles under lowish speed highway conditions.

Rather underwhelming, I fear.

Incidentally, I had a software update recently on my Honda with savings of between 0.5 and 1.0 l/100 km. A recent 24 km trip into Larnaca registered 3.9 l/100 km (~60.5 mpg), granted with ~250 m drop in altitude. My average highway consumption @ 100 km/h is now 4.5 l/100 km (52.8 mpg) which works out at 117 g CO2/km.

I'm not concerned about the fact that electricity is cheaper than liquid fuels. I'm quite sure that IF EVs became mainstream, governments will find a way of taxing the electricity to counteract the loss of tax revenue from liquid fuels!

[gt40]

26.9 mpg FFE (rather dismal, even for a gas powered vehicle)? 5 hour charge for 18 miles?
And the final outcome, if these things catch on? Higher electricity costs for all of us?
Tell GM they can keep their Volts.

[Dr Mordrid]

Most generation here, and where he lives, is nuclear and natural gas, not coal. Point of fact - the vast majority of new generation here is natural gas (we have a few hundred years worth) with nuclear now back in the game as well.

Besides that, one of Volts options is to be a home solar station that pumps kWh's into the grid by day, with the Volts owner getting paid by the utility at the normal rate, then they consume it for charging during off-peak hours at a lower rate, actually making money on the deal. The numbers here are $0.08/kWh peak & $0.06ish/kWh off peak, and some stores are installing free courtesy recharging stations for EV customers.

Sauce for the goose is that solar devices like this are eligible for Federal income tax credits, and many states offer a similar deal. In some locales the utility also offers a credit. Get all 3 and the end cost is nominal or even non-existant.

A full recharge of the Volt is 12 kWh, figuring that it's 16 kWh battery isn't allowed to fully discharge to extend its life.

[Brian Ellis]

Most generation here, and where he lives, is nuclear and natural gas, not coal. Point of fact - the vast majority of new generation here is natural gas (we have a few hundred years worth) with nuclear now back in the game as well.

That is totally irrelevant. All US electricity is pumped into a grid and the proportion of 67.6% fossil fuel is the same, no matter where it is consumed, because these figures are averaged. You don't have different types of electrons when they are generated from nuclear, FF, NG whatever. In some places, you may have different tariffs for "green" electricity, but this is a purely artificial notion, because you cannot separate "green" from "black" electricity. And natural gas is a fossil fuel with a holistic GWP almost the same as coal, from wellhead to consumer, because of fugitive and vented emissions of raw methane.

Besides that, one of Volts options is to be a home solar station that pumps kWh's into the grid by day, with the Volts owner getting paid by the utility at the normal rate, then they consume it for charging during off-peak hours at a lower rate, actually making money on the deal. The numbers here are $0.08/kWh peak & $0.06ish/kWh off peak, and some stores are installing free courtesy recharging stations for EV customers.

As I said, I have not taken into account the cost because of taxation. In any case, fuel is only a small part of the overall cost of running a car when you factor in amortisation of capital, interest on loans, insurance, taxation, maintenance, consumables (oil, tyres etc), repairs and, in the case of EVs, an estimated $20,000 every 5 years (or less?) for replacement Li-ion batteries (hooray for NiMH!).

A full recharge of the Volt is 12 kWh, figuring that it's 16 kWh battery isn't allowed to fully discharge to extend its life.

Assuming a charging efficiency of 80% (which is high), to get 12 kWh into the battery needs 15 kWh from the main supply. At 1.4 kW, this will require 10.7 hours. At least in Europe, this could not be done with off-peak juice, which is usually limited to 8 or 8½ hours.

If EVs were to become mainstream, most domestic distribution networks would have to be doubled to take the extra load. Electricity suppliers generally keep the safety margin down to 5-10% of capacity in residential areas (higher for commercial and industrial). For example, where I live, the 230/400 V distribution transformer has been upgraded three times in the 13 years I've lived here, because the number of houses served has increased by about 60%, once for each new development of 6-8 houses. Changing transformers is easy, but putting in wiring with a higher capacity is not, especially if underground. This will cause an increase in tariffs as I've never found an electric utility company to be philanthropic.