Volt Pic Post.........High VOLTage or Low? Post pictures and stories/experiences of your Volt or someone's you know or have driven.

[lil' thumper]

Upon time of delivery, Frank Calciano was a bit on the disabled side, but eager to check his new car out.



The display was also on the disabled side. It funtioned, but half the screen wasn't quite right.

Replaced under warranty




Mr. Calciano likes the layout of the dash and interior.... even stows the crutches to his right with plenty of ease. You can see the dash display isn't quite up to par in this picture. Didn't seem to bother me driving it though. It was readily apparent what was happening, whether the battery was providing power or the regenerative brakes were feeding power back into the system's juice storage.




A small number of screen displays (either the front screen or the middle dash screen) had problems and were replaced in various cars as reported earlier)

Screen below is the front screen display

On another note. As far as problems with Volts, the display seems to crap out on a few cars (just a few and were replaced on warranty by dealer)

[Powderkeg]

Steve Wojtanek, one of the Volt owners from the first batch, has managed to reach an average of 122 mpg

Wojtanek, a Volt buyer in Boca Raton, FL, has made it his personal goal to drive as efficiently as possible and is "surprised" by how infrequently his Volt needs to be gassed up. Wojtanek's Volt has more than 3,417 miles on its odometer, with 2,225 of those miles driven under battery power.

Actor and retired airline pilot... owns several cars, including a Rolls Royce

heh... yep... he's got a few cars alright.

[Lightnin']

Early adopter in D.C.

Jeff Parmet, a 64-year-old litigation consultant who sold his BMW for the Volt.

Now to my Volt. The VIN number is 71, which gives me a special thrill to think it was one of the first ones to roll off the assembly line. A picture of it charging in my garage is attached.

seems to be a trend here

The car was not fully charged when we picked it up, and we had a 35-mile drive home, so the range extender came on about half way home.

I traded in my BMW X-5 SUV, which says a lot about GM.

It sounds as though it's a very nice car to drive, regardless of the electric power or the gas that isn't used

I purchased the Volt even though I wanted to lease it, because the dealership did not have its leasing arrangements lined up yet. It has the premium trim package, which includes leather appointed seats, heated front seats, leather wrapped steering wheel, 17” forged polished alloy wheels, front and rear sensors, and a rear camera. It is silver ice metallic with a black interior and ceramic white instrument panel. It is a joy to drive. It is very responsive, has great visibility, and handles like a tight European car, which is what I am used to. I have yet to figure out all the instrumentation, but I plan to do that this weekend. I recently upgraded my phone to a Motorola Android and installed the OnStar app, but I need to contact my Volt advisor before I can get a User ID and Password.

Jeff Parmet starts his Volt inside on a cold day using an application on his mobile phone.

[Slump]

Taking a tangent off a tangent, I'm going to take everything I know about Obin from his posting here, and speculate:

bitcoin mining

Am I right?

Thanks for that info. I'm going to see what I can do in Virginia. I'm not as much interested in an electric car as much as I am interested in running electronic equipment 24x7x365. Solar might just work and not break the bank.

obin

[AZGolf]

bitcoin mining

Am I right?

Bitcoins became officially hilarious when some hacker stole 20% of all the currency in the world back in June.

[Obin Robinson]

Taking a tangent off a tangent, I'm going to take everything I know about Obin from his posting here, and speculate:

bitcoin mining

Am I right?

LOL no. Just high end power-hungry Class A stereo amplifiers and some machine shop tools.

obin

[TopDown_]

Easton, Ohio

Free charge at Walmart..... till they decide to charge for it

[AZGolf]

Easton, Ohio

Free charge at Walmart..... till they decide to charge for it

I think public charging stations will be like parking garages - you have to pay to use it unless you buy something from the merchant. In that case, you get a validation card or they hit a button to cover the cost of meter number such-and-such so your charging is free (or at least covered up to a certain dollar limit) for the time you're there.

[mitcompressor]

more on the charging station at Walmart in Easton, Ohio

July 14, 2011

Drivers of plug-in electric cars now can get a free charge at the Walmart store at Easton, where the retailer has installed its first public charging station.

The station, unveiled yesterday, is part of a partnership with Columbus-based American Electric Power.

It arrives at a time when few local drivers have vehicles to charge. Plug-in models such as the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are not yet on sale locally.

"It's really a good first step," said David Ozment, director of energy for Wal-Mart Stores, speaking at a news conference in the store's parking lot.

The only Volt driver in the region might be Greg Kuss, CEO of Solar Vision in Westerville, who bought his model this year from a dealer in Michigan.

Because he might be the only immediate beneficiary of the charging station, he was on hand to demonstrate how it works. He inserted the oversize black plug into the port on the driver's side of the car.

The only other plug-in models in the region might be the 10 or so owned by AEP for testing purposes.

AEP is trying to be ready to deal with the electricity demand for plug-in cars when they arrive, and this initiative is part of that, said Robert Powers, president of AEP's regional utilities.

The utility is making the electricity at the Walmart charging station available for free, as a "loss leader" that will help the company gather data about customers' charging habits.

"It's the right thing to do," he said.

But the free power will not go on forever. The station is equipped to switch to a fee-based system if AEP decides to do so.

Under normal rates, $1 worth of electricity is roughly equivalent to a gallon of gasoline, Powers said.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...c-station.html

The Volt, a gas-electric hybrid, has an electric range of 35miles. A full charge takes about four hours at the charging station. A shorter charge might provide enough power to pay for the trip to the store for someone who lives nearby.

This is the region's first charging station that is open to the public, although several other stations are in place. For example, Ohio State University installed a station outside its Center for Automotive Research.

The Walmart station consists of two pedestal-style units made by Ecotality, an Arizona-based company that uses the Blink brand name for charging stations.

"This is an ideal location ... right off the freeway, well-lit," said Steve Schey of Ecotality.

[Obin Robinson]

I think public charging stations will be like parking garages - you have to pay to use it unless you buy something from the merchant. In that case, you get a validation card or they hit a button to cover the cost of meter number such-and-such so your charging is free (or at least covered up to a certain dollar limit) for the time you're there.

Apparently stores providing chargers for EV customers was tried and it didn't work:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sing-them.html

Costco, the membership warehouse-club chain, is getting rid of its electric vehicle chargers in its parking lots because it says customers aren't using them.

The chain was an early leader in offering electric-vehicle charging to customers, setting an example followed by other retailers, including Best Buy and Walgreen.

By 2006, Costco had installed 90 chargers at 64 stores, mostly in California but also some in Arizona, New York and Georgia.

Charge no more: An E.V. charging station at Costco store in Rohnert Park in California


Even after General Motors crushed its EV1 battery cars, the Costco chargers stayed in place.

Yet just as plug-in cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt enter the market, Costco is taking its chargers out of the ground.

Dennis Hoover, the general manager for Costco in northern California, said: 'We were early supporters of electric cars, going back as far as 15 years.

'But nobody ever uses them. At our Folsom store, the manager said he hadn’t seen anybody using the E.V. charging in a full year.

'At our store in Vacaville, where we had six chargers, one person plugged in once a week.'

Mr Hoover added that E.V. charging was 'very inefficient and not productive' for the retailer.

He said: 'The bottom line is that there are a lot of other ways to be green.

'We have five million members in the region, and just a handful of people are using these devices.'

Plug In America, the California-based E.V. advocacy group, contends that the stations do get used, and is campaigning to save them, the New York Times reports.

The group asserts that some of the units have been delivering free electricity to loyal E.V. owners for a decade or more, and that people regularly plug in.



Sign of the times: Costco were frontrunners in offering customers with electric vehicles the chance to use the chargers, but now the company there is no demand

The group says that the Costco chargers are invaluable for owners of Toyota’s older RAV4 electrics, many of which are still on the road in California.

But the actor Ed Begley Jr., a long-time environmentalist and RAV4 owner, said in an e-mail that some of the Costco chargers around Los Angeles stopped working years ago.

The Costco outlets are also outdated by current standards, but a state-supported programme stands ready to upgrade them at no cost to Costco.

That was one impetus for a $2.3 million programme supported by the California Energy Commission and overseen by the charging companies Clipper Creek and EV Connect, which would have 600 to 650 so-called legacy E.V. chargers upgraded.

According to Will Barrett, a Clipper Creek programme manager, 30 new chargers have been installed since the programme began in July.

Mr Barrett said that Costco decided not to participate in the state programme.

Mr Hoover said the company was aware of the state-funded upgrade programme, but did not see a compelling reason to take advantage of it.

'Why should we have anybody spend money on a programme that nobody’s thought through?' he said.

'We know for a fact that many of the Costco chargers are used on a regular basis,' said Tom Saxton, a computer programmer from Washington State, who drives a RAV4 E.V. and serves on the board of Plug In America.

'And because thousands of new electric vehicles are hitting the road, the chargers are going to be even more in demand. And people are charging while they shop.'

Plug In America said that more than 900 people had sent e-mails to James D. Sinegal, the co-founder and chief executive of Costco, urging him to reconsider.

The group said it had worked to persuade at least one California store, located in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, to keep its chargers.

But Mr Hoover said that the situation there had been 'reviewed.'

The bottom line: “We will be taking them out there, too,” he said.

obin

[Jesarray]

^

eh....you win some, you lose some

One store chain isn't a definitive answer to what the future holds.

But thanks, Obin, for posting that



This will all sort out one way or another and it's certainly a fluid situation at this point.

Another thread explores the Electric Highway on the west coast and other places

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...ectric+highway

[Balderdash]

Parking structures are ripe for solar installations with these charging stations.

It's going to be quite a new frontier for these things. Preparations are in place to reduce "range anxiety" for the Nissan Leafs, but, of course, the Volts don't have to deal with that sort of thing

[jeff james]

The Smart Phone deal that comes with the Volt is pretty cool

[l88m22vette]

Is that the normal plug-in Prius connection? Hello backing into charging spots

[jarski]

Car is low to the ground.

Untrue! Needs moar low

[Barefoot_]

Untrue! Needs moar low

well now.

I see we are following the TCL motto of "low"

However, the car is already scraping at every driveway and speed bump with the world's lowest production car air dam as far as I can tell....

But I'm sure someone will dump one of these into weeds somehow

Just a matter of time.

In stock form, this is where it's at

That dam is right on the pavement as soon as you have any change in angle.

[AZGolf]

Apparently stores providing chargers for EV customers was tried and it didn't work:

The article states they put them in in 2006. There weren't any EV's back then! The GM EV1 had already been discontinued and the Leaf & Volt weren't out yet. Sheer bad luck / bad timing on their part to remove them just as the Leaf and Volt are hitting homes all over CA and AZ especially, and eventually nationwide.

[Powderkeg]

Is that the normal plug-in Prius connection? Hello backing into charging spots

well, from the looks of it, they are using some really long cords so I guess he doesn't have to back in. Hence the front end first parking and run the cord around to the back.

seems like there isn't a problem (although it does seem a strange way to do it)

Particularly when you encounter this sort of charging station cord

(so I guess I do see your point... backing into charging spots.... )

[Wheelstand]

^

yep.... putting the charge port all the way to the back rear of the car doesn't seem to make sense

Front is best. This one is at least better than that Prius up above, it seems to me.

[Sporin]

The charge spot on the production Prius Plug-in is on the rear flank by the gas filler. (not sure what the deal is with the blue car above).

http://www.toyota.com/prius-plug-in/

[audifans]

The charge spot on the production Prius Plug-in is on the rear flank by the gas filler. (not sure what the deal is with the blue car above).

http://www.toyota.com/prius-plug-in/

yep the Prius production car will have the side mount port

(I don't know what the hell is with splashing cute little appliques all over an electric car is about, but oh well)



Previous conversion models did have the rear port (not toyota production) (yes cal cars will still convert one for you)






But the Toyota Prius plug in that's coming.... you get 15 miles on a charge.... seems hardly worth the effort

What am I missing here?

[Rukh]

One thing I am curious about is plug-standardization. Has the industry gotten around to standardizing a single design for charging electric cars?

[spoonie]

someone posted details earlier in the thread: yes.

[AZGolf]

But the Toyota Prius plug in that's coming.... you get 15 miles on a charge.... seems hardly worth the effort

What am I missing here?

What are you missing? The fact that it's $10,000 cheaper than a Chevy Volt and gets 50mpg on gas while the Volt gets 30mpg? They're different cars for different driver profiles. Which one is better depends on how you intend to use the car over it's lifetime.

[audifans]

What are you missing? The fact that it's $10,000 cheaper than a Chevy Volt and gets 50mpg on gas while the Volt gets 30mpg? They're different cars for different driver profiles. Which one is better depends on how you intend to use the car over it's lifetime.

Fair enough... A bit more accurately on the price yields Plug in Prius at 32,000 and Volt at 39,145

so it's 7,000 dollar spread instead of 10,000

and the more equivalent advanced Plug In Prius (with things like Cruise control and seat trim) (same range as basic) is at 39,500 or roughly the same as Volt

[Barefoot_]

Striving for a little more accuracy

Volt gas only mode is rated at 37 mpg not 30


Under that last scenario (the gas-only scenario), the 37 mpg figure results from 35 mpg city, 40 mpg highway.


(and as you said EPA rating for Prius of 50)

[kasbah]

I'll just add a little extra to the gas mode mileage for volt.

New York Times writer beat the hell out of the EPA rating on gas only

Having delivered the energy-use equivalent of about 112 miles per gallon in battery mode, the Volt continued to have admirable economy with the gas-driven generator supplying the electricity: 44 m.p.g. over all, whipping the E.P.A.’s estimate of 35 city and 40 highway. With its 9.3-gallon gas capacity — premium fuel required — you can exceed 300 miles per tank, in addition to the initial E.V. miles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/au...ws/26volt.html

[Lightnin']

Remote heating or cooling using the grid prior to driving is a nice touch

A navigation system is standard, and there are clever smartphone and OnStar applications to remotely manage charging and check the charge level; owners can also cool or heat the car remotely, using grid electricity rather than draining the battery.

[VDub2625]

The article states they put them in in 2006. There weren't any EV's back then! The GM EV1 had already been discontinued and the Leaf & Volt weren't out yet. Sheer bad luck / bad timing on their part to remove them just as the Leaf and Volt are hitting homes all over CA and AZ especially, and eventually nationwide.

I think it's perfect timing. now they won't have to provide free electricity to all these new cars flooding the market. When EV was a curiosity, they didn't mind. now it would actually cost them.

[Terandyne]

I guess the stores can figure out what they want to do based on their customers.

I can't imagine that 3 or 4 charging stations would be all that expensive to operate over 10 hour day.

What would that amount to...

5 to 10 dollars even if they were all in use constantly?

Someone want to check my math and tell me if I'm all that far off?

I'm thinking like 10 cents or so per KWhour.

I'm well aware that California has a 29 cent KWhour daytime cost and perhaps that's one reason many of the Costco installations got pulled (california stores)

(of course, they could easily turn the charging stations into ChargePoint stations but maybe they'll just wait for some enterprising ChargePoint folks to step in)

[Brendan@bwalkauto]

The Smart Phone deal that comes with the Volt is pretty cool

I will say that the Volt's app is much better than the app the LEAF uses. Much much much better. LEAF only shows state of charge, time to recharge, and allows you to start and stop the charge, and start and stop the HVAC system.

Here's my demo's CarWings account:



Did 40 miles in a Volt today. I don't usually have any issue getting >40 miles per charge, but this morning I was in a freaking hurry, so I was on it to get to where I needed to go. Driving it harder than I usually drive an ICE car I got 33 miles on the battery.

I've seen people complain that they can't get 40 miles on a charge, and they really need to pay attention to what they're doing. It's not hard in the least bit.

[Jesarray]

One thing I am curious about is plug-standardization. Has the industry gotten around to standardizing a single design for charging electric cars?

some of the approaches to plugs and not standardized yet





Chademo and Level 2 charging sockets in a Nissan Leaf.





The Smart ED's SAE J1772 socket, which accommodates Level 1 and Level 2 charging.




The Chevrolet Volt is designed to the SAE J1772 standard.

[Brendan@bwalkauto]

LEAF also runs the J1772 for level 1-2 charging, as it's the SAE standard. Chademo port is for level three DC fast charging, and there is no standard. SAE wants a concentric DC fast charge port to surround the J1772, which makes sense.

[Jesarray]

correct. I meant to give this followup as to the proposed standard





A J1772 plug for the Nissan Leaf.


followup:




The proposed SAE Combo Coupler for Level 2 and D.C. fast charging. The revised J1772 prototype will not be ready until this fall, and the final version is unlikely to be ready until late 2012.

[roccostud]

saw a demo this summer. I didin't get to drive it but I found it to be quite small inside and for its size quite useless. Cool concept, someone has to do it first. I just felt it could have been better. I just hope new batterys get smaller to open up the interior on these new hybrid cars.