Chevrolet Volt Drivers Averaging 900 Miles Between Fill-Ups

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by Darkane

with a custom tune

Uh... I don't even...

Also, nobody can help with moisture buildup/water buildup in tanks. That's why you make sure to buy high octane from the busiest gas stations, as low volume gas stations high octane fuel sits for a long time (and if you run 94, or any of the 91 octane fuels with ethanol in them, SURPRISE, they absorb more water).

But even with all of that, your point is invalid, and is further invalidated (essentially, your invalidation has been cranked to -11) because of a custom tune done by who the hells knows who and the reasons of why your car needs it, completely rendering this discussion null and void.

If you didn't notice, modern cars are starting to come without fuel filters. That says something, and that something isn't that auto manufacturers are idiots.

[HO2S]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1


Uh... I don't even...

Also, nobody can help with moisture buildup/water buildup in tanks. That's why you make sure to buy high octane from the busiest gas stations, as low volume gas stations high octane fuel sits for a long time (and if you run 94, or any of the 91 octane fuels with ethanol in them, SURPRISE, they absorb more water).

But even with all of that, your point is invalid, and is further invalidated (essentially, your invalidation has been cranked to -11) because of a custom tune done by who the hells knows who and the reasons of why your car needs it, completely rendering this discussion null and void.

If you didn't notice, modern cars are starting to come without fuel filters. That says something, and that something isn't that auto manufacturers are idiots.

All vehicles have fuel filters, they are just not the ones that you can easily replace. Its a fuel strainer on the fuel pump module.
The volt is set up differently than the Toyota and Ford hybrid systems. They use a ice engine to move the vehicle and the electric motor to aid and or move the vehicle. On these systems the is still a heavy reliance and load on the ice.
The volt uses a 1.4L engine to just power a generator to charge the hv battery pack and the electric motor moves the car all the time.
After the ecu has determined that the fuel has sat in the tank for 365 days the pcm will run the ice until 1/3 tank and you are forced to get new gas.

[corsvette]

Volt has a bung on the fuel tank so you can drain it if the Fuel gets too old.

[treg50]

Love that bung piece.

[Darkane]

Cool. Chevy thought about bad fuel then.

[Darkane]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1


Uh... I don't even...

Also, nobody can help with moisture buildup/water buildup in tanks. That's why you make sure to buy high octane from the busiest gas stations, as low volume gas stations high octane fuel sits for a long time (and if you run 94, or any of the 91 octane fuels with ethanol in them, SURPRISE, they absorb more water).

But even with all of that, your point is invalid, and is further invalidated (essentially, your invalidation has been cranked to -11) because of a custom tune done by who the hells knows who and the reasons of why your car needs it, completely rendering this discussion null and void.

If you didn't notice, modern cars are starting to come without fuel filters. That says something, and that something isn't that auto manufacturers are idiots.

Interesting. Why would someone need a custom tune?

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by Darkane


Interesting. Why would someone need a custom tune?

Your argument is based around anecdotal evidence combined with a system that (for arguments sake) is pretty piss poor compared to a mass-engineered/developed/built piece of equipment designed to run over a wide range of circumstances. The fact that I have to point this out to you further proves my point.

As for the "fuel strainer" and "fuel bung drain", sure, those items may be there. Gas can absorb water (as noted), but realistically, unless the car sat for a decade, it'd start and run fine (I'd put money on a car starting and running fine on decade old gas as long as various parts hadn't become gummed up or deteriorated).

[HO2S]

Originally posted by Darkane


Interesting. Why would someone need a custom tune?

You are comparing apples to oranges.
A modified civic is not even on the same page or same book as a volt/hybrid.
Some tuner who is looking for horsepower and torque on his dyno in his shop is not the same as a manufacture looking for fuel mileage credits from the federal government and has billions of dollars to spend.
You realize that vehicles in 2013 are smart enough to figure out alcohol content and fuel volatility of the fuel in the tank.


I don't see it going over very well with customers that buy a volt and in 10 000km it puts up a message on the gauge cluster that says to go to the dealer to have your fuel tank drained. That is why the ice burns off all of the old fuel.


Contrary to what this article says, the volt sales have been down, GM has slowed production. Its a shame because IMO its the next step in hybrid/EV technology.






FYI, Honda has the shittiest hybrid system on the market.

[HO2S]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1

As for the "fuel strainer" and "fuel bung drain", sure, those items may be there. Gas can absorb water (as noted), but realistically, unless the car sat for a decade, it'd start and run fine (I'd put money on a car starting and running fine on decade old gas as long as various parts hadn't become gummed up or deteriorated).

Any car that has fuel injection can compensate for bad gas, its called fuel trims.

[badatusrnames]

Originally posted by Graham_A_M
[B]The volt is a decent car, you sit in it, and its not bad at all. I like the exterior styling a lot as well. I was checking them out when I was at the dealership picking up my Regal GS.

Originally posted by Graham_A_M
I can't say I'll ever own another jap or american car again, short of the new Chevy Volt which I'll be getting when it comes out.

What happened?

[Graham_A_M]

Lol, I got the regal GS instead. it was a deal I couldn't possibly pass up. I dont know why I said I wouldn't own another American car, (WTF) I think I meant to say German. Ive had SUCH bad experiences with Audi, BMW and VW that Im quite sure I meant to say it was German cars I'm dead sick of. Merc, not so much as I've yet to experience one. For the most part they seen decent to be sure. Ive driven an '10 SL550, and a '09 E500, and wow I was VERY much impressed with both. Just.... yeah

The Volt isn't a bad car. Im just not all about the hybrids as of yet. Out of ALL the hybrids out there, the Volt is the most appealing. But I got the Regal GS with about $18k off MSRP, so that was that. I wasn't the least bit unhappy with my last car ('07 Saturn Aura XR) but it wasn't nearly as nice as the GS, so I picked up that for a very decent price. (Thats one HELLUVA car for $28k)

We traded in my bro's '09 Corolla CE instead, and I gave him my Saturn that he liked 1000X more then his POS corolla. Oddly enough with 20hp less, and 44tq less, the Saturn was a much faster car on paper. With a 5.2 0-60 and a 14.1 Quarter mile, it was a fair bit faster then my car with a 6.1 0-60 and a 15.2 quarter mile. But that tranny was a lot faster then the manual I have. My tranny is a lot more relaxed.... its quite chill actually. With the Auto my Saturn had, it performed when you really wanted it to.

Wow man, you have a very impressive memory, to remember all that. VERY impressive.
LMAO, you should check out the video on the third page of the Shaganappi inventory. It was the CE, so it had NO options really, but they said it was `well appointed with a Tach, Air Con, and power locks`. .......yeah thats uh...... very well appointed to be sure.
That car was the anti-christ for any car guy, no seriously. WOW I despised that thing in all its entirety. Just...... urgh.

[Klobi-1-Kinobi]

Isn't a new volt around $50k?

[Sugarphreak]

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[Darkane]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1


Your argument is based around anecdotal evidence combined with a system that (for arguments sake) is pretty piss poor compared to a mass-engineered/developed/built piece of equipment designed to run over a wide range of circumstances. The fact that I have to point this out to you further proves my point.

As for the "fuel strainer" and "fuel bung drain", sure, those items may be there. Gas can absorb water (as noted), but realistically, unless the car sat for a decade, it'd start and run fine (I'd put money on a car starting and running fine on decade old gas as long as various parts hadn't become gummed up or deteriorated).

No doubt you know what you're talking about.

But for the record the program is flashpro and the tuner is Jeff Evans.

If you know Honda tuning at all, that should suffice.

But your points are noted. I'm just going to Respectfully remove myself from this thread as I've put it off topic.

[BigBadVlad]

The Volt will run the engine periodically on its own if it has not run in months to burn off old gas and when it does it generates more juice so its not totally wasting the gas.

I got a Volt last October and yeah, it's an expensive car for what you get. You can buy a Corolla, Focus, Cruze and save $15,000ish. When I got mine they were around $40000 give or take ~$5000 depending on how you wanted it equipped.

So far we've done about 10000km on it at 2L/100km. Electricity is on top of that which is about $170 total. I'm estimating we're saving about $150-$160/month for gas. This has been over the winter months so far and as temperatures go up the savings will increase as well because it will go farther on less electricity and the gas engine won't be running just to warm things up. Have to wait and see how much the gas usage goes down as things get warmer.

Now I will honestly admit if I had been spending all of my own money, I likely wouldn't have been purchasing a Volt. It's fairly expensive for a compact car and the fuel savings are paying for maybe a quarter of the cost of the car. Why did I buy it then? It's called a subsidy through my employer...

[bspot]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak



3)Sure a coal plant might be efficient, but once you factor in the coal to power to step up transformers to transmission lines, to substations, to step down transformers over thousands of kilometers… how much of that efficiency have you lost? Then add in the fact that recharging a battery is incredibly inefficient, you put in massive amounts of power and you only get a small amount of that in return later on.

The numbers I'm referring to when comparing efficiency are end-to end. I'm talking kwh consumed at the charger, not produced at the power plan. EV still wins on emissions.

I said in my first post the battery manufacturing/recycling/replacement questions all throw a lot of it out the window.

The power grid thing is moot. Adoption will be slow. The grid is constantly being upgrade due to larger demand. Individual power consumption is up huge in the last 20 years. They have always had to upgrade infrastructure to address increased demand.

I've also posted before that you have to drive like several hundred thousand kilometers before you have a sniff at an EV or a hybrid being economically better.

A used Corolla will always be the cheapest car to own/operate.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Khyron]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak

1)The environmental and social impacts that come with mass demand for heavy metals for batteries (a mine in India to get materials for batteries is going to be WAY more damaging than our frankly ethical and state of the art operations in the oil sands for recovering bitumen).

No laptop for you? No phone? No tablet? Battery tech is constantly changing - it's foolish to say that you won't use a tech because it's not perfect yet.

2)Then consider the fact that you are going to be strangling an already stressed power grid… who exactly do you think is going to have to pay for more infrastructure upgrades? As power demand increases so will prices, so the 800$ a year you save on gas will translate into 2000$ a year more in utilities.

At night the grid is nowhere near capacity which is when most EVs would be drawing. Same concept as our block heaters - the grid doesn't collapse at night. Also home solar/wind energy is slowly moving forward - we will get to a point where you sell excess power back to the grid during the day then use it at night when it's cheaper. You're talking 4 TVs in power draw. For cost, right now with Enmax it's about 10% - if you spend 2000 a year in gas, expect to spend 200 in electricity for the same kms.

3)Sure a coal plant might be efficient, but once you factor in the coal to power to step up transformers to transmission lines, to substations, to step down transformers over thousands of kilometers… how much of that efficiency have you lost? Then add in the fact that recharging a battery is incredibly inefficient, you put in massive amounts of power and you only get a small amount of that in return later on.

That's complete crap. Compare electrical transmission line efficiency to the extraction, refining, transport, distribution of gasoline and you're not even in the same league. But even grossly assuming that the net efficiency of gasoline and electricity was equal (not even close) at the end user point, you are stuck with a 80+% efficient electrical motor vs a 20-40% combustion engine. Game over.

Now one thing I will give you is that in a cold climate we use the waste heat for in-car heating, where in the electric you have to draw completely from your battery. People are used to wearing T-shirts and no coats in their cars and that habit should probably change.

4)Battery replacement is going to outweigh the fuel savings in the long run and do far more environmental damage either in the disposal process or by using HUGE amounts of energy in recycling materials. Then the potential for long term hazardous materials getting into the environment is also substantial.

Maybe for the early adopters, but some of the first gen Priuses are hitting 300K - no different than eventually driving a normal engined car into the ground. As long as the manufacturers offer huge warranties on the bat packs to mitigate the risk for the owners, it's a non issue. Recycling the prius batteries is almost 100% reuse and again, not even in the same league as open pit mining new materials. You are NEVER going to see EV packs rotting in landfills.

5)The cost of EV’s are still VASTLY more than an economy car and certainly more than you will ever get in fuel savings. So they don’t make sense anyway.

All these things combined make it stupid to choose EV over gas

Early adopters pay a premium. The first home computers were thousands and thousands, and all they were used for was blocky brick games and doing basic home budgets. No ROI. Doesn't matter - like home solar panels people will buy them even if they don't make a profit/savings.

Also, Canada sucks balls for pricing. In the USA people were getting Volt leases on 299/month. That changes the game entirely and you WILL save money. Now, you can debate about the gov subsidizing that savings - that's another can of worms.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

I've seen a few of these come through for service at work, oil companies seem to like buying them! We ran one as a demo for about 2000km and never once had to fill up. I think the Volt is a great car but the associated costs would worry me such as batteries over time and the up front cost.

[Sugarphreak]

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