Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 114 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

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Thanks Joe. That info you posted appears to be specific to BC. In Ontario, you can get 50% off (max $500) the price of the charger and 50% off (max $500) for the cost of installing the charger at home by an ESA certified electrician.

I picked up the new Volt today and while driving it in 'L' instead of 'D', I was able to drive it without using the brakes. And the 10km trip to get home ended up only using 6km of battery juice. The sound system was better than I thought it would be. Used the call intercom and it was seamless. Looking forward to the commute to work tomorrow - it's only 60km round trip for now.
 
GreyGhost said:
That seems like a software choice GM made. The Bolt is programmed for people that want different, the Volt is probably programmed to behave much more like an ICE car..
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IMHO, you nailed it there. The Volt always was designed from day 1 as an EV that "drives like any other car" and doesn't require learning anything new whatsoever.

Regen is awesome, but amongst a percentage of the general public it's not something that's going to be easily accepted - not everyone adjusts to change well. The Volt was designed with the "transition period" between ICE and EV in mind. The Bolt and others (heavy regen, no creep, able to stop on regen alone, etc) are the next step.

shanekingsley said:
I picked up the new Volt today and while driving it in 'L' instead of 'D', I was able to drive it without using the brakes. And the 10km trip to get home ended up only using 6km of battery juice
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Cool. The GOM (the battery "Guess-O-Meter") will adjust a lot as it starts to learn your driving habits.

As for driving in L mode, it's great IF you are an efficient driver and are observant of how you're driving the car - I use it occasionally (mainly in stop and go traffic) but typically use the brake pedal instead most of the time. When I do use it I am careful about modulating the pedal to avoid "Rollercoastering" my speed. My wife on the other hand is not observant at all about her speed/efficiency and L mode was a huge range killer for her and she'd get into a cyclical speed rollercoaster - let up on the pedal, heavy regen drops speed, realize going slow, honk on the accelerator to speed up again...repeat. ;)
 
Good luck on the commute tomorrow. Be sure to precondition the car in the AM about 15 minutes before you leave - I'm guessing you only have Level1 charging at home at this point so you will be limited on "ideal" preconditioning (the electric grid heater draws 6kw, but the L1 charger can only supply ~1.2KW) so you'll draw a decent chunk of power off the battery preconditioning, but something is better than nothing.

Once you get your L2 most people precondition in 2 steps - first precondition about 30 minutes before you plan to leave, finishes 10 minutes later - L2 will recoup most of the KW that were drawn off the battery in about 10-13 minutes, so then you precondition again about 10 minutes before you are ready to leave - this way you have a nice warm car, and a battery that's pretty much at 100% still as well.

In the summer AC draws a pittance of power compared to heat so L2 can supply all the required power for an AC cool down. Heck, I think even L1 will for that matter.

Looks like we are in for another cold snap starting in the early half of next week, so you may want to familiarize yourself with the ERDTT settings. If your commute is 60KM return you may want to adust it to the -4c range so that the car DOES use ERDTT for that sort of drive - the car will start the ICE a little to help with cabin heating vs just relying on grid heat alone. For short drives, crank it back down to the lower (I think -10C is an option on the second gen Volts) so that it doesn't waste gas for heat when you have a perfectly full battery. Lots of little things like this can maximize your efficiency.
 
Thanks! If it uses some gas, then so be it. I have no illusions that this car will be solely electric. Hell, I'm going 400km to the cottage this weekend:)

But I got my green plates to save time in the HOV lane and I'll save a bunch of gas on my regular commute.
 
shanekingsley said:
Thanks! If it uses some gas, then so be it. I have no illusions that this car will be solely electric. Hell, I'm going 400km to the cottage this weekend:)
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The Gen2 Volts will yield close to Prius like MPG if driven efficiently (with a way more enjoyable driving experience) when running solely on ICE, and even on blended EV/ICE days you'll still see amazing fuel economy figures. Let us know how your 400KM trip averages out on fuel economy - the ICE will not be broken in of course so it may not be as good as it's going to be eventually, but who knows....still interesting to know, just reset one of the trip meters before the trip and it'll calculate your live L/100KM as you drive.

I'm coming upon a month since I filled my Volt last. I've travelled around 1200KM and have used 7.2L of gas according to my trip meter (trips to the stable and then home after work end up being outside pure EV range because of the range usage driving TO work in the AM), so not only do I still have nearly 26L of gas left in the tank (over 3/4 full still), but I'm averaging 0.6L/100KM, or 392MPG. Although I hate it when I hear the engine start up, I only need to look at my trip meter and see that 0.7L/100KM (or less) to make me feel better, especially when compared to the 15-18L/100KM on my old Magnum. ;)
 
GreyGhost said:
I was watching something yesterday and a heavy haul trucker was getting 720m/L or 139L/100 km. That made me laugh.
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The ready mix truck I drive takes about 160l or so to top off after a 80-100km day.
I've seen busy days where I've gone to Huntsville to help out our other plant and back to Barrie take 250-300l.

Sent from my SM-A500W using Tapatalk
 
Lucky for me - my deal was done yesterday for the full $14k rebate. Also GM gave some last minute rebate that was not expected which was another $1k off and I also signed up for the GM Visa card for another $500 off. Total price OTD was $31.5k, which in my opinion is a really great buy for this car.
 
shanekingsley said:
Lucky for me - my deal was done yesterday for the full $14k rebate. Also GM gave some last minute rebate that was not expected which was another $1k off and I also signed up for the GM Visa card for another $500 off. Total price OTD was $31.5k, which in my opinion is a really great buy for this car.
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The GM Visa application rebate is $1500 right now, so that's probably what you got.
 
Yes, I saw the rebates had changed, and the biggest news IMHO was the fact that the EVSE rebate is now eligible for even used EV owners - all you need is a green-plated vehicle and you're good to go. This is certainly great news.

Too bad about the Volt losing 1K in rebate value though. My sister and BIL are about to purchase, and I guess they're in the "you snooze you lose" scenario now.
 
shanekingsley said:
Total price OTD was $31.5k, which in my opinion is a really great buy for this car.
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I agree. I think I paid a bit more back in 2014 and I had a bunch of rebates in as well. Remind me, did you get a base Volt?
 
LBV said:
I agree. I think I paid a bit more back in 2014 and I had a bunch of rebates in as well. Remind me, did you get a base Volt?
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Yeah I got the base Volt. The heated seats and heated steering wheel make it decent to drive without the cabin heat on. Now to get some tint put on the windows.
 
You heading up to your cottage today? Is it 200KM each way, so 400KM return?

Don't forget to bring along your EVSE, you can pickup a full charge overnight easily and if you're talking 200KM each way, well, you'll do a good chunk of that on EV for the return.
 
shanekingsley said:
Does it fault out if you do?
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That's just CYA from the manufacturer. Lots of people use extension cords with EV's - the key is to keep it as short as possible (IE, don't use a 50' cord if a 25' cord will work, and use a quality cord of at least 12GA. Also make sure it's unwound - a wound up cord will generate a lot of heat.

Even if you have to use a super long cord, just set the car to the 8A charge rate instead of the 12A rate - even a 14GA 100 foot extension cord will still charge on the 8A rate without any issue.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Too bad about the Volt losing 1K in rebate value though. My sister and BIL are about to purchase, and I guess they're in the "you snooze you lose" scenario now.
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At least they're not in the situation in which a person I met ended up: he bought his Volt a bit more than a week before the incentive bumped up from $8000 to $14000. He tried really hard to get them to extend it to him, but no go.
 
PrivatePilot said:
That's just CYA from the manufacturer. Lots of people use extension cords with EV's - the key is to keep it as short as possible (IE, don't use a 50' cord if a 25' cord will work, and use a quality cord of at least 12GA. Also make sure it's unwound - a wound up cord will generate a lot of heat.
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I was just working that out for a friend. At 12 amps a 16/2 puts out 1.17 watts / foot, 14/2 is 0.74 watts / foot and 12/2 .466 watts / foot. The third conductor is a ground and has no bearing on heat. Due to an exponential function at 8 amps the heat is less than half.
 
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