Quote:
Originally Posted by jadnashuanh
FWIW, assuming the vehicle is on the charger at home, you can precondition it while still attached, gaining full range (warm up the battery pack and the passenger compartment - done via the internet from a phone or browser).
Then, depending on the area you are in, relative to the comfort mode, each of the economy settings bump the max range up about 20% each. The most efficient drops the max speed and maximizes the regenerative braking (keep in mind, it will turn the brake lights on by itself when you release the go pedal in this mode - because you WILL be slowing down!). So, the range hit on a cold day may not be as big as you think.
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Jad - the pre-condition is only modestly effective in my experience and only practical for most on one leg of the journey (leaving from home). Most don't have charging at the office or other destinations so after sitting all day at work, you cant leverage pre-conditioning (OK, you can still do it w/o plugging in, but you use battery juice so if your goal is to conserve battery - as opposed to comfort - then it won't help you). In my Volt, my commute in the morning to work will often show anywhere from 3.8 to 4.1 kw used to 4.1 on days when the temps are above 55 F or so. On the absolute coldest days (and keep in mind, I'm in Texas, not North Dakota) I've seen that number be as high as 6 kw. The afternoon's warm up so the average of the two trips is better than that, but still. Overall, in my Volt I do better than the advertised 35 mile range on battery - probably get around 40. My "best" range was 52 miles on a charge..my worst was easy to remember...Christmas Day last year, it was a snowing (wet snow), driving to my parent's house with 4 people...got exactly half my best day at 26 miles before I ran out of juice. Cold weather is NOT an EV's friend, but most reading this forum already know that. If you go into EV ownership with the right mindset it isn't really a big deal and most folks don't need nearly as much range as they think they need. If you have a second gas powered car (and most do), you'll probably do the garage hybrid bit anyway.