I'm considering buying a Chevy Volt
- Thread starter Doctorbass
- Start date
The fingers
10 TW
Awesome. Post pics when you take delivery. 8)
liveforphysics
100 TW
bronz said:
I'm pretty short on personal time, so the same guy who normally puts whatever gas engines in whatever chassis people want them in is going to be putting a pair of big 11" motors in the engine bay of this Cayman for me. I'm pretty stoaked about it.
I realize people use series wound for drag normally. I think it's just because they were too lazy to do a SepEx controller right, or they were making purely drag cars that they didn't care about range on. I'm going to try to have >120-150miles of range if I'm milking it, and Sepex can get me there from my estimations.
The only reason you haven't seen a SepEx make monster dragster torque levels yet is because you've only seen people running sane field currents, typically field currents that thermally stable even. I will be running currents in the field that make the wire enamel off-gas in seconds while I'm launching it from 0rpm, and they will be saved from getting to dial back as my RPM grows and I need reduced BEMF to continue accelerating. I figure you can take better advantage of the copper in your motor that way, and have improved launch torque if leveraged properly, and improved range from reducing field strength at higher RPM's to reduce core losses, because my copper losses will be nothing when I'm just at a cruise with a pair of 11's in a light aero chassis.
Doctorbass said:A guy from the Gm-volt forum is played with the ECU program and got acceleration as fast as
5.5sec 0-60mph
I think he changed the current ramp up and throttle curve etc..
Doc
Good stuff! I hate how all most all ev's and hybrids have been neutered by the mfg for less performance. The spark ev absolutley crushes the the gas spark version, but you can really feel they have it dialed back "for longer range"' or to save the battery.
Same with the leaf and volt...mushy throttle reponse and can barely chirp the tires (defintely dont get that slight slip like a tesla with traction control)
Happy to hear the hackers are to the rescue as always
The truth is they wont be able to hide the truth for much longer. Electric motors are superior in so many ways.
Chevy n leaf volt temperature range
http://news.fleetcarma.com/2013/12/...olt-cold-weather-range-loss-electric-vehicle/
http://news.fleetcarma.com/2013/12/...olt-cold-weather-range-loss-electric-vehicle/
Doctorbass
100 GW
leffex said:Chevy n leaf volt temperature range
http://news.fleetcarma.com/2013/12/...olt-cold-weather-range-loss-electric-vehicle/
Thanks alot, that is really interesting! :wink:
Doc
I just wanted to share my experience with the Volt:
My father and brother both have 2013 Volts. My brother plugs in at the public stations charging 220V and at home on the 120V. He has gotten up to 52 miles(83 Km) on a charge before. My father has only gotten up to 45 miles. My brother has put over 7000 miles on his and only has bought 3 gallons of gas. Its been cold down here in Texas and we are seeing a 5 mile range loss from the 90F degree weather down to the 30-40F degree weather. When the outside temp is below 35F the gas engine will come on automatically till the system is warmed up. On the gas engine My father is getting 40+ mpg all the time. One thing I must ad is the car is most efficient when driving a low speeds. The highway speeds suck the battery down. It's a true in-town car. When plugging in at home it is costing about 3 cents a mile to drive the car. With the gasoline engine running is about 9 cents a mile equivalent to the gas prices down here for regular. The Honda Pilot SUV we had was around 17 cents a mile to drive in comparison.
The car weighs a lot and drives like a larger car. Feels good on the highway.
A few gripes, not a big deal, is I don't like the touch sensitive controls on the console. Sometimes I light brush against the wrong button and activate something else. I prefer push buttons. haha. Also the 2 seats in the back and leg room are pretty cramped.
I am hoping The next Volt has a 3rd seat in the back as well as more range. We will have to see what Tesla comes up with in the next 2-3 years. They are supposed to come out with a affordable car to the masses.
My father and brother both have 2013 Volts. My brother plugs in at the public stations charging 220V and at home on the 120V. He has gotten up to 52 miles(83 Km) on a charge before. My father has only gotten up to 45 miles. My brother has put over 7000 miles on his and only has bought 3 gallons of gas. Its been cold down here in Texas and we are seeing a 5 mile range loss from the 90F degree weather down to the 30-40F degree weather. When the outside temp is below 35F the gas engine will come on automatically till the system is warmed up. On the gas engine My father is getting 40+ mpg all the time. One thing I must ad is the car is most efficient when driving a low speeds. The highway speeds suck the battery down. It's a true in-town car. When plugging in at home it is costing about 3 cents a mile to drive the car. With the gasoline engine running is about 9 cents a mile equivalent to the gas prices down here for regular. The Honda Pilot SUV we had was around 17 cents a mile to drive in comparison.
The car weighs a lot and drives like a larger car. Feels good on the highway.
A few gripes, not a big deal, is I don't like the touch sensitive controls on the console. Sometimes I light brush against the wrong button and activate something else. I prefer push buttons. haha. Also the 2 seats in the back and leg room are pretty cramped.
I am hoping The next Volt has a 3rd seat in the back as well as more range. We will have to see what Tesla comes up with in the next 2-3 years. They are supposed to come out with a affordable car to the masses.
Doctorbass
100 GW
TMaster said:
Thanks for sharing your experience! This is realy apprecaited! Here to avoid the engine to start at low temp soem have added a parallel 27Kohms resistor to the temp sensor located below the bumper to offset the temp read by the system and make the engine to only start at lower temperature. The Volt seem to have the same setting for teh US tahn fo Canada wich make non sense... here we want to avoid the engine to start all teh time during winter so that resistor lower the temp at wich the engine start.
Doc
An electric Porsche Cayman has been my dream car for a few years now. Now someone is actually building one! I was going to recommend buying one or two Zilla controllers from Manzanita Micro until I read that you were building your own controller which is pretty awesome. We have a single 9.25 inch Warp Nine DC motor in the BMW I converted at school and it’s insanely fast. I just can't wait to see what two 11 inch motors will do. If you finish it in the next 5 months you should bring it up to Silent Thunder. My high school and I converted the BMW in 3 months, so it’s definitely a doable time frame.liveforphysics said:
Well... I made a website then two days after I finished it the school district changed there whole website to something new and every thing was lost. I have every thing in a word document to do it again but finding and re sizing all the pictures takes a lot of time. I would post a picture here but I don't want to hijack Dr. Bass's thread.Punx0r said:Apologies to the off-topic, but do you have any photos online of your BMW conversion, Scott? It sounds interesting
rtz
1 mW
The auto manufacturers are in an interesting quandary. A "small pack", say around 100 miles charges in the times you all are familiar with. Double the size of the pack... double the amount of time to recharge using current methods?
Sure, you can have 200 - 500+ mile range. But the recharge time.....
I think that is why Tesla drags their feet on offering a new model S with a bigger pack. It won't have impressive recharge time.
Look into the fine details about getting 3 Phase AC at your house so you can have 440V or more. How about a 660V hookup at your house?
The monthly service fee is not nice or pretty to have that connection.
Sure, you can have 200 - 500+ mile range. But the recharge time.....
I think that is why Tesla drags their feet on offering a new model S with a bigger pack. It won't have impressive recharge time.
Look into the fine details about getting 3 Phase AC at your house so you can have 440V or more. How about a 660V hookup at your house?
The monthly service fee is not nice or pretty to have that connection.
This is not really a reason at all. People don't care about charge times going up a bit if range is longer... The supercharger will be able to Charge at 135 kw soon and it uses solar with a battery bank I think. As for Charging at home how often do you think you will be charging you 100+ kwh pack from dead??? You think you will be driving 400+ km a day..... Then charging at home all the time? What I am saying most people will only need to use the car ~50-100 km a day so the batter will still only need the same amount of Kwh put into it. The amount of energy they need on a daily bases will not change because the battery is bigger.rtz said:
Scott, if you have the time to post that content in a new thread please do. I'm sure many people would be interested in reading it
Arlo, what people need and what they think they need are two different things! I've seen several times the recharge time for an EV quoted as being that when used with the lowest possible power source, like an ordinary domestic 110 or 240V socket. It is the "headline" figures that people focus on and fail to interpret those in terms of their actual need.
Arlo, what people need and what they think they need are two different things! I've seen several times the recharge time for an EV quoted as being that when used with the lowest possible power source, like an ordinary domestic 110 or 240V socket. It is the "headline" figures that people focus on and fail to interpret those in terms of their actual need.
Agreed but that's not a reason for Tesla to avoid putting a bigger battery in their car.Punx0r said:Scott, if you have the time to post that content in a new thread please do. I'm sure many people would be interested in reading it
Arlo, what people need and what they think they need are two different things! I've seen several times the recharge time for an EV quoted as being that when used with the lowest possible power source, like an ordinary domestic 110 or 240V socket. It is the "headline" figures that people focus on and fail to interpret those in terms of their actual need.
And the size of the batter is not what determines the time it takes to charge so Tesla can brag that their supercharger can do it in xxx amount of time. Its dependent on the battery charge C rating. So more cells in parallel just means more amps to fill it up in the same amount of time.
Sure. Just put an asterisk next to "recharge time" on the car's spec sheet and write that at the bottom of the page
I hope Tesla do make cars with longer range, but it's an ongoing battle to get average people to accept and adopt EV's. Having just looked at the Tesla owner's forum, it seems you get three mile's worth of charge per hour on a 110V outlet. That's a comically long recharge time and you can expect critics to cite it...
I hope Tesla do make cars with longer range, but it's an ongoing battle to get average people to accept and adopt EV's. Having just looked at the Tesla owner's forum, it seems you get three mile's worth of charge per hour on a 110V outlet. That's a comically long recharge time and you can expect critics to cite it...
Punx0r said:Scott, if you have the time to post that content in a new thread please do. I'm sure many people would be interested in reading it
I went to see if I still had access and I have access to the old web site and it still seems to be up just at a different address. Here is the website.
It starts out on BMW E3 which is just a picture of the car but go to the left and click on "electric car" to see drop down menus to see lots of more information.
I will start a thread when my teacher and I get the new website up which, should happen in less than a month.
The fingers
10 TW
Saw my first official US Geeneral Services Administration Chevy Volt yesterday. They should start showing up at resale auctions in 2-3- years. 
arkmundi
10 MW
Doctorbass, great choice, the 2014 Volt.
Its Feb-14, "Valentines Day" and I found this graphic both compelling and salient to the ongoing discussion of alternatives:
Its Feb-14, "Valentines Day" and I found this graphic both compelling and salient to the ongoing discussion of alternatives:
mattrb
100 W
I'm thinking of getting a volt but I want to make sure my prodeco folder ebike will fit easy. Does anyone have tips on bikes or folders in the volt? Chicago seems like a great place to get this car. I have a 35 mile round trip daily commute too.
liveforphysics
100 TW
rtz said:
It's sometimes difficult to understand how one person can get so many ideas wrong in a single post.
teslanv
1 MW
House I am working on will be getting an electrical service upgrade to 800Amps @ 240V Single Phase. I should think there will be enough amperage to charge a larger tesla Battery pretty quick, if you get a heavy enough wire routed to the charger.
Even my little garage that only has a 100A/240V Panel is capable of supplying 24kw of charging power.
Even my little garage that only has a 100A/240V Panel is capable of supplying 24kw of charging power.
dnmun
1 PW
you do not need special wiring or huge amperage service panels to be able to charge a car, even a tesla. i ran some solid romex 6-2 w/grd from my panel out to the front porch where i have the charging spot master breaker box.
my main service entrance cables is 4 AWG aluminum service entrance cable, to 6 AWG copper service leads to the service panel. i have no concerns about being able to provide up to 100A@240 V on the four charging spots on my driveway. max of about 60 from any three of them and 20A/ if all three are used and the other is 10AWG so it can handle 40A.
my main service entrance cables is 4 AWG aluminum service entrance cable, to 6 AWG copper service leads to the service panel. i have no concerns about being able to provide up to 100A@240 V on the four charging spots on my driveway. max of about 60 from any three of them and 20A/ if all three are used and the other is 10AWG so it can handle 40A.
teslanv
1 MW
Wikipedia says the Tesla charger uses up to 10KW - So if on 240V, about 42 Amps. - And that could be supplied with as little as a #8 copper conductor.
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