We’ve gone about 375 miles. On 2.1 gallons of gas.
So, yeah, we’re pretty happy with the car so far. What’s even better is that 2..0 of those 2.1 gallons were used the first day when we were driving home from Detroit. So, if you discount that, we’ve used 0.1 gallons and travelled about 275 miles.
Took this picture a few days back….the goal, for fuel efficiency is to keep that green ball on the right in the middle (it moves up when you accelerate and down when you brake).
`And the display…..all of that gray you see there with the knobs is white in the white Volt. Normally, we have the music station up on the screen, but, you can also have it show if the battery is providing power or the gas engine is, or, if you are regenerating energy.
Yesterday, and today, we ran out the charge as we went back and forth to the store and soccer. It was like a game…trying to run the car as long as possible before dipping into the gas tank. There’s a few ways to do this
- Coast – when you coast, the car sends energy back to the battery. It’s a really small amount of energy, but, it’s better than using energy. So, with Matthew in the car, we were seeing just how long we could coast up to red lights and down hills…..
- Climate control – the Comfort setting uses the most energy; that’s what you would be using when you first get in the car and it’s stinking hot. Eco setting uses less energy….good for climate control. But ‘Fan Only’ is the best….and when we went under 10 miles of range we had the windows down and the fan on….
And we really like that we can track the vehicle online…and on our Iphones. We can remote start it (haven’t really taken advantage of this yet, probably more in the winter time).
The most disappointing thing so far? It’s not charging as fast as promised….this may have a lot to do with the electrical situation here in the house…..and the resolution to this issue will most likely be a long post of it’s own.
