PB,
What really sticks out is the time using EV mode. Most of what I see being in the high 90%.
Just wondering what's the sked maint. on the ICE for that car?
Rob

The oil changes are based off the oil sensor but I don’t think it will let you go more than 24 months.
If you don’t use gas X amount of time maybe a year? (I will not see fuel maint. Mode because we use some gas.) It will make you use some gas so the tank does not become sludge.
You drive in L and you get more regen so you can slow down without using breaks and you recharge the batteries. This will make your brakes last a lot longer and save energy also.

pinballlooking,

An Ev still has to find a outlet, no matter how big there battery is. You can't get around it. Plan your trips carefully. I wish the USA was Ev friendly but it's not. I totally would love to dump oil and coal, a big reason why I have solar. I'm trying to be realistic. Ev is not prime time, I wish it was.

Not realty true The Volt can just run on its generator if you need it to. That way if you run out of EV miles it will just start up and still get you home.
2014 Volt: Electric Car - Hybrid Car | Chevrolet
The Volt is very prime time and the future is now.
Today my wife drove 80 miles and 4 of them were using gas. We did not have time to get a complete charge for the second run because she had other places to go. But no problem the generator just took over.

pinballlooking,

Thanks for the link, I thought the Volt was $42k. Prices have sure dropped.

The Volt is a Hybrid. That's the perfect car to own.

It's prime time for Hybrid cars.

I own a Prius Hybrid.

The Prius Plug-in is an Hybrid.

Leaf and Tesla is a EV.

I'm talking about electric vehicles (EV). It's not prime time for ev.

It all depends what you're wanting to do with the car. If you need a commuter, then the current EVs are more than enough. I know a leaf owner in the Milwaukee area and he has never had any issues with range. However, if you're a sales person who drives a ton of miles every day, or you want to take a cross country trip, then you're going to have issues to work around (but it can be done).

pinballlooking,

Will the Volt charge the traction battery while running on ice (internal combustion engine)? The Prius is built to do that. I can charge while driving. I was told the Volt can't charge traction battery while driving only from an outlet. That's why while driving on ice the mpg drops to around 32 and the Prius is still getting 55 to 60 mpg.

Daox,

Your proving my point, ev is great for in town. Hybrid is prime time.

Daox, I'm trying to make that exact point. Thanks.

There is a mountain mode the will charge the battery to a point but it really does not make sense because it is cheaper to just run on gas once the battery is depleted.
Regen still charges the battery after the ICE kicks on and it will switch back and to EV similar to the Prius after the battery is depleted.
The Volt still uses EV even at 85 MPH the Prius and others will not do this just yet.

The mode I like the best is the hold mode this forces the gas ICE to run. I use this when we go to the lake and we know we will drive past the range. A small part of the trip is interstate I switch to hold on that part. Then when we get off the interstate I switch back to EV mode. We use .25 gals of gas for the trip. You don’t have to do this but it will extend the EV range some on the trip.

I think the hard thing about any of the Hybrid EV or extend range EV‘s is you really need to look at how you use a car and decide if it works you.
We want to be able to use solar to power our car but sometimes we drive past a EV range so a EV only would not work for us.

This QA does better than I can at explaining the differences
http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car/faq.html

Mark

Prius charges the battery while running ice, breaking, and coasting up to a red light or down a hill.

Prius has Series technology, Volt is Parallel technology, there is a deference.

The Volt is really an EV with extended range generator.
When in EV mode it just uses the battery. I think it works very well for people with extra solar capacity.
We are just a couple gallons away from saving 500 gallons of gas just from mid Feb/13 at this rate we should save over 1,000 gallons of gas in the first year of owner ship. Those gallons will all be powered with the sun.

pinballlooking,

When the Volt drives 40 miles on ev and the traction battery is dead. It wont take long on a 200 mile trip before the Prius will over take the Volt in best mpg, if the Volt can't find an outlet. In town the Volt is the car to have.

I'm just saying each car has it's place. It depends on how it fits you your situation.

My lifetime MPG is 198 mpg for 12,972 miles OnStar keeps track of this for me.
So you think a Prius is going to overtake my mileage :)

But if you are a traveling sales man this is not the car for you.

I 100% agree with you on this.

Our Chevy Volt just went to lifetime 201 mpg and we have gone 11,029 EV electric miles powered by the sun. This saved us from buying 515 gallons gas so far this year.
We also just hit the 6 month with Solar power we have made 9.05 MWh so far. I look at the sun different now. I don't care for cloudy days very much now either.

Very nice!

PB,
I make enough power on cloudy days to surpass my usage.

I've been doing a lot of observing and reading so this statement isn't just my foolish thinking:

Any industrialized nation hoping to compete in the 21st Century world market must adopt an aggressive alternate energy policy.

France, with 75% Nuclear, is now buying power from Germany because it's cheaper than their Nuclear.

"Every hour, the sun radiates more energy onto the earth than the entire human population uses in one whole year."

Solar Energy and Energy Independence


"Renewable energy in Portugal was the source for 52%[1] of the country's electricity generation in 2010 - an increase of 28% in 5 years.[2]"

Source: Wikipedia

Rob

This is such a great statement.

I have to make more than I use on sunny days to cover the really cloudy days.

On a week day we fully charge the car at least twice a day. 12 kwh X 2 = 24 KWh then overnight we use 5-6 kwh. We start the day off with 30 kwh used without use using any power in the house for the day.
So if it is very cloudy we will not make enough power to cover the day.



Mark

South .........

We are at about six and ½ months with solar. We started with 9.2 kw and upgraded to 12.5 kw. We just made our first 10 MWh. Our power cost .10 kwh we just made our first $1,000 worth of power.
It feels good to be producing good clean power.

That is pretty awesome pinballlooking! Thanks for sharing your project with us.

pinballlooking,

Wow! Great productivity.

It's a good day for solar in Arizona, picture 1.

Having trouble with carpenters showing up, even at $20 an hour. What you see is beam lift in picture 2. That's what my wife and I have got done picture 1. It's a 30' beam I'm lifting. Rafters are to heavy for wife and I, 16 - 12' x 2" x 8".

In the forground is material for compost, have about 20 to 25 yards to sell.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1383583841

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1383583841

I love the lift. I always tell my boys work smarter not harder and you are doing exactly that.
Hydraulics just adds so much to our life.

PB,
I know, these things make me giddy to! My second system going on line made all the difference in the world. Once you get over 10k you really start to see the return go up.

Vern,
That's some nice poop you got there! Horse poop I suspect. We 'grow' horse poop here too but I partition it out like it's gold!
Tractors are great, mine cost more than my car!

Rob

Robaroni,
I know, my tractor cost was a little more then the wifes Prius.

I'm selling compost just to recoup fuel costs.

I still have the AC to tackle after the solar add.

pinballlooking,
Went to the chevy place and looked at a 2014 Volt (base model - white). The Volt just took a $5k drop in price. :eek: Looks like a sports car, very nice. :thumbup: Did not like the little windows and the wide window frames. :(

Did you test drive it? That is where it shines. We just went over 12,000 EV miles today.
Sun powered!
On the price drop they were already giving lots of incentives rebates, zero percent interest… on the 2013 when I got mine. Now less incentives and a lower price.

What's the Volt going for now?

I'm getting interested!

Rob

You still get $7,500 tax rebate. You must pay in this much to get it back and it must be used in one year. Your state might also make a tax rebate. (Mine had $2,000)

Robaroni,

There is a $12,500k discount on the Volt now. :eek:

pinballlooking,

No test drive. I know it the 2014 Volt makes the Prius drive like a dog.

Side note keep your heads down:
New Video Nov, 3rd, 2013. New Ison Close "I'm back!" Ups/Multiple Objects

Nice looking car. Mileage specs aren't bad either!
Rob

We are @200 mpg total miles 14,621.
Your range will go down in the winter but if you start the car precondition it this helps a lot on your range. Get heated seats then you don’t need as much heat in the car this will help winter range.
AC really does not take much range off the car they need to add a small heat pump for heat.


You have to look a high volume Volt dealers they get a bigger GM kick back and the lower volume dealers cannot come close on the price.

Mark

PB,
I've only seen one Volt here. This is a pick up truck kinda place although lots of Prius drivers.

I have a TED 5002-C as some others do. http://www.theenergydetective.com/home

solar setup http://www.theenergydetective.com/solar

If you setup port forwarding you can get to TED on your smart phone across the net.
You can use this to help you set that up.

http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/

Then if you don’t not have a fixed IP address from your internet provider.
You can use this service

Check if your router has “DDNS Service:” you can point this to you new web address from dyn.com
On dyn.com

Remote Access - Dyn
A lot of routers will update this service every time you IP address changes.
ATT wants $15 am month for a fixed IP address this service is $25 a year and you can get coupon codes and get it for cheaper.

Using this service you can use the same address for TED.
You can also give this address to Bidgely a free energy monitoring service that takes TED data.
Bidgely




What does all this do? It lets you get to your TED dashboard across the internet even when they update your IP address. ATT has been updating it weekly lately to promote you pay them more money. For a Fixed IP address this service makes it so you dont need a fixed ip address form your internet provider.

pinballlooking,

Got TED, going to dump it when their new stuff comes out, I need to monitor to many devices. Ted's new stuff will have unlimited monitoring, starts at $700.

Here's my Port-forwarding here.

There's 4 months I have trouble generating enough electric, June, July, Aug, Dec. All the other months generate enough so I get a zero electric bill for the full year.

www.bidgely.com (this is a free app and a free service.)
Has a android app also.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...idgely.android

I just got my Oct elect bill we carried forward -$43. We will be able to use this for our new mini splits once all of them are installed.
Keep me in mind when you switch your TED stuff I be interested in buying a couple MTU/ current clamps.

I would like to monitor my car charging and the new mini splits but $85 a shot is a little much.

Thanks for sharing the port forwarding thing, that is really cool! I'll have to set mine up to do that.

I got this cool infographic. Check it out!
Dead Link.

Yesterday was the worst solar day we have had yet 10.8 kwh. On top of that we charger the car three times and cooked on the stove so we used 60 kwh. I know it’s about averages and the sun is not out today either. We are up for the month it is still a bummer when you don’t get any sun.

What is your best and worst solar day?
my best so far is 77 kwh worst 10.8 kwh