In reply to mazdeuce:
I didn't realize they came in any other color than red, black, or silver.
Interested in this too since, as much as I enjoy my dino juice drinkers, I'm already looking forward to the day that electric finds its footing. AKA: How soon can I buy a used Bolt?
mazdeuce wrote: I drove 52 miles this morning, 32.5 of them electric. I have quite a few stoplights and 60-65mph sections that are probably reducing range. The car still calculated 98mpg for the morning burning 0.6 gallons of gas. Kind of awesome. The car is plugged in awaiting the afternoon run.
Holy crap! I burned more than that in my 30 mile commute this morning... on a motorcycle 
mazdeuce wrote: First things first. The Grosh currently runs off a single 30A breaker from the main box in the house. This is split into two 15A circuits. Everything is hugely underrated so I don't burn down the Grosh. The dehumidifier was on the same circuit as the Volt last night and it came on and tripped the breaker at 34 miles of charge. I've moved the dehumidifier to the other circuit. I drove 52 miles this morning, 32.5 of them electric. I have quite a few stoplights and 60-65mph sections that are probably reducing range. The car still calculated 98mpg for the morning burning 0.6 gallons of gas. Kind of awesome. The car is plugged in awaiting the afternoon run.
uh oh, time to go look up some Volt drag numbers 
In reply to sleepyhead:
Can't be as bad as the concept where Bob Lutz was quoted as saying "(It would have fared) better if they put it in the wind tunnel backwards." 
Looks great!
I'm still thinking about that 500e...
In reply to The0retical:
yeah... the answer to that is... complicated
I had a professor that used to reply to questions with: "well, you could do it that way"
Hey mazdeuce, can you give me details on the tires mounted up?
In reply to sleepyhead:
They are the Pirelli Cinturato in 225/55-17. 700TW. That should make autocross interesting.
Here is the tortured math that got me here. Right now between Mrs. Deuce and I we're driving about 5k miles a month. It's kind of insane. We're doing it in a fleet of cars/trucks that all pretty consistently get 15-18mpg, and three of the four ask for premium. That means we're spending $800-1000 a month in gas. This will change when Mrs. Duece gets a new office, but it's driving me nuts right now.
Our current cars get 16ish mpg. The Volt says 93mpgE, so about 1/6 as much energy. 15mpg at $2.25 is $0.15 a mile. Without pulling out my electric bill and calculating things (because this is all a game anyway) it's 2.5 cents a mile to drive the Volt on Electric. Every mile I drive saves me 12.5 cents. That's the benchmark.
So here's the game: Add up all of the costs of owning this car, payments, insurance, gas, maintenece, all of it, subtract $0.125 per mile, and hope that this whole scheme is cost neutral.
There are certainly flaws in my accounting system, feel free to point them out, but understand that I understand that buying a car to save money is idiotic. I bought this because I wanted it. I think the tech is cool and I want to play with it. It's a car that my wife will enjoy driving while we use it to teach the kids to drive. It's a little higher on the price curve than we want for a kid car but it's the first car I've suggested that has made Mrs. Deuce feel all warm and fuzzy.
mazdeuce wrote: In reply to sleepyhead: They are the Pirelli Cinturato in 225/55-17. 700TW. That should make autocross interesting.
not 215?
mazdeuce wrote: In reply to sleepyhead: They are the Pirelli Cinturato in 225/55-17. 700TW. That should make autocross interesting.
How deep is the tread? Sounds nice and durable for rallyx 
In reply to sleepyhead:
Yes, 215, sorry. I looked at the tires ear?ier today so I knew what they were but I just relied on Tirerack for the size. I was sitting in the car rider line with the AC on and didn't want to get out to check. About an hour of sitting between the three schools and it only cost me four miles of electric range. Bargain.
The only "mod" that the car needs is the removal of these horrible window vent things.
PO smoked. I do not. Two seconds and done. Hoping it also reduces some of the wind noise above 50mph.
re:wind noise
that might be related to the side-view mirrors, iirc
So has the Insight left the compound? and how is Fergus taking it being left all alone under the car port?
Last time I read you were on a hunt for Preiusesssss, and an evil E63 gnome jumped out at you,did you happen to see this on your way home?
759NRNG wrote: So has the Insight left the compound? and how is Fergus taking it being left all alone under the car port?
Insight is headed out in a few days. It was the gateway drug. I thought the next step was Prius. Drove a couple second generation cars. Drove a third gen. Figured I should drive a Volt just so I had a reference point. The Volt felt worlds better in every way and the tech is cooler than all but the newest plug in Prisuses.
The E63 was the weirdest thing to stumble upon in a sketchy used car lot. I'm working very hard to forget it exists.
Fergus doesn't seem to care what other cars come and go. I think he's just enjoying old age in the nice warm south.
Some of those lots around us make me think of cartel $$$$'s looking for a reason. I'm such a petrol whore I just have a hard time embracing hybrids/plugins.....electricity comes from ,for the most part, dead lizards...
Insight is headed out in a few days. It was the gateway drug. I thought the next step was Prius. Drove a couple second generation cars. Drove a third gen. Figured I should drive a Volt just so I had a reference point. The Volt felt worlds better in every way and the tech is cooler than all but the newest plug in Prisuses.
Mine was Insight > Prius > Insight > GS450h. I think the next thing for me is just getting into the modifications that are out there. I've done plenty of research but sadly when choices of how to spend time and money come up i've generally done what i always do and spread it around between a bunch of stuff that (while I may still think it's cool and thoroughly enjoy it) is sort of old-hat. Gotta force myself back into the trenches!
well, this is how I've been keeping my mind sharp while either taking a break from OneLap prep, or letting SWMBO got some nap time...
A bit more involved than the previous question on the Insight of "how much power does it take". Although, I realize, no one actually asked a question. And in all reality the above isn't actually an answer, but more of a "figure out the constants" exercise, so that a question in the future could attempt an answer.
Then again, more I noodle around with this, and read/consider mazdeuce's aims, I realize how fully constrained it is. Which is not to say that the Volt "wasn't a good purchase"... I believe it is/was.
I'm also not saying that the Volt is "fully optimized"... it clearly isn't since GM produced a pack with more capacity with a 140lb weight loss.
I am, though, interested in how we might be able to use this to play around with gaming out range improvement strategies. But, that'll probably take a hiatus during OneLap, and then will take some more time after it. But, considering there are some technical type people around, and other people that like numbers... I figure some of you might get a kick out of it.
I'm also not saying that the Volt is "fully optimized"... it clearly isn't since GM produced a pack with more capacity with a 140lb weight loss.
I think every 'first impression' battery-powered vehicle has its batteries managed conservatively for PR liability concerns. Gm sort of tacitly admitted this when they updated the Cadi ELR (which is all 1st gen Volt hardware) to go from ~8s 0-60 down to 6.5s with a running software change. I think they just had enough 'total fleet miles' of Volts on the road to be confident that they weren't all about to drop dead and be the next Cobalt Ignition Switch but 15X more expensive to fix. Whether that relates to potential range gain is unlikely, but i'm sure there are improvements to be had if one is willing to accept compromises.
right, they've also clearly stated that they are limiting how low they let the SOC go to protect that battery and get more life and cycles out of them so they can make the contractual warranty period. And that is where you'd make longer electric range gains from... at the expense of voiding the warranty.
I think your 15x cost is maybe conservative... but I don't know if we could get numbers out of Samsung and/or Fiskar to verify. 
several of the other constraints, as I see them, are:
The the somewhat rare (afaik) 5x115 bolt pattern
The fact that a ~4000lb car is rolling around on 215 section 700 TW rating tires.
Although, the "biggest" "constraint" is mazdeuce's (in my mind correct) constraint of "the miles shall be free" (i.e. all mods must pay for themselves).
And finally what I'll assume is/would-be Mrs. Deuce's constraint that "all mods be tasteful, retain the functionality of the car, and not be easily observable by others". Also known as "my 15 y/o has to be able to drive it, and my wife's clients can't easily notice it's not stock"
mazdeuce wrote: Right now between Mrs. Deuce and I we're driving about 5k miles a month. It's kind of insane.
Out of curiosity, what is causing this? Just your driving to drop off/pick up the kids is nuts.
I love what you are doing with the Volt, but it seems like some sort of major life change could totally eliminate the need for it and still save you buckets of cash.
In reply to ProDarwin:
My wife switched jobs. Kids are in four different schools. Three of them are right next to each other, one is 20 miles away. Amazing high school for Deucekid#1, and #2 as well next year, worth it. Prior to two months ago Mrs. Deuce worked a couple miles from the highschool, things were easy, life was good. New job, 40 miles in the wrong direction. That means I do Mrs. Deuce's old commute (to drop off kid#1) and she does her new one. When it's all said and done that adds 100 miles a day to the family driving.
We're working on fixing it. The new job wants to open an office in the same area as the old work to grab the talent pool in that area. New company is still working on funding. Things should fall into place. We've agreed to pitch in $1k a month to move office aquisition up.
We knew this would happen when she took the new job. We agreed we could handle it for 6-12 months. It's tiring.
In other news, Deucekid#1 got two solid hours of driving this weekend. Variety of roads, stop signs and lights, lots of parking lots, in and out and parking. She's doing well. Car control is good. Spatial lane awareness is getting better. Seeing all the signs and almost remembering turn signals by herself. Needs to figure out how to aim for parking spots a little better and get the dynamics to backing up and straightening out. She can see out of the car well which is good for someone who barely breaks five feet.
Volk has a line of wheels for the Volt, I looked into them before I deceived to stick with the car I already have. There were some really light correctly offeset pretty wheels available from them.
sleepyhead wrote: The the somewhat rare (afaik) 5x115 bolt pattern
My wife had a VUE with this pattern. I posted about this earlier and the GRM consensus was about 90% "Any 5x114.3 wheel will work fine" and 10% "OMG death!!!!!"
As far as 5x115 wheels go, there are plenty available... just not for pennies on craigslist like 5x114.3
Right now there is too much of me yelling "too close!" when Deucekid#1 is driving near curbs for me to be wheel shopping.
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