I know this is from May and most of you guys won’t agree with me, but I gotta say… you only live once and, if you can, without breaking the bank, why not drive a new car and enjoy a few years of no repairs, updated technology, and a nice ride?
Fair point! While I have the time to DIY I am appreciating the fun of it and satisfaction from learning, along with the cost savings. I’m sure the day will come soon when I don’t have the time to fix myself and enjoy the ease of a newer car.
Gudenteit, Yes, my Volt has a radiator and 3 cooling loops! Of course one for the engine, which doesn’t run very often. Plus one for the big battery and another one for the electronics. I have 3 separate coolant recovery tanks under the hood!
Even pure electric cars have a radiator because the big battery (not the 12V battery) is liquid cooled to greatly extend it’s life.
Technically, the Volt is indeed a hybrid
But LEGALLY . . . at least when they were introduced, im not sure what happened later . . . GM were allowed to refer to, market and sell them as EVs
Every single automotive textbook and instructor I’ve run into refers to the Volt as a hybrid, fwiw
Chevy actually called them EREV’s (Extended Range Electric Vehicles) because they wanted to invent their own name for “Plug-In”. I think it just served to confuse the buying public.
EREV’s are under the Plug-in Hybrid umbrella. In my opinion there are 3 types of electric cars. Electric, Hybrid and Plug-in hybrid. Any nit picking about plug-in and EREV is just silly. EREV is one type of Plug-in Hybrid.
When friends ask me the difference between Hybrid and Plug-in Hybrid here is what I’ve come up with to make it as simple as possible. The battery in a Hybrid is charged by the engine running. That is why the engine starts, stops, starts all the time. The battery in a plug-in is charged by buying electricity from the power company. That is much cheaper electricity than making it with a gas engine. The engine doesn’t start until the battery gets to a low level (not zero). It then starts and generates electric for the drive motors. When you get home plug it in and in the morning you have a full battery. With my Volt I can drive 50 to 60 miles before the engine turns on.
… or the driver can choose to alternate between battery power and ICE power, depending on traffic conditions/speed.
Almost all of my driving with my PHEV is done solely on battery power. If I know that I’ll be doing expressway driving (which depletes the battery faster than lower speed driving), I run on battery power until a couple of miles before I enter the expressway, and then I activate the gas engine in order to give it a chance to warm-up before I use it on the expressway.
When I’m approaching my expressway exit, I return to battery power for the lower-speed portions of my trip.
You actually proved my point for me
Thank you
My range is similar, but I’m very careful that I don’t wind-up in a situation where the IC engine would turn on shortly before I end my drive. I don’t want the IC engine to run for just a couple of minutes, in order to prevent water vapor contamination of the motor oil.
Question to the PHEV/HEV gurus…
Since the ICE starts and will charge the battery’s in a HEV while driving etc, as well as regenerative braking..
Why doesn’t the ICE charge the battery’s in a PHEV, or does it??
So if you are on a 500 mile trip, once you use up the 50-60 mile range on the PHEV battery, that is it, the rest of the trip is only using the ICE until it can be plugged back in and charged back up?? Not even regenerative braking on a PHEV??
I never really looked into the PHEV, but I guess I always thought that the only/or main difference between a HEV and a PHEV was one could be plugged in incase the battery didn’t have time to charge back up while driving…
PHEVs have a much large(r) battery than a regular hybrid
I believe the ICE does charge the battery and regenerative braking also comes into play, but it’s not capable of fully charging that large battery
And as with EVs, the PHEVs get recharged with 240v
When the battery is–supposedly–depleted, it actually is at 20% charge, in order to preserve all functions. The ICE does recharge the battery while driving, but only to a limited extent. 30 minutes of diving might only add 1 or 2 miles of range to the battery. By contrast, just a couple of minutes of braking on a downgrade adds 2 miles to the battery range.
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.. or, you can recharge from a regular 120v outlet. At home, it takes 10 hours for me to get a full recharge. It would obviously be much quicker with 240v.
Boy Dave, a lot of questions. I’ll try to tackle them one by one!
In a plug-in you are using the “cheap” electric from the power company. So using the ICE to re-charge the battery would be defeating the goal. Once the battery gets to that low level and the ice starts, the ICE’s goal is to generate power for the electric motors, not to recharge.
My Volt has a Mode that is called the “Hold” mode. As in, hold the battery at it’s current state of charge. You normally use Hold mode on longer trips. The ICE starts up and the battery stays at the charge it’s at. My Volt has a 8.9 gallon tank! It’s good for 350 Miles!
The regen braking is always working. If your battery is less than 100% the regen works. I have noticed when I leave my driveway with a full battery and try the regen it is very weak. Because the battery is full!
I talk about the “Modes”. In the Volt there are 4 of them. “Normal” is where you normally leave it, it will drive electric only until the battery is at a “low” level then the ICE kicks on. The next mode is “sport”. Kind of a gimmicky, it just re-maps the accelerator pedal to make the car more quick. Here’s number 3: Mountain Mode. Chevy gives you more power in mountainous areas by not letting the battery get below about 50%. So if you are climbing steep grades you will have both electric and ICE together. And finally, #4 is “Hold” mode which I described above. For drive longer distances.
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PHEV’s can be charged with 240 (L2) or 120 (L1) volts. My Volt came with a L1 charger. But I bought an outdoor L2 Clipper Creek that is mounted just outside my garage door that I use for nightly charging.
As stated, it can and it does. Every mfr does things a little differently, so you may be able to choose how much regen and how fully you charge the battery.
Certainly regen on a PHEV. You can even choose to charge and maintain 100% battery charge through regen while driving.
And to add to the confusion, there is also a mild hybrid battery (MHB). A vehicle that always runs on ICE but has a battery and electric motor to boost engine operation for more power and to increase mileage.
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Were I to buy a PHEV, I’d certainly invest in a level 2 charger
Would be quicker with a level 2, but PHEV batteries, while larger than hybrid’s, are much smaller than EVs, and can typically be charged over night on 120v.
If I were younger, and if I went out in the evenings, I probably would too. At my age, overnight charging for the vehicle works just fine, while I recharge myself for the next day.
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+1
I have only used it once–just to see how it works-but I think that this function has limited usefulness.
IIRC, using the charge mode while driving can only be done if the battery is nearly depleted, and it uses a lot more gas than simply running the vehicle in HV mode without the added battery charging.
afaik, hybrid batteries are not supposed to be charged above 80%