My Low Battery Experiment

Lately, I've been doing some driving efficiency testing on my free time. And I've discovered some new things. When I first started driving the car, I thought freeway driving was killing my range. But now as I have been driving to the airport, a 30 mile round trip, a couple times a week, I have been noticing that the freeway isn't all that bad. Using cruise control, I am able to get around 4.9 miles/kilowatt hour on the way there and around 5.9 m/kh on the way back. This translates to great range as after I plug in, the car registers a maximum range of 127 miles. And this isn't with super efficient hypermiling, just normal everyday driving.

Now one day, as I live in LA, I decided I would go to the Apple Pan for lunch, a 34 mile round-trip. The problem was, I only had a 37 miles left on the charge, with no charging stations anywhere around my destination. But since I knew I had been getting great range, I decided to go for it. I just rolled down the windows instead of using the air conditioning just to be safe. And living in the valley, this meant taking the 405 over the Sepulveda pass. Going up the pass, my range quickly went from around 35 to 20, and I started to worry. The cars battery hit 20% and the car asked me if I would like t turn off all unessential devices such as the radio and clock etc. But then on the way back down, in low gear, I quickly regained my miles. By now I was regenerating battery while going 70 mph. I ended at my destination with 35 miles of charge left. I couldn't believe it, a 17 mile trip while using 2 miles of charge. But on the way home, the San Fernando valley being at a higher elevation than LA, I quickly started to loose battery life again and the car even helped me save even more battery by reducing propulsion power once I got down to 10% of battery life. I made it home fine with an average of around 6 miles/kilowatt hour for that entire charge.

So the moral of the story is you can get incredible range out of this little car if you want, and downhill is always much better than uphill. Yet, this car continues to amaze me and put a smile on my face.

Quick Range Update

Today I drove about 40 miles and got some very odd mileage feedback from the car. I started at a full charge with 90 miles of charge based on the range I was getting on my other drives. I drove the first 15 miles or so on the freeway. I have already learned that freeway driving is much less efficient than city driving. But in the first 15 mile trip, I drove with the air conditioning on slightly and the radio on and lost 20 miles of range on that 15 mile trip. I averaged around 3.9 miles per Kilowatt hour.

On the trip back which covered the same 15 mile freeway drive and an extra 10 miles of city driving, I only lost a couple miles of range. This time I drove with the radio off and the air conditioning on again and used cruise control on the freeway. I averaged well over 5 miles per Kilowatt hour on that drive. Keeping in mind that the battery is a 19 kilowatt hour battery. In all I drove a little over 40 miles and the car is still registering a 60 mile range. That adds to great range that ultimately averaged between 100 and 105 miles for the day.

Therefore, today I have learned that city driving is more efficient than highway driving as the city driving actually added range. And if you do drive on the freeway, my suggestions are to use as few gadgets as possible inside the car such as the radio and air conditioning (either turn it off, keep it on low, or just use the fan which uses much less energy). Also using cruise control and driving slower either at the speed limit or a little below is much more efficient.

Why Buy a Spark EV?

As the owner of the first Chevy Spark EV sold in the United States, I know well the lack of information out there about these cars. When I went to the dealership, there was an obvious lack of knowledge. And this was no surprise as not only are electric cars still fairly new, but so is this specific model. In the 4 days that I've owned this car, I have already discovered many features, and some flaws that Chevy could not tell me about, because they simply didn't know.

Why buy this car? First off there is the obvious advantages to having an electric car. But that aside, the car really drives great. It has plenty of power and pick-up, 400 lb/ft of torque to be exact, which makes it totally capable merging and keeping up to speed on the freeway. And with the standard sport mode, it packs plenty of fun at the expense of more battery of course. The drive is extremely smooth and with new sound insolation technology put into the EV, not only is it silent outside the car, but also almost road-noise free on the inside. The interior is very space-ship like, very much like the Volt, but also much more simple. Everything in the car is aimed at helping you drive more efficient and use less battery.

It also comes equipped standard with XM Satellite radio and On-star for 3 years. Furthermore, the warranty on the car is 3 years- 36,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty. And with an 8 year battery warranty, the car is well covered. And with the lease, all you will have to pay for are oil changes and tires. There is also voice control and Bluetooth connection with your phone so you can take hands-free calls and play your music through Bluetooth or with the USB connector. There are also smartphone apps that you can connect to in the car such as Pandora and LinkedIn. There seems to be nothing this car doesn't have except the navigation which you get through the On-star.

The car gets a range of 82-miles but if you drive efficiently and follow all the tips, you can get much more than that. As of now, I'm getting a little over 90 mile average. After every charge and trip, it will show you on the dashboard how many miles/kilowatt hour you are getting. And with a 19 kilowatt battery, between 4 and 5 m/kh is very efficient. I plug-in the car every night and there is plenty of time and charge until I drive again in the morning. There is even a scheduling system included that allows you to put in the time you leave in the morning and it will tell you when to plug it in or will delay when it begins charging and start on its own to make sure it has a full charge by the time you scheduled you would depart. It will also tell you what time it would finish charging if you were to plug it in right then. Therefore if the120-volt wall charger works with your schedule, then it is well worth it. You can even put in the times of each season when the grid is the most strained and the car will avoid charging during those peak hours to avoid shortages and lowering charging costs. Once again, the car is helping you stay efficient and continuing to help you save money.
Details on charging, driving style, interior, and exterior will come soon in separate posts.