PiP/Volt January 7-11 Switcheroo

PHEV10 and PHEV40 Opportunity charging impacts | PriusChat

 

the pictures tell the story, sorry, the box did not talk to me

 

Not sure of the point. Am I supposed to check if my mother-in-law has a "do not lay flat" label on her blouse before putting her in the backseat or just wait to see if she talks to me.

 

the "point" is, you can put a 55 inch LED TV upright behind the front seat and in front of the rear seats in a PIP. can you do that in a VOLT?

 

Don't know. Mine was 60 inch and I didn't try.

I just checked the box from my 60 inch LED and it doesn't have any warning about laying flat. It does have a symbol to not stack more than two high laying flat though.

 

Yes, it's totally illogical, at least you admit it unlike usbseawolf! Being able to charge during the day favors the Volt, not the PiP, given your commute. Say you have 92 miles commute and want to do 10 miles errand running at lunch:

PiP: ~30 EV miles per day (home, two work charges). 72 gas miles. 72/49 = 1.47 gallons per day, * 3.60 = $5.29 at roughly current bay area prices.

Volt: ~59 EV miles per day (36 home, 23 miles from 6 hours charging, why only 6 I don't know). 43 gas miles. 43/37 = 1.16 gallons per day * 3.80 (premium) = $4.41.

It's even better for Volt if you allow for full 8 hours of work charging giving 66-68 EV miles per day.

You should like the PiP more, the more you *can't* charge during the day. Super-long commute *without* charging is where the PiP beats the Volt with its superior gas mileage.

 

but that was his point. he can rarely get a full charge at work. sometimes he can't get a charge at all, sometimes only a few (read: <3) hours. there is no way he can get 6 hours charging. and so your EV miles drop to something like 40, your gas miles go up to 62, and your cost of gas goes up to $6.37, being higher than the Pip by over $1 per day. not a lot, but adds up to about $240/year.

you would have a point if he could do most, or all, of his round-trip commute in the volt. but he doesn't.

 

devprius is not overly interested in fuel economy or his driving style would be significantly different, even in the PiP. EV is the easiest way to get fuel economy gains without changing driving styles. His next logical step will be a BEV, as soon as he can get out of the PiP and into a BEV for a reasonable amount. L2 charging at work would also be a tipping point.

 

on those days that he doesn't get @ work charging his pip is going 92 miles on gas for $6.76.

I think in all charging scenarios, devprius would use less gas driving the Volt rather than the PiP, but there are other reasons for him to prefer the PiP.

 

I curious of Jeff and Dev could each post a summary of your efficiencies in both cars with a short description of your driving. These messages about charging at work and such are great but its hard to reconstruct a coherent picutre of the week and the comparison. If you say all the data is in the thread I can try to compile it, but I'm not sure its all there.

 

I just hope David didn't scratch that beautiful Volt.

 

Actually, that wasn't his point, at least not how I read his post. I think his logic was something like: given full charge in the Prius both morning and afternoon, his lunch trip is basically "free", since he is committed to burning ~1.5 gallons a day regardless, and the lunch trip doesn't increase this since it's all EV and there is time to replenish what is possible in a PiP. But in a Volt, since he'd only be committed to burning ~0.9 gallons a day (or even less, if can get a full 8 hrs in during work), that lunch trip costs him maybe 0.3 gallons. So he feels compelled not to take that lunch jaunt. Even though the Volt still takes less gas even with that extra mileage! He could only get "free" lunch mileage on a Volt if L2 charging was available.

He was saying that being able to get a small charges during the day makes him like the PiP. But that's being silly. *Not* being able to get those small charges favors the PiP by even more over the Volt.

Not exactly sure why he can't get long enough charges, isn't it basically a factor of being able to obtain a plug-in spot? If he grabs a spot is there some policy requiring him give it up later? Or is he arriving later than other plug-in users and can only grab a spot if one of them leaves early?

 

It's all of that and more.

At last count we had over 20 PHEV/EV owners on the campus. There's only 9 EV parking spots total. While we do have legacy chargers available, 5 of them are the Magne Charge paddle chargers, and the other 4 are the AVCON chargers. Essentially useless for the majority of owners. A couple of owners have built AVCON to J1772 adapters. The rest of have to suffice with a couple of 120V outlets. Which, btw, are tapped off a couple of the AVCON units. So only 2 AVCONs are able to be used. We keep toasting the outlets with the amount of usage we put them through.

Some days I get to work and there's no parking spots open. Other days I get there and a physical spot is open, but too many people are charging at once. If I leave my cordset plugged into my car, some one will usually plug me in, but sometimes it's too late in the day to get a charge. Other times I might get to use the AVCON adapter, though I tend to leave it for Leaf owners to use.

In theory they're going to be replacing the old chargers with new J1772 ones, but they've been promising that for nearly 6 months. I've made the suggestion that in the meantime, they disable the Magne Charge chargers and use the existing circuit to make more 120V outlets. Each Magne Charge unit could supply 2 parking spots with 120V charging. This would eliminate most of the competition for charging, or at least stop us from burning up outlets, but it has fallen on deaf ears.

 

But I am interested in fuel economy. Otherwise I wouldn't be driving a Prius in the first place. I'm just not as interested in changing my driving habits to maximize fuel economy. I could've easily changed my habits in my old Prius and not bought a new car. But then I wouldn't have been able to get back in the carpool lane. Or been able to take advantage of new technology. Or gotten another 10 year warranty on the hybrid system.

The soonest I see getting out of my PiP and into a BEV is at least 5 years. By then hopefully work will have upgraded the legacy chargers. But then again, by then hopefully a typical BEV will have sufficient range so that I won't need to charge at work to get home.

 

Didn't notice any on the PiP either.

 

Do Camry & Accord owners go at it like this? Or BMW & Lexus? Or any other two manufacturers that have cars that compete in the same class and have similar features, fuel economy and performance? I'm guessing so, since car owners seem to have this big need to justify their purchases.

 

No, you're reading that wrong. His point, as stated yet again, is that he has no guarantees of charging at work. With the pip, he doesn't feel guilty about "wasting" EV range on a lunch trip, because the pip will be very efficient even with an empty battery. With the volt, because of its less-efficient gas engine, he's afraid to use up any EV range at all, and so he doesn't take the lunch trip to preserve whatever minuscule charge he might have gotten during the day. Furthermore, by going out at lunch, he could potentially be wasting an opportunity to charge.

That's all.

 

Most don't. Some do.
Just like most Prius and Volt owners don't, but a few do.
I go to a EV meeting with Volt, Prius, Leaf, Miev, Tesla and others. Everyone is very good natured.