GM tweaks new Volts to qualify for $1500 CA rebate & HOV lanes

I forgot my actual count was above 50 (its 59 now).. but maybe its part of the "or so".. Its possible I even ment to say 60 or so don't recall my thought at the time), which is still way less than a regular ICE.

I was expecting far fewer (about 25) when I bought the Volt but the Volt has an annoying feature I and not really counted on. If the temp is < 25F, it will enter a cycle of "engine running due to temp. I live a 7000ft in Colorado so I'm getting more of those than what might be the average (in CA they'll probably never see them). Of my now 59 cold starts, 36 have been due to "temp" (the rest for longer trips). With spring here I don't expect many more of them. I've been waiting on software fix for the temp (basically allowing owners to change the temp when it happens) which was discussed on gm-volt.com but has not been released yet. If its not out by next year I'l hack the car with a light or Peltier on the temp sensor so ithe car does not start due to temp.


I'll also add my stats are not that good. Considering my lifetime stats (which is where the 59 starts come from), I'm below the median of the volt-stat users. My lifetime MPG is just above average (multiple long trips in the summer/fall). My commute is dominating the last months which is better, but even over the last month ny 459MPG only ranks me 118 out of 400 or folks on voltstats.net.

The "Utility factor" and average MPG are, however, a poor model for how often I run the engine (or would run it if the temp thing was not an issue). Of my 1000 or so ICE miles, 95% are from the 7 longest trips. This is true for many of the volt driver.. nearly pure EV for commuting and ICE for longer trips. (You can see graphs at voltstats.net). So for many the number of ICE starts is really quite small even if they are at only 705 EV.

 

The Ampera can already do that. It has an additional "Hold" mode that we don't get in the U.S. Volt (apparently for silly regulatory reasons).