I bought a Chevrolet Volt recently.

ohhh noooo, I'm in the 22R/22RE group hug... but we're rusting away, so I gotta get the tdi some air time.

wait, am I behind ?

is the volt the new fangled lectronics-n-stuff 22R love fest ?

dammit. always behind :-(

How about in a Minnesota winter?

You have some industry connections. Why does my Volt have a secret glow plug light?

I asked. He didn't know. He speculated GM might have thought about a non- or mild-hybrid version with a diesel. Something to help amortorize the dev expense for the platform.

How about a photo of said object so we can guess at its purpose.

Good call. I didn't think anorak knew what a glow plug light was either.

I saw a Volt for the first time a couple of days ago. It looked nice in person, better than in the photos. If it fits tall people well, it will be a contender when I sell my current Golf TDI -- honestly, the Volt is probably better suited to my driving patterns, mostly short trips with occasional long drives, but it wasn't available when I bought the VW.

It's kind of tricky to see, a flashlight needs to be shined on it obliquely. A photograph would show the reflection of the light.

I'm 6'3" 210 lbs and fit fine.

Pictures don't do the Volt justice.

Was out raking leaves and enjoyed my neighbors Volt and Prius silently drive by ...just a little whoosh

Then come two fucking obnoxious harleys POSs' with straight pipes disturbing the peace

It's about time cops start writing tickets for no mufflers

First TDI haters, now Harley haters. How about Toxic, chubby, Volts.

How about those goddam leaf blowers; louder than any Harley I ever heard.

How'd this turn into the curmudgeon thread?

What, you're surprised?

I just drove to Los Angeles and back for the holiday. The mileage worked out to about 42 mpg for the full trip, 800 miles. The total average for the car since brand new is now 69 mpg. The drive back took about nine hours due to traffic instead of the usual six. That may be the first time I've made almost the entire drive at the speed limit.

The car would hold 80 on the southbound climb over the Grapevine but there wasn't much acceleration. Northbound on the descent I was able to add 15 miles to the range due to the downhill grade. It appears that it doesn't charge more than about 12 kw coasting down hill. The car would out run the cruise control i.e. it would coast at 70 when the cruise was set at 65. I though it might use more regen. to hold the set speed. If I feathered the brakes I could hold the speed at 65 and see a sizable increase in the charge rate.

One of the hacks that would be cool is a way to see what the crossover point is from pure regen. to mechanical brakes to avoid heating the brakes instead of recovering energy. Also, the temperature of the engine, motor/generator, battery and inverter would be nice.

Anorak-

Did you put it in L on the downgrade? Its not actually a lower gear, just applies more regen.

I don't have any hills around my area to try it...

Yes but it was too much retardation for the traffic conditions even in the far right truck lane. It would hold the speed at about 45 mph or so.

Hmm.

I've read on the Volt forum that if you put it in cruise and L, it will then hold a constant speed downhill.
Of course, the conditions have to be conductive to using cruise control downhill.
Skipping cruise control use, you could also then use / feather the gas pedal to lessen the 'engine braking' provided by L. Won't hurt anything, you're just telling it to not regen so much by using the gas pedal.

Also, they say that you can tell when you're off the regen braking by the little green ball. When the spinning leaves in the ball go away when braking, you're getting into the friction braking.

I wonder if that glow plug light isn't for the European market where they're selling it under the Vauxhall badge. I don't recall if that has an option for a diesel or not, but I like the look of the Ampera/Volt.

Yes, two storke leaf blowers suck but they don't run all seasons like unmuffled bikes in Denver

If you lived on my cross connector street you would understand unmuffled street bikes are more annoying and distrubing.... for what? Be cool??? Save lives ?...or be a TOTALLY PIA ???

A motor can sound good and talk to ya, but it doesn't have to be LOUD to do so

Sections of Longmont's Main Street have buildings kind of close to the street. Pirates have figured out that they can back off their pipes and get a lot of echo along these stretches. The noise starts in April or May and continues through September. I live 4 blocks off of Main and on some weekends the roar is almost continuous.
No one seems to complain or do a damn thing about it and I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who objects.