Last week I got my 240 Volt 16A Voltec charger installed at my new house, it was a fairly painless process, just needed to run wires from one side of the Garage to the other. for the last 2 months I've been using the 110v charger, and for the most part I found 110v to be all I really needed. With the 110v charger it takes 10 hours to charge the Volt from 0 charge to full, and there were only a few times when this wasnt enough, and I could have used a faster charge.
The Volt's 230v 16A charger takes 4 hours to charge the Volt to full, and while I used it for 3 months at my old house, I'm not convinced its really that useful. Generally I'm either at home for a long time in which case the 10 hours for a 110v charge is good enough, or I'm only home for an hour or two, in which case the 240V 16A charger isnt enough. I hope the next generation Volt will have a 32A charger option, with that the Volt would be fully charged in 2 hours.
So why didnt GM make the Volt compatible with 32A chargers from the start, well for few reasons, cost a 32amp charger built into the Volt would be more expensive. battery life, GM stated higher speed charging reduces the batteries life expectancy and they want these batteries to last for 8 to 10 years with minimal degridation. Volt's gas engine, the Volt doesnt need electricity to opperate, it can run just as well on gas although it is cheaper to run it on electricity, so fast recharging isnt as nesiccary with the Volt as it would be with an all electric. Drain on the electric grid, Anti-electric car advocates preach that america's electric grid cant handle electric cars, and while thats just false electric cars charging at very high Amperages can put a load on the local nieborhood's power, but the Volt's fairly low power requirements makes this a none issue, a house with an electric heater, dryer or oven draws as much or more electricity then the Volt.
No comments:
Post a Comment