![]() ![]() It's best to do this overnight, because that will give you both the necessary time to recharge and will use the electric grid during off-peak hours, when kilowatts are cheap and you won't be straining the local power company's electric capacity. The Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid is designed to travel about 40 miles (64.4 kilometers) per charge, so if your round-trip commute, including shopping and any errands you need to run, is less than 40 miles (64.4 kilometers), you'll need to charge every evening. For regular commuting purposes, you'll probably need to recharge daily. ![]() How often you'll need to charge your plug-in hybrid depends on how far you intend to drive it each day. Once you have a place to recharge your plug-in hybrid, how often do you need to recharge it? How long will the recharge take? How much is this going to cost? We'll answer those questions in the rest of this article. In the near future there will be recharging networks and public recharging stations available along many major routes, but that infrastructure is still mostly in the planning stage at this point. However, the local garage might not take kindly to your using the electric socket on their wall, unless you're paying them for the privilege, that is. #Chevy volt range on electric only portableThe charging units are designed to be good for 10,000 charge cycles total, so if you charge the vehicle once per day they'll last for almost 30 years - probably longer than the life of the car.īut what if you don't have a garage or need to recharge your Volt when you're far from home? With the portable recharging unit, you can recharge anyplace there's an electric outlet. And the car can detect if the plug is still attached, so that you won't be able to drive away while recharging. First, they're rugged, so if you accidentally drive over one it won't come to harm. The Volt charging units are cleverly designed. You'll probably want to get this one installed in your garage or next to the carport. The larger, 240-volt charger will have to be hardwired into your home's electric system, so it's not portable, and it'll require a heavy duty power supply to prevent circuit breakers from going off. ![]() It'll take longer to charge (see the next page of this article for details), but you'll have fewer problems. If the 12-amp recharge sets off the circuit breaker, just drop the charge to 8 amps. It's switchable between an 8-amp recharge and a 12-amp recharge, depending on what your system will bear. The smaller, 120-volt charger is designed to be portable and will plug into a standard electric outlet. The Volt comes with two chargers that you can use on home electric current. How you'll actually do this will depend on the specific plug-in hybrid you own. #Chevy volt range on electric only seriesMost hybrids are series hybrids, meaning that the internal combustion engine is used to recharge the vehicle's batteries, on the fly, when they start to run low.įor the near future, the place where you're most likely to charge your plug-in hybrid is in your own garage or carport. A plug-in hybrid is essentially an electric car, but it has an internal combustion engine strictly for back-up power, so it's unlikely you'll find yourself in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery. There is, however, an interim step between hybrid vehicles and battery-electric vehicles - and it's available now. Nobody wants to take an electric car on an overnight trip only to find that he or she is stranded with a dead battery and can't get to a recharger. There are issues concerning, among other things, the driving range supplied by the batteries and the lack of a widely available infrastructure for battery recharging. ![]() The wide adoption of electric cars is still several years in the future, though. Perhaps best of all, using electric batteries to power our cars won't reduce the Earth's gradually dwindling supplies of fossil fuels. Recharging the batteries will cost considerably less than gasoline (at least at current prices) and the electric motors will produce no pollution at the tailpipe. Many people believe that the cars of the future will be fully electric vehicles, running purely on electricity supplied by large, rechargeable batteries. Hybrids, however, still produce pollution and they still use expensive fossil fuels they just use less of them. This not only saves money for the person who owns the car - recharging batteries costs less than filling the tank with gas - but reduces carbon emissions and saves wear and tear on the planet Earth itself. Hybrids combine an electric motor with an internal combustion engine to use gasoline more efficiently. Hybrid vehicles, especially the Toyota Prius, have been steadily gaining in popularity for several years. ![]()
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