It has been an interesting and exciting first week for our High School Environmental Science - Chevy Volt Project. We drove several extra short test trips, as quite a few people were anxious to get behind the wheel to see what it’s all about. Without exception, they have been extremely impressed. As students start reviewing the numbers for Week One, I see more excitement building.

Our driving instructor at Sterling High, Brennan Riffle, got behind the wheel for the first time. Here are his thoughts:

Reviewing our data for the week, several things stand out:

• The very first morning I experienced the back and forth transition from electric to gas, and back to electric, even though the battery was fully charged. That was due to cold temperatures. It isn’t a problem and has happened several times since. Watching the displays and reviewing the daily data it appears that 25 degrees Fahrenheit is the magic number. Below that, the generator runs for a mile or two and then it automatically transitions back to electric power.
• Our daily battery range at the beginning of the drive averaged 35.2 miles for the week and we ended up getting an average of 33.68 miles.
• We were close to 50/50 on energy use this week, driving 168.4 miles on electric power and 166.8 miles on gas. Our highest mileage day was 93.2 miles, which would be pushing the limits of the battery range for the Nissan LEAF.
• Looking just at energy costs for the week, our initial results indicate a considerable cost savings when driving on electric power. On electricity, we drove 168.4 miles, using 53.3 kWh of juice. At our rate of $.0936/kWh, we ran at about $0.03 per mile. On petrol power, we clocked up 166.8 miles—using 4.62 gallons, for which we paid $3.40 per gallon. That works out to $.094 per mile.

Last week, I had the SPX 240V charging station installed in my garage and have a dedicated meter. We’ll share that data next week.

My SPX charging station.

Finally, I owe a big thank you this week to the Climate + Energy Project for its encouragement and support of our project. My apologies to them as inadvertently left them off of the list of sponsors last week. The Climate + Energy Project was one of the hosts for the Heartland Transmission Conference in Hutchinson last August. I was fortunate to attend this conference and listen to experts from around the nation discussing the importance of developing infrastructure to expand wind energy development in Kansas. I also had the opportunity to tour the new Siemens wind nacelle manufacturing plant. Thanks again to the Climate + Energy Project for their support.