and the EV Challenge begins…

EV ChallengeAs I mentioned earlier, I was one of the people selected to participate in the EV Challenge. Well, it started on January 15th and I uploaded the data collected by the data logger this morning. There was a minor snag, in that I could not select the files to upload. After a helpful tip from Megan, my contact at Fleetcarma, I zipped up the entire data folder and it uploaded just fine. It processed for a little while and generated amazing reports. Here is the report summary:

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Something that was very nice was the full report, which is like a dashboard, showing much more information. For instance, the Trip Details tab has the sort of information I have been collecting manually on my spreadsheet, except I also collect a temperature reading. In addition to actual drives, it also shows trips with a distance of 0.00 miles and some of these show a change between starting and ending State of Charge (SoC) values. I’m told that the Volt “wakes up” from time to time to make sure everything is okay. Those are captured as trip events.

I can see this would be an amazing tool for someone managing a fleet of EVs or for an individual who wants to have a better understanding of their EV performance.Trip DetailsAlso, the Charge Details section was interesting, as it shows a “Charger Loss” column. This shows the difference between what the charger sends and what the Volt’s battery pack actually absorbs as usable energy.ChargerLossIt will be interesting to see how these reports build, over time.

About the author

An accidental EVangelist: On my way to work at Apple one morning, my car was rear-ended (and totaled) by an SUV, driven by a guy playing with his smartphone.
This led me to get my first plug-in vehicle.
I started blogging about my experiences immediately.
A year later, in 2013, I was hired by the dealership as their "EVangelist."
I became a board member with the Texas Electric Transportation Resources Alliance (www.TxETRA.org) and perform public speaking in the DFW area regarding electric vehicles and environmental issues.
I also teach others how to sell plug-in vehicles or manage EV sales.
I'm on a mission.

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