I charged it overnight using 110V using delayed charge mode with finish time = 7am and 12Amp. This resulted in a charging start time of about 9pm.
The volt has a 16 kwh battery, but only charges to about 14. This is actually a good thing for me because i live on a hill and get about 3 miles more from regenerative braking as i descend the hill.
The car tells you how far it can go on battery. This morning it said 37miles.
At the bottom of the hill it was 41miles.
I drove to work (slightly different route than normal because i stopped at Macarthur Bart station) and when i got to work it said 30 miles. (from memory, the trip was 21 miles)
So how much does it cost to do my work commute?
PGE E-9A rates are here
http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-9.pdf
My baseline is 7.5kwh in summer and 9.1 kwh in winter (i'm in territory T)
Summer (service from May 1 through October 31):
Peak: 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Partial-Peak: 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. AND 9:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight Monday
through Friday, plus 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Off-Peak: All other hours.
Winter (service from November 1 through April 30):
Partial-Peak: 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight Monday through Friday, and 5:00 p.m.
to 9:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Off-Peak: All other hours.
Here's our typical electricity usage (the peaks on Thursday are when the cleaner comes and uses the washing machine / dryer / vacuum etc although how she possibly uses 12kwh in 3 hours is beyond me).
It averages to about 12kwh/day.
Previously we were on the standard E1 rate, and we just make it into the higher price tiers. If we were to keep using the E1 rate, the 14kwh we need to charge the car would be at 35 cents per kwh i.e. $4.90 to fully charge.
So how much will it cost to charge on the E-9A rate schedule?
To do the 14kwh volt charge overnight, i'll be using 3 hours of part peak (between 10 and 30 cents per kwh) and 7 hours of off peak (between 4 and 20 cents per kwh). I noticed (from PGE usage statistics on their website) that it charges at about 1.4 kw ... (i.e. 110volts*12amp).
My total per day will go from 12kwh to 26kwh which is about 3 times the baseline, so let's assume I use an equal amount of each baseline and just use an average of them. Average for off peak is 4+6+18+21 / 4 = 12.25. Average for part peak = 10 + 12 + 31 + 35 / 4 = 22. So cost will be 12.25 * 7 + 3 * 22 = $1.51.
So my daily commute of 44 miles should be about $1.51. (I don't know yet if i can do the entire commute on electric, but given that i made it halfway with 30 miles of electric left it will be mostly electric. I normally do a maybe 4 miles over lunch as well).
How does this compare to my old car? I'm not sure what it's mpg was, but let's assume it was 30mpg. 44 miles @ 30mpg = 1.46gallons. At $4.10 / gallon that's $6.
Over a year (250 workdays), gas would cost 250*6 = $1500 and electric costs 250*1.51 = 377. So savings just for work commute (and not considering other trips i do as well on weekends) = $1122.
