Well here's something you don't see every day, well, unless you travel the famed Pikes Peak route every day, in which case, you may have in fact seen the 2011 Chevy Volt racking up some 800 test miles on the 38 mile drive.
Pikes Peak climbs to 14,110 feet and while it's only 38 miles attempting the task in any standard electric vehicle would be a challenge. Those 100 mile ranges shorten significantly once a hill is involved and Pikes Peak is a significant one.
GM Spokesman Rob Peterson told Inside Line that the ranger on duty at the mandatory brake checkpoint seven miles from the top checked the temperature of the Volt's regenerative brake discs twice with his laser gun because the temperatures were so low. "By the time the Volts made it off the hill, they had recaptured double-digit miles of energy."
Last month, the Nissan Leaf was advertising during some long French bicycle race and it had us questioning if the all-electric Leaf really had the battery capacity to do one of the mountain stages.
Mountain stage Yellow Jersey: Volt.
acbayard says:
09:27 AM, 08/18/10
One might be actually quite pleasantly surprised by the performance of electric vehicles in hilly terrain. Gasoline vehicles see a much larger performance and MPG decrease in rolling terrain and high altitude than electric vehicles.
PS: Probably should be the polka dot points jersey if you're thinking about a performance during a mountain stage in the TdF.
boxermike says:
09:39 AM, 08/18/10
Acbayard: While there may be a bonus to electrics on rolling terrain (surely there is) and with altitude (yep, there too), there's no way to escape the security and range benefits to a back-up gasoline motor that only takes a few minutes to fill when the batteries go dry.
As for polka dots: I knew I'd get some TdF fact wrong here or there. Dots, ey? Good to know, thanks! (There's still no way you could pay me to watch it, though.)
-mm