4000 miles and My Chevy Volt Goes Stupid, Or at Least It Made Me Look Stupid

So here we are at month four in my life with my Chevy Volt Plug in car.  I was on track to set a record month of zero gas usage.  I had found electric charging everywhere I went for the month, and had hoped to post a picture of the dash reading 1000 miles 0.0 gal gas.  No Dice.

It all began when I attempted to outsmart myself by installing a Level 2 240v charger.  The faster charge rate of the Level 2 240v PEV charger allowed me to switch my electric plan to a plan with really cheap night rates for charging the car.  Just .09 per KWH.  Well below my lowest "Tier 1" rate on the old plan.

After programming the car with the rates and what time I depart my house, I put the car to bed and sure enough the next morning it was charged and ready to go.  The display said it started at 12:00 am and was complete at 3:48.  Charging at these hours cuts my charge cost in half at home.  So far it was a great start.

Then like many days, I headed off to Wally Park at LAX.  Normally the Valet's do a great job of parking the car, and using the portable charger in the car to plug it in.  When I return the car is charged for the trip home, and I don't feel bad paying the extra money to valet park.  When I got back this time,  the car had a range of 8 miles.  Exactly what it had when I dropped it off.  The Valet's insisted they had it plugged in.

Arriving in my garage after getting 44 mpg on the way home using gas, I realized that the valet didn't know to change the mode from delay charge to instant charge.  I felt pretty stupid for arguing with them about the car not charging.

Note to you Chevy Volt software guys-

Please add a line of code - If Location not equal "HOME", then Charge Instantly "YES".

This should be a no brainer, but I guess they didn't plan on me driving 30-40 miles each way.

The next day, I don't know what happened, no body does, not the Volt people, not OnStar, and maybe not even the Volt itself.  I got home plugged it in and the little lights started blinking green, indicating that it was plugged in and not charging.  This is what I expected since it was programmed to delay charge at 12:00 am.

Much to my surprise when I jumped in at 9:00 am, the car was not charged.  It still had a range of zero since I had driven home from LAX on the gas generator.  At midnight for whatever reason it didn't charge.

Last night I didn't quite trust it, so I went ahead and manually started it charging at 10:30 pm.  Tonight I will try and let it charge on it's own again since I am not going anywhere on Tuesday that I am aware of.

I'll let you know how it goes.  For now I am pulling the Volt out of its third place position on my list of my favorite cars for making me look stupid and being stupid all in the same week.