Did a “big” loop trip today...dropped the dog (COVID contactless of course!) at Wayne’s mum’s, then met up with another Volvo mate in Castlemaine for a leisurely picnic lunch at the botanical gardens there (very pretty!) From there down to Supercheap Auto in Ballarat (needed a windscreen sun shade for the new car plus some coolant and oil for the ICE - internal combustion engine - cars). Then a stop at Bunnings (misc bits and pieces plus another bag of wall insulation for the shed project). Then a quick charge to test the 50 kW chargers at Ballarat Central Big W. They are RACV/Chargefox collaboration chargers and there’s quite a few including some 350 kW chargers (the Volvo can do 150 kW but we didn’t see the need and the higher charging rates can be harder on the batteries). For example we were charging there for 19 minutes while picked up a few Chinese items at Big W and the car was charging at close to 50 kW and was showing over 200 km/hour added at that rate. Our overall efficiency for today’s drive of 246.5 km was 21.9 kWh per 100 km at an average speed of 69 kph. This trip was mainly on rural back roads, with a stretch of 110 kph freeway between Ballarat and Wayne’s mum’s place in Ballan.
At one stage I overtook a B-double and put my foot to the floor (or nearly) and we were up to 1xx kph in no time flat...and another time in Ballarat we were in the left lane at the front stopped at a set of lights, and the lane ended shortly after the lights. When the light turned green I punched it and we were gone - Wayne said all the blood rushed to the back of his head LOL! This is pretty much the first time we’ve driven it without the dog - until we get the rear seat hammock/protector set-up we’ve been folding down the seats for Penny and putting her bed on top...if we nailed it she’d fly into the tailgate pronto! :)
Another thing - I checked the tyre pressure yesterday and as delivered the car had 34 psi in the tyres. Spec is 41 psi loaded, unloaded or ECO...so I pumped them up to 41 psi. Of course the ride isn’t quite as supple now but the range should be better.
Friday we plan to meet up with some neighbours down near Anakie for an orchid walk and picnic, so another run and this time probably on some unsealed roads. I washed the bugs off the front tonight when we got home and I will put a coat of Meguiars high-tech wax on the front & mirror housings tomorrow so the bugs don’t stick as well!
Fun times and some learning along the way. The Volvo Cars app is pretty useless. I think my phone has only shown the state of charge once...and you’re supposed to be able to lock and unlock the car from the phone - my phone won’t...I think Wayne’s might have given that option at times. About 90% of the time my phone just says “pair a car with your phone” when I log in to the app. I might lodge a call/complaint with Volvo - maybe they’ll give us some free mud flaps or another umbrella? ;) Good news is no trouble with the mobile connection or maps today. The maps tells you the estimated state of charge at your destination and it was within about 1% at every leg of our trip today. “Hey Google: what’s my range?” will give you the estimated driving range (to 0% I assume) at any given time, but “Hey Google, what’s my speed?” - “sorry, I didn’t understand that”...”Hey Google: how fast am I” (it missed the last word “going”) and she replied “I can run at the speed of light” ...LOL
