When the battery is depleted down to 30% SOC (state of charge)after 40 miles, why is it maintained there instead of the generator recharging it?
Powering the electric motor directly from the generator is more efficient than repeatedly charging and discharging the battery. All batteries have some internal electrical resistance. Whenever the battery is charged or discharged, some energy is lost in the form of heat due to this resistance. By powering the motor directly from the generator, this resistance is bypassed. Energy is lost in this manner when charging the battery and when utilizing the electric range, but this is unavoidable and the energy loss is small compared to the energy wasted by an internal combustion engine. A: If the generator recharged the battery, this would prevent taking advantage of the main feature of the Volt, which is to recharge it with grid electricity. A: Cycling the battery more often would reduce its lifetime.
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