Live from Boise following the Idaho Erben's one post at a time…

15Jul/104

Battery Power

After dropping off Jeanne and Marcel. ride along in the Escalade as it motors around on battery power.

The first display is the graphical display of the power mode. In this clip, it is showing the drivetrain powered completely by battery power (blue). When the engine starts up, its power will show in orange, with the battery power rolling over to green for Hybrid power mode. When the Hybrid mode kicks off, such as increased acceleration, low battery juice, or the transmission or engine temperature is too low, the display shows complete orange for engine power only.

Moving to the drivers dashboard console, on the left is the RPM gauge sitting at the Auto Start position. In this mode, the engine is off, but sits at Auto Start to indicate to you it will start on demand.

I ran on battery power in the subdivision, but when I pulled out onto the main road, the engine kicked on and I ran in Hybrid power to Eagle road. Once on Eagle, I accelerated more quickly and ran on Engine power to about 50mph. Once there, it slid into Hybrid mode as I held the pedal just barely on to keep the speed constant. When I let off the pedal to turn into Madison Park, the engine shut down and I was back on battery power, pulling into the driveway and spending five minutes exploring more buttons and menus.

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6Jan/091

The Price of Fuel

I had a stack of receipts hanging around for months, and finally got around to updating my fuel tracking spreadsheet for the Tahoe. Rather interesting to watch the price of fuel plummet in 2H '08. The last two tanks in the Tahoe have an Albertson's discount applied due to our preferred card. Oddly enough, diesel was still hovering around $2.80 in mid December, almost double the cost of regulary unleaded, but has come down to the $2.20 range lately.

Date Location Gallons Price Per Gallon Total Cost Trip Miles Odometer Hour Meter
7/24/2008 Shell - Idaho Springs, CO 19.31 $4.10 $79.15 378 42535 1329.1
7/25/2008 Exxon - Kimball, NE 15.097 $4.16 $62.79 270 42805 1335.4
7/27/2008 Exxon - Cheyenne, WY 19.344 $3.84 $74.26 372 43177 1341.7
7/28/2008 Pilot - Evanston, WY 19.022 $3.94 $75.00 371 43548
7/29/2008 Exxon - Twin Falls, ID 14.8 $5.02 $74.24 280 43828 1351.9
8/29/2008 Stinker - Boise, ID 22.136 $3.86 $85.42 322 44150 1365.2
10/1/2008 Albertson's Express - Boise, ID 22.371 $3.65 $81.63 297 44447 1380.2
11/8/2008 Albertson's Express - Boise, ID 22.274 $2.37 $52.77 278 44725 1396.3
11/26/2008 Shell - Boise, ID 21.637 $1.90 $41.09 278 45003 1412.0
12/21/2008 Albertson's Express - Boise, ID 19.675 $0.89 $17.49 258 45261 1426.4
1/3/2009 Albertson's Express - Boise, ID 17.198 $1.23 $21.14 230 45491 1438.0

I dug back through the various records I have kept, and seems like 1999 was the cheapest year on record, although I always put premium in my '87 Firebird, so it is about 20-30 cents higher than regular:

Date Odometer Location Type Gallons Price Per Gallon
2/14/1999 26595 Pine Bluffs - Ampride Unleaded 12.66 $0.79
2/19/1999 26850 Lusk - Conocco Unleaded 9.90 $0.91
2/21/1999 26939 Chadron - Big Bats Unleaded 3.81 $1.05
2/26/1999 27217 Laramie - Coastal Unleaded 10.77 $0.78
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