2014 sparke is great

picked up my car tonight. it is really nice. Its hard to c out the back though since the window is so small but i will manage. i cant imagine going back to gas again

Welcome to a great little car, and I agree I will never go back to gas

scrambler how do i shut off the automatic headlights that come on everytime i start the car. they come on in the daytime and i have to manually turn the lever to shut it off everytime, but it comes back on when i start the car again. i dont want the headlights on in the daytime.

evboy said:

scrambler how do i shut off the automatic headlights that come on everytime i start the car. they come on in the daytime and i have to manually turn the lever to shut it off everytime, but it comes back on when i start the car again. i dont want the headlights on in the daytime.

Click to expand...

You can't permanently disable it. DRLs are a saftey thing, and GM actually kinda pioneered their use in the US...so you have to manually make a choice to make yourself less safe as turning off the Automatic headlights also disables the DRLs.

Enjoy your new (to you) Spark man!

how am i safer. u cant see my lights in the daytime. im confused. doesnt it take range .

evboy said:

how am i safer. u cant see my lights in the daytime. im confused. doesnt it take range .

Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytime_running_lamp#United_States

And yes, it does improve people seeing our little cars. As for the DRLs...the watts they pull are so minuscule I doubt you could even measure their effect on range.

SciroccoTDI said:

evboy said:

how am i safer. u cant see my lights in the daytime. im confused. doesnt it take range .

Click to expand...

As for the DRLs...the watts they pull are so minuscule I doubt you could even measure their effect on range.

Click to expand...

Agreed, the amount of electricity used by these lights is marginal compared to the battery size and the electricity used to move the car.

Don't overthink the range thing too much, and enjoy the car

scrambler said:

SciroccoTDI said:

evboy said:

how am i safer. u cant see my lights in the daytime. im confused. doesnt it take range .

Click to expand...

As for the DRLs...the watts they pull are so minuscule I doubt you could even measure their effect on range.

Click to expand...

Agreed, the amount of electricity used by these lights is marginal compared to the battery size and the electricity used to move the car.

Don't overthink the range thing too much, and enjoy the car

Click to expand...

The low-beam front headlights draw 55 watts each for a total of 110 watts. It would take about 9 hours of driving to consume 1 kWh - about 5 miles of range.

MrDRMorgan said:

The low-beam front headlights draw 55 watts each for a total of 110 watts. It would take about 9 hours of driving to consume 1 kWh - about 5 miles of range.

Click to expand...

There's also DC-DC conversion loss. I guess about 10% for close to 130 W.

I get 5.3 mi/kWh on average after 16K miles, 4.4 mi/kWh at 70 MPH. Then DRL would be like driving about 0.6 MPH faster than your indicated speed. Due to rounding error, it might be like driving 1 MPH higher than indicated.

If you drive in Los Angeles (massive traffic, 24/7) and getting over 6 mi/kWh, DRL would be like driving 0.8 MPH faster, again rounded to 1 MPH higher. 15 MPH would consume energy like 16 MPH.

But if you have lead foot and only getting 2.5 mi/kWh, it'd be like driving 0.3 MPH faster than indicated. It's even less worth worrying about with lead foot.

In other words, it's better to slow down by 1 MPH from your normal speed than turning off DRL.