The Acceleration Challenge!

[bro1999]

So for anyone that has a 2015 and up GM vehicle with Onstar activated, you can opt into the "Onstar Smart Driver" program. It logs your driving behavior, and if you allow it, will send the data to your insurance provider for potential discounts.

I declined the insurance discount part of course. Among the stats it tracks, one is "hard acceleration". So far I've logged 48 hard accelerations in 3+ days of driving since I opted in to the Smart Driver program. At this rate, I'm on a pace for about 480 per month. Lol

Who wants to step up to the challenge??

 

[SparkevBlogspot]

I don't know what it means by "hard acceleration", but too much stomping on the pedal will have your tires bald in very short time. On a gas car, we're typically "afraid" to apply the full power which happens at high RPM (noise to intimidate), and you don't see as much tire wear. But it's just way too easy with EV. You probably heard the tires chirping even at 40 MPH.

I'm putting together a blog post on acceleration profile (I keep rewriting it!). Peak g-force is constant even out to about 45 MPH. Data shows SparkEV could be on par with sports cars like Camaro in 30-60 MPH, and might be quicker to 50! That's just amazing level of performance for $16K buy / $90/mo lease car (factory deals post subsidy in CA).

 

[bro1999]

I don't know what it means by "hard acceleration", but too much stomping on the pedal will have your tires bald in very short time. On a gas car, we're typically "afraid" to apply the full power which happens at high RPM (noise to intimidate), and you don't see as much tire wear. But it's just way too easy with EV. You probably heard the tires chirping even at 40 MPH.

I'm putting together a blog post on acceleration profile (I keep rewriting it!). Peak g-force is constant even out to about 45 MPH. Data shows SparkEV could be on par with sports cars like Camaro in 30-60 MPH, and might be quicker to 50! That's just amazing level of performance for $16K buy / $90/mo lease car (factory deals post subsidy in CA).

I'm not planning on keeping the Spark for the entire 3 year lease period, so tires going bald isn't really an issue for me.

Onstar defines "hard braking" as a deceleration event of more than 10 mph/second, so I'm assuming a "hard acceleration" is similarly any event of more than 10 mph/second. Very hard not to stomp the pedal.

Anyone at Onstar looking at my Spark's log must be like "wtf, is this guy a bank robber??" hahaha

 

[SparkevBlogspot]

10 MPH/sec would result in 0-60 in 6 seconds. I don't think SparkEV would reach quite that high in acceleration.

10 MPH/sec is about 14.5 ft/sec/sec. Gravity is 32.2 ft/sec/sec, so the g-force would be 0.456. My calculations show SparkEV is capable of 0.44 to about 45 MPH, just shy of the threshold. Still, 0.44 is capable of 7.2 sec 0-60 MPH time. If you're hitting 10 MPH/sec, not sure why or how.

 

[bro1999]

10 MPH/sec would result in 0-60 in 6 seconds. I don't think SparkEV would reach quite that high in acceleration.

10 MPH/sec is about 14.5 ft/sec/sec. Gravity is 32.2 ft/sec/sec, so the g-force would be 0.456. My calculations show SparkEV is capable of 0.44 to about 45 MPH, just shy of the threshold. Still, 0.44 is capable of 7.2 sec 0-60 MPH time. If you're hitting 10 MPH/sec, not sure why or how.

If that's the case, the number must be lower for hard accelerations. I DO know that if you floor it from a stop, it definitely counts as a hard acceleration.