Defrosting and heating electric vehicles

[jtr63]

Standing outside scraping windscreens this morning made me wonder how EVs are defrosted, and heated whilst in motion. Clearly electric power is available to do this, rather than using the by product of the engine, but how much does this reduce driving range ?

TIA
John

[jackdaww]

very good question.

also what if hundreds of vehicles get stuck in a long traffic jam with exit routes ?

[JohnB]

I found threads where Tesla owners talk about 30-50% range lost in extreme cold for us (Chicago 0F). They talk about pre-heating, not sure whether that's the battery or cabin, which is obviously better done when plugged in to the grid. Short trips are worst because of the number of cabin warmings, so perhaps 20% on a long journey. I'm sure many would welcome a car that was warm and defrosted when they left the house.

I'd suspect for UK conditions it might be 10% for summer A/C and winter heating.

[Sobraon]

Oh, I dont know - perhaps a paraffin heater! <snicker>

[DrFfybes]

I found threads where Tesla owners talk about 30-50% range lost in extreme cold for us (Chicago 0F). They talk about pre-heating, not sure whether that's the battery or cabin, which is obviously better done when plugged in to the grid. Short trips are worst because of the number of cabin warmings, so perhaps 20% on a long journey. I'm sure many would welcome a car that was warm and defrosted when they left the house.

I'd suspect for UK conditions it might be 10% for summer A/C and winter heating.

Cars are not well insulated, so the drain heating/cooling is the same per hour. Defrost and initial warming is usually done whilst plugged in (I would expect Tesla let you do it remotely from your phone) but effect on range varies with how long the journey takes as well as how far it is.

My friend says that in really cold weather a bobble hat can ncrease the range of his Leaf by 20 miles.

Paul

[dspp]

I found threads where Tesla owners talk about 30-50% range lost in extreme cold for us (Chicago 0F). They talk about pre-heating, not sure whether that's the battery or cabin, which is obviously better done when plugged in to the grid. Short trips are worst because of the number of cabin warmings, so perhaps 20% on a long journey. I'm sure many would welcome a car that was warm and defrosted when they left the house.

I'd suspect for UK conditions it might be 10% for summer A/C and winter heating.

Cars are not well insulated, so the drain heating/cooling is the same per hour. Defrost and initial warming is usually done whilst plugged in (I would expect Tesla let you do it remotely from your phone) but effect on range varies with how long the journey takes as well as how far it is.

My friend says that in really cold weather a bobble hat can ncrease the range of his Leaf by 20 miles.

Paul

1. In far north USA/Can it is common to leave all vehicles, especially dino-juice vehicles, plugged in overnight with little heating heating blankets to stop the engine blocks etc cracking, and to make the thing habitable in the morning.

2. EVs do suffer range reduction in the cold. But in Norway and (again) far north USA Can they cope.

3. The Tesla can be prewarmed whilst plugged in using the app (either a manual trigger, or a timer trigger), so you can arrive at your toasty prewarmed EV and still drive off with a 100% charge.

4. In the more advanced EVs (which definitely includes Tesla, not sure about any of the others) the heating/cooling of the passenger compartment is fully integrated with the heating/cooling of the batteries. So waste heat from battery/etc discharge processes helps assist cabin heating. That is an important matter, and I think it is one reason why the Tesla efficiency (miles/kWh) is typically 4/3 better than the EVs from other manufacturers. The Teslas really are very good indeed, everything I am seeing about EVs from the legacy people is still not quite as good as the EVs that Tesla was shipping back in 2012. So they've had 8 years to copy & catch up with that ancient benchmark and they still cannot do it.

regards, dspp