Winter EV'ing
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Discussion

FourGears

Original Poster:

361 posts

74 months

Yesterday (12:55)
quotequote all
Heading into the first winter with an EV I have been looking around for hints and tips.

The one I am confused on is to do with pre heating the battery.
For home charging do I need to pre heat battery before charging.
Should I pre heat battery before setting off on long journey?

Or does it not matter?

Ive seen that you pre heat cabin before setting off.

Any other tipa

ChocolateFrog

33,452 posts

192 months

Yesterday (12:57)
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It doesn't matter. Just plug in and drive off as normal.

Remembering to preheat the cabin and turn the bum warmers on 20 minutes before you're due to leave is the hardest part.

I guess if you leave home at the same time every morning even that isn't a chore.

Evanivitch

25,329 posts

141 months

Yesterday (12:59)
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What car have you got?

You will want to preheat the battery and/or car before departing from home. This means you lose less energy on the road after setting off, your car should draw from the charger rather than the battery to do this.

You don't need to preheat the battery before charging at home, but you may be able to preheat the battery before rapid charging on long journeys.

Lower battery temperatures will reduce rate of charge on rapids. Some cars you set the charger as a destination and it precondition for you. Some cars require some accel and decel harshly to drive the battery temps.

SteBrown91

2,903 posts

148 months

Yesterday (12:59)
quotequote all
As above no need to pre-heat the battery before charging the car will manage that when it detects the car is plugged in. Pre-heating the battery is beneficial for rapid charging but at home it makes negligable difference.


GT6k

926 posts

181 months

Yesterday (13:09)
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All cars are different, but in many the battery heating is automatic. RTFM

limpsfield

6,408 posts

272 months

Yesterday (13:11)
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I just drive it like a normal car. Defrost the car via the app 15 mins before I leave if I remember, otherwise just get in and drive.


FourGears

Original Poster:

361 posts

74 months

Yesterday (13:16)
quotequote all
Evanivitch said:
What car have you got?

You will want to preheat the battery and/or car before departing from home. This means you lose less energy on the road after setting off, your car should draw from the charger rather than the battery to do this.
ID3

Pre heating battery for rapid charging I get.

Was not sure if pre heating battery before setting off would improve range.

GT6k

926 posts

181 months

Yesterday (13:24)
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The BMW i3 preheats the battery if you set a departure time well in advance, if it is below 10 centigrade, and if it is connected to a charger. It gives a little buzz at the start of the charging window and another one just before departure. The whole process is automatic. The Tesla model 3 does something automatically on a home charger as well but I don't know the logic. Other makes and models will differ.

Discombobulate

5,743 posts

205 months

Yesterday (13:24)
quotequote all
FourGears said:
ID3

Pre heating battery for rapid charging I get.

Was not sure if pre heating battery before setting off would improve range.
It does improve range a bit (10 miles in my iPace) but I rarely need full range so don't bother. Depends on the car but to properly precondition the battery most need to be plugged in (obviously) to a proper home charger, not a 3 pin granny charger, and be fully charged a few (4 in my case) hours before set departure time.
Most people just precondition the cabin 20 mins before departure, but this has no effect on battery temps.

Shaoxter

4,463 posts

143 months

Yesterday (13:25)
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Preheat the cabin/defrost the car 10-15 mins before departure, everything else as normal.
Unless you're marginal on range and then you can leave the car plugged in to warm the battery/cabin by drawing electricity from the charger.

Crudeoink

1,185 posts

78 months

Yesterday (13:31)
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IME preconditioning the car uses between 2 - 3 kwh. If you have say a 100kwh battery its negligable, but if you're running a PHEV with a 12kwh battery or a cheaper EV with a 30kwh pack, preconditioning adds a considerable amount to the winter range.

FourGears

Original Poster:

361 posts

74 months

Yesterday (13:36)
quotequote all
Thanks for the replies.

I'll just make sure to have a toasty car then before departure.

Putting the bum warmers is not an option on the VW app which is irritating.

otolith

63,638 posts

223 months

Yesterday (13:51)
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Preheating is nice, you get into a nice warm defrosted car.

If you're doing a long journey, it will extend the range, meaning any use of expensive public charging is reduced.

If you're doing a short journey, and the car is plugged into power, it just means that you are heating the car on power at whatever your current mains rate is - which might be more than the rate when you normally charge it.

ShortBeardy

497 posts

163 months

Yesterday (15:54)
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The main benefit seems to be doing this pre-journey stuff while connected to your home charger. Ideally some sort of aircraft carrier catapult thing would be handy to relieve the car of the energy drain of getting up to speed. Though for convenience it may require each house to have its own slip road.

Going into winter the most alarming thing is that your access to actual data in an EV is far superior to most ICE cars. So while ICE also uses more gas in colder weather and all cars experience more drag in heavy rain etc., in an ICE car it isn't in your face. You just fill up a bit more frequently yet in an EV you can sit there and look at it and the impacts are significant.

Evanivitch

25,329 posts

141 months

Yesterday (16:04)
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ShortBeardy said:
The main benefit seems to be doing this pre-journey stuff while connected to your home charger. Ideally some sort of aircraft carrier catapult thing would be handy to relieve the car of the energy drain of getting up to speed. Though for convenience it may require each house to have its own slip road.
.
An old workplace of mine was downhill for nearly 10 miles. Was quite normal to do a third of my commute and still have the same range I left the office with (having charged at work too, because PHEV).

plfrench

3,928 posts

287 months

Yesterday (19:18)
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FourGears said:
Thanks for the replies.

I'll just make sure to have a toasty car then before departure.

Putting the bum warmers is not an option on the VW app which is irritating.
Yeah, it’s weird that. You can do the rear screen and mirrors but not the seats. The Born allows you to do the seats. It’s like VW and Cupra employed two comepltely different teams for the app development for the cars despite being on the common platform…

uktrailmonster

8,106 posts

219 months

Yesterday (19:47)
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I’m surprised people are talking about 20 mins to warm the cabin. My Model Y takes less than 5 mins. Maybe a few mins longer if it’s sub zero permafrost conditions.

5s Alive

2,540 posts

53 months

Yesterday (20:23)
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uktrailmonster said:
I m surprised people are talking about 20 mins to warm the cabin. My Model Y takes less than 5 mins. Maybe a few mins longer if it s sub zero permafrost conditions.
Quite fancied the idea of pre-heating before we got the car but don't bother now that we have it. Get in, heating on at 22°, heated seats and steering wheel on. By the time I've reversed out of the garage the car (2022 Kona) is fairly warm, by the end of the street it's perfectly comfortable - my wife loves it.

Recently back from Glencoe in 0-4° weather. Charged to 100% gave an estimated 318 miles. Heating on at 22° reduced this to 308m - although this was based on previous warmer conditions. Actual total range calculated after arrival (148m trip) was 288m.

As an aside, I was very surprised at the number of slow moving vehicles this time, especially those happy to form a queue and ignore long clear overtaking opportunities, lost count of the overtakes.

uktrailmonster

8,106 posts

219 months

Yesterday (20:30)
quotequote all
5s Alive said:
uktrailmonster said:
I m surprised people are talking about 20 mins to warm the cabin. My Model Y takes less than 5 mins. Maybe a few mins longer if it s sub zero permafrost conditions.
Quite fancied the idea of pre-heating before we got the car but don't bother now that we have it. Get in, heating on at 22°, heated seats and steering wheel on. By the time I've reversed out of the garage the car (2022 Kona) is fairly warm, by the end of the street it's perfectly comfortable - my wife loves it.
Yeah exactly! I normally switch on the climate as I’m putting my shoes on and by the time I get in it’s already toasty. If it’s really icy I will fire it up a few mins earlier to defrost the windows. 5 mins is enough and the App pings me when it’s up to temp.

Sheepshanks

38,385 posts

138 months

Yesterday (20:58)
quotequote all
FourGears said:
Thanks for the replies.

I'll just make sure to have a toasty car then before departure.

Putting the bum warmers is not an option on the VW app which is irritating.
Don't have an ID.3 but seen that discussed on SpeakEV where some owners said they didn't work and turns out it should work on all versions of the car and App. Something about selecting the zone (left /right) of the car and it worked the opposite way around on early versions?