Electric cars in winter

[rallycross]

So, you buy your electric car just as winter starts to get frosty.


How does the heater work with no hot water from the engine to provide heat?

Electric fan heater?

With the fan heater on, plus mabye all of these

Heated seats
Heated rear screen
Heated front screen
Fan blower on
Lights on (mabye)

how much will all of that effect the battery life?

[SubaruSteve]

According to the Nissan Leaf details (someone told me *cough*) the climate control can be activated by a timer or by pressing a button on the key fob to warm up the car whilst it is still connected to your house/electric point so I guess it wouldn't have any effect on range initially, only a bit extra to keep it warm once you are going.

Quite sensible really. Still wouldn't pay £23000 for it though.

[Havoc856]

What you also need to factor in is that batteries are temperamental when it comes to high or low temps. It massively effects battery life

[60]

Havoc856 said:

What you also need to factor in is that batteries are temperamental when it comes to high or low temps. It massively effects battery life

I've heard they are heated on some (all?) electric cars.

[sinizter]

60 said:

Havoc856 said:

What you also need to factor in is that batteries are temperamental when it comes to high or low temps. It massively effects battery life

I've heard they are heated on some (all?) electric cars.

They are actually cooled (atleast in the Tesla) during normal use and normal temps. So in winter, during normal use, they would warm up.

Batteries have lower capacity in colder temperatures, but this capacity does mostly return when warmed - so once running, it might not have too much effect.

[anonymous-user]

For a typical sized family car, the road load at a constant 50mph is approx 7kW, and the cabin heater will also put out approx 7kW, hence, using the cabin heater is a bit like doing 50mph. On conventional fuelled cars, all you are doing is redirecting some of the "waste" heat from the main radiator to the cabin. Combined with battery capacity (and the peak power capability) that falls rapidly below 5degC, this means real world range can easily halve in winter!

[thinfourth2]

Max_Torque said:

For a typical sized family car, the road load at a constant 50mph is approx 7kW, and the cabin heater will also put out approx 7kW, hence, using the cabin heater is a bit like doing 50mph. On conventional fuelled cars, all you are doing is redirecting some of the "waste" heat from the main radiator to the cabin. Combined with battery capacity (and the peak power capability) that falls rapidly below 5degC, this means real world range can easily halve in winter!

A car heater is 7 Kw i'm sorry that sounds like total bull

We had a fire that stuck out 7kw into the room and it got the whole house like an oven, 7kw in a car would melt people.

I have a 1Kw fan heater in the car running off an extension lead to heat the car up of a morning and that gets the car far hotter then the onboard heater could.

[Major Fallout]

thinfourth2 said:

Max_Torque said:

For a typical sized family car, the road load at a constant 50mph is approx 7kW, and the cabin heater will also put out approx 7kW, hence, using the cabin heater is a bit like doing 50mph. On conventional fuelled cars, all you are doing is redirecting some of the "waste" heat from the main radiator to the cabin. Combined with battery capacity (and the peak power capability) that falls rapidly below 5degC, this means real world range can easily halve in winter!

A car heater is 7 Kw i'm sorry that sounds like total bull

We had a fire that stuck out 7kw into the room and it got the whole house like an oven, 7kw in a car would melt people.

I have a 1Kw fan heater in the car running off an extension lead to heat the car up of a morning and that gets the car far hotter then the onboard heater could.

I Have a big workshop that only takes 6kw to heat up in this weather.

Until the diesel turns to slush that is.

[sinizter]

thinfourth2 said:

Max_Torque said:

For a typical sized family car, the road load at a constant 50mph is approx 7kW, and the cabin heater will also put out approx 7kW, hence, using the cabin heater is a bit like doing 50mph. On conventional fuelled cars, all you are doing is redirecting some of the "waste" heat from the main radiator to the cabin. Combined with battery capacity (and the peak power capability) that falls rapidly below 5degC, this means real world range can easily halve in winter!

A car heater is 7 Kw i'm sorry that sounds like total bull

We had a fire that stuck out 7kw into the room and it got the whole house like an oven, 7kw in a car would melt people.

I have a 1Kw fan heater in the car running off an extension lead to heat the car up of a morning and that gets the car far hotter then the onboard heater could.

Source for both the 7kW figures ?

[randomwalk]

An electric home heater is around 2000 watts, ie 2Kw, so 7kw is over the top.

[Puddenchucker]

A a general rule of thumb, for every unit of enery produced by a petrol engine, about 25% is converted to mechanical energy and the remaning 75% (ish) is heat.

[rallycross]

Puddenchucker said:

A a general rule of thumb, for every unit of enery produced by a petrol engine, about 25% is converted to mechanical energy and the remaning 75% (ish) is heat.

Based on this maybe they should install small petrol driven engines to produce some heat in the battery car, thus helping the battery life last that bit longer?

Or would a calor gas heater be the best solution to keeping the range up for the battery? 1 bar or 2 dear?

[anonymous-user]

The 7kW figure is the "peak" heating figure for the cabin heater in a large passenger vehicle (i'm not at libery to disclose exactly which one, but the value comes from the HVAC team for that vehicle).