EVs with different types of heaters?

Number_35 said:
Corvairs too.

VW owners here said ruefully that the gas-fired heater worked very well except when it was cold out
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I grew up in MI.. my dad had a 64 Beetle with the auxiliary heater.
I know it was better than only having the standard duct heat.

I think most people with beetles know the standard duct heat worked way better in the summer because the ducts used to wear out and leak heat inside the car.. which made it just about insufferable in a hot climate. The gas fired heater could be turned off.

I still remember the way it smelled. :)
 
Number_35 said:
Corvairs too.
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Early model Corvairs had this feature but it defeated the purpose of the car, that being able to deliver 25 MPG. Later models only tapped into the cooling air. That worked well so long as both temperature control dampers were working. Granted it didn't smell all that good once the seals on the pushrod / oil return tubes started to go. I went thru two engines and three bodies back in the day.
 
Getting back to the original premise of this thread, I took the CMax out for an errand this chilly morning. The overnight low was 23 F but it had warmed to 35 F when I left. The car was reporting 24 Miles of EV range when started. After 2.5 miles of driving with the heat on that estimated range had fallen to 19 miles. Had I kept driving the total range of the charge would probably have landed at 18 miles, meaning that the use of electric resistive heat at that specific temperature reduced my range by 25%. The impact in a pure EV would be lower due to their larger batteries and the ability to amortize the initial warm up over a longer range.
 
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Astro_Guy said:
Early model Corvairs had this feature but it defeated the purpose of the car, that being able to deliver 25 MPG. Later models only tapped into the cooling air. That worked well so long as both temperature control dampers were working. Granted it didn't smell all that good once the seals on the pushrod / oil return tubes started to go. I went thru two engines and three bodies back in the day.
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Yeah all the Corvairs that were still on the road when I was a teenager in the 80s had this issue. I fixed a couple of them in auto shop class, along with doing a full rebuild on one.

And those things seemed to burn oil like no tomorrow. Maybe it was the relatively poor quality of oils available in the 60s.

Nowadays there's probably more Corvair engines in airplanes that driving on the roads, they are a relatively popular kitplane option being as they are air cooled.
 
Brons2 said:
Ok, learned something new today. I was not aware of the existence of these. This is a regular tanked style water heater or is it tankless?
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They are all tanked.

Someone did make an add-on heatpump water heater that was tankless, but it required the use of an existing tank to store the hot water because heatpumps cannot heat water very fast. This product is no longer made, as far as I know.
 
brianl703 said:
They are all tanked.

Someone did make an add-on heatpump water heater that was tankless, but it required the use of an existing tank to store the hot water because heatpumps cannot heat water very fast. This product is no longer made, as far as I know.
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A tankless water heater with a tank....sounds like the punch line to a bad joke. I'm surprised it was ever manufactured.
 
Brons2 said:
A tankless water heater with a tank....sounds like the punch line to a bad joke. I'm surprised it was ever manufactured.
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It somewhat made sense in that it was intended as an add-on to an existing tank, and I think it was designed to have a longer lifecycle than a typical water heater tank. I suppose the problem is that many installations probably had no room for such a thing AND it needed an additional electric circuit. There probably wasn't any cost savings over an integrated heatpump/tank either.
 
brianl703 said:
If you remote start it, while it's plugged in, will it use grid power for warming up the cabin?
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The Volt has this, but at Level 1 charging rates the heater still drains the battery even when plugged in as the wall outlet is only providing like 1/5 the power the heater can use.
 
I think currently a lot of the EVs are just barely making it in cold climate as most buyers are from moderate to warm climate instead. If you buy a car that is barely finished in R&D they won't have all the luxury in the world like the most comfortable and efficient heat pump for winter heating. The correct way to heat a car would be to let the coolant flow through everywhere in the correct order in both direction. Exiting from cabin to go through battery to warm it up or cool it down, then to a compressor loop to either heat it up or cool it down, then the electric motor to cool down (motor always heats up regardless of ambient temperature and accelerating decelerating), then the radiator to cooldown (or bypass if warming is needed later), then the heat pump to either warm it up or cool it down, then either into the cabin to warm it up or bypass it and back to the battery warm / cool down. Of course this would be too expensive and corner cut in the cheapest EV you can buy.

For really cold climate, you will always be more cost effective if you are going to use waste engine heat from combustion to warm your cabin than relying on a generator in the power plant, as you cannot get the waste heat from power plant to warm your car, except if you get almost free electricity and you have to pay a lot to haul gasoline to your area of course.
 
dogememe said:
The Volt has this, but at Level 1 charging rates the heater still drains the battery even when plugged in as the wall outlet is only providing like 1/5 the power the heater can use.
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If using Level 2 it can keep up, it depends how cold it is outside. If it's only 40-50 degrees the Volt will reach the setpoint and drop back to only pulling about 1.5kW from the wall outlet before the end of the 10 minute cycle. That tells me it isn't draining the battery anymore.
 
Brons2 said:
Ok, learned something new today. I was not aware of the existence of these. This is a regular tanked style water heater or is it tankless?
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yep second one.
from memory:
first one came with house and was defective eventually the water outlet? inlet? rusted through(7-8yr).. even with the correct connections made by a plumber.

AO SMITH.. I got for $200 then a $300 federal tax rebate made it free.

New ones work even better. but I consistantly save $20+ per month and it Dehumidifies and circulates the air in the basement saving me $$ there too.
Which makes the hot water nearly free.

Gas power vent which would be cheaper to run(not considering dehumidification) was $2200.

Since I dont need the fast recovery time the HPWH works fine. Its been on Heat pump only mode for years now.

Newer ones sometimes dont even have traditional elements as backup (like mine has)
or only need a 120v plug.

mine is the slightly older version of this.
The side panel wiring is awkward if your previous model was a top wiring (squeaked it in by 1" after loosening the conduit on the ceiling)
1698961715393.png


I'd imagine if more people knew about them they would be very popular in places like AZ, GA placed in the garage...

They arent the greatest in the winter in your basement but my total gas heating consumption (gas charges not hookup fee)
was less than $180 for the entire year. The connection fee is around $500 year.
*disclaimer usage from memory*
 
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PandaBear said:
I think currently a lot of the EVs are just barely making it in cold climate as most buyers are from moderate to warm climate instead. If you buy a car that is barely finished in R&D they won't have all the luxury in the world like the most comfortable and efficient heat pump for winter heating. The correct way to heat a car would be to let the coolant flow through everywhere in the correct order in both direction. Exiting from cabin to go through battery to warm it up or cool it down, then to a compressor loop to either heat it up or cool it down, then the electric motor to cool down (motor always heats up regardless of ambient temperature and accelerating decelerating), then the radiator to cooldown (or bypass if warming is needed later), then the heat pump to either warm it up or cool it down, then either into the cabin to warm it up or bypass it and back to the battery warm / cool down. Of course this would be too expensive and corner cut in the cheapest EV you can buy.

For really cold climate, you will always be more cost effective if you are going to use waste engine heat from combustion to warm your cabin than relying on a generator in the power plant, as you cannot get the waste heat from power plant to warm your car, except if you get almost free electricity and you have to pay a lot to haul gasoline to your area of course.
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It's not just the heat pump to warm the cabin. It does run through the battery and motor to warm them and regulate temperature as you suggest. It's how it adjusts temperature for efficiency for Superchargng too. I have heat much faster in the Tesla than I do in my VW and I will do that when the car is still plugged in before leaving anyway which can be done with the garage closed, unlike the VW. The freakout of range loss is basically not a concern at all to me as I'm not driving that far typically on days where I am using the Tesla and I just don't care about saving energy over my own comfort. The clowns that do that because it scares them to watch the battery drop deserve to be cold.
 
Torrid said:
It's not just the heat pump to warm the cabin. It does run through the battery and motor to warm them and regulate temperature as you suggest. It's how it adjusts temperature for efficiency for Superchargng too. I have heat much faster in the Tesla than I do in my VW and I will do that when the car is still plugged in before leaving anyway which can be done with the garage closed, unlike the VW. The freakout of range loss is basically not a concern at all to me as I'm not driving that far typically on days where I am using the Tesla and I just don't care about saving energy over my own comfort. The clowns that do that because it scares them to watch the battery drop deserve to be cold.
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I think it really depends on the battery size and range. I know it might sound ancient but those early EVs with 120 miles range can be a big problem if they drop to 80 for a round trip commute that is around 75.
 
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How to those Testlas do when it's -20?* my car is parked, 3-4 weeks at a go when I'm at work. If I had one, would I get to the airport parking and have a dead car?
 
brianl703 said:
If you remote start it, while it's plugged in, will it use grid power for warming up the cabin?
Click to expand...
Well that is an interesting question on several levels. For starters, it won't preheat on a 120 VAC charger because there isn't enough power there. Moving on from there, Ford did originally offer a cloud based service that would allow you to prepare the car for driving while connected to a level 2 charger. But here's the rub: they deployed the vehicle with 3G technology which was already approaching obsolescence at the time. The 3G network is now offline. There was a limited time where Ford would upgrade the vehicle to 4G. Somewhere along the way cloud service became a paid subscription.

For the life of me I don't know why the car can't be manipulated from my home WiFi since that's where it charges most of the time.
 
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