Heating car interior for short trips

[BioHzrd]

So 5kW, when really heating up the car, but around 1kW to keep warm on target temp, I suppose. Atleast that's what I have gathered from videos.

If the cabin is warm but not at the set temp it'll probably pull 1kW just done this off a public charger when heading back from the cory center charging at 7.5kW pre heating cabin charging at 6.5kW car had been driven 2 miles to town and saw for about 1.5hr with outside temp of around 4°C

[Dorsetandy]

Had to jump in mine this morning at short notice and get somewhere quickly or miss an appointment - no opportunity to preheat. Car was frozen solid but within 60 seconds of hitting the “max” button windscreen was clearing and able to depart. With my ICE vehicle would have been clearing the screen with warm water and/or waiting for the heater to start working, estimated time to do this around 5 minutes. I do have a heated windscreen which is fantastic this time of year.

Surprised the Enyaq heater draws as much as 5kw initially- that’s on a par with an industrial space heater. Our Dyson home fan heater only draws 2kw and has to heat a much larger space, albeit from a higher initial temperature. I tend to only preheat for about 5 minutes prior to departure as find this is adequate and the car is warm - initially a weird sensation if like me your used to getting into a cold car at this time of year.

[Goaty]

/\ Yesterday we had the thickest / most difficult-to-remove ice of the season so far (rain which froze I think).

Whilst defrosting Mrs Goaty’s diesel Qashqai (which I always do for her ), I activated heating on the app for my Enyaq. Set to the lowest possible temperature (15.5c) and NOT activating the heating element which I have in the windscreen, it took 3 minutes for the ice to clear and essentially be drivable . Very happy with that.

[RichR]

Yeah - EVs have seriously powerful heaters. But generally they only run at full power for a short time, then throttle back. Studies have shown that on average EVs take under 1kW to maintain a temperature 5C hotter or colder than the outside (which is generally 'comfortable'). This was carried out recently in the US to silence EV-doubters who said that EVs would be unable to cope with being stuck in a winter traffic jam for 3 hours. Whereas the tests showed the EVs would be able to keep the cabin warm and the radio on, and still be able to drive for some distance long after the petrol cars would have run out of fuel.

The electric heater could be required to heat the cabin from potentially -20C to +20C in a reasonably short time so are capable of putting out quite a high volume of heated air. There are temperature sensors at the vents so it can tell what temperature air is being fed into the cabin, as well as sensors under the dashboard so it can tell when the hot air has 'filled' the top of the car and is being pushed down (and also when cold air has filled the bottom and is being pushed up). It's a very sophisticated system. And then there's the heat pump (if fitted) - this drops the power required to produce hot air even more (though it can take a little longer to get going).

Obviously if you need all the range you can get, you should pre-heat whilst it's plugged in and then the climate control will only need a few hundred Watts to maintain that. Using heated steering wheel and seats to warm people rather than empty space also reduces the power required. But if you're only driving 50 miles, you might as well just be comfortable as you'll have more than enough battery capacity to get to your destination.