Chinese Diesel Heater Mod

[SmokeyPete]

Has anyone successfully installed a Webasto, Hcalory, Vevor or any knock-off Chinese Diesel Heater in their Spark EV so that they did not need to use as much power for cabin heat and or window defrosting? I'm guessing running the 12v 12 gauge wire off the battery is easy for any car audio enthusiast but venting in and out might be smelly/tricky/deadly.

 

[Infinion]

No, but I've been thinking about it for a while now too.

You might be interested in this video of a guy named Gav installing one in his Citroën C-Zero / Mitsubishi i-MiEV. He has posted a lot of detailed content about his trunk-mounted install you can find here:
https://kiwiev.com/installing-a-diesel-parking-heater/
and associated video


Another video of a van EV with an engine-bay mounted air source fuel heater installed with its inlet and outlet in the footwells!


Instead of an air source heater, there are also coolant/boiler heaters.
Ben Nelson has installed such a heater in his i-MiEV.
https://300mpg.org/imiev-heater-installation/
There are some advantages to using boilers, as the heat can be used with the existing HVAC system efficiently, and in tandem with the PTC heater.
Since the Spark has 3 coolant loops, there are future possibilities worth committing to a coolant heating system, such as running connecting heat exchangers between the separate loops to potentially sharing heat with the batteries. This hold merit because the batteries want to be the same temperature people do, the heater is a whopping 2.4kW and activates regardless of whether you want it to, and regen is hard on the batteries below freezing, and is limited a bit, but still allowed, causing additional degredation!

 

[Infinion]

Simon Andre's Spark EV mod using an Espar Diesel coolant heater near the passenger side strut. I wouldn't have gone with the 2.4 gallon tank but they probably bought a few for their Bolt EV customers

 

[Rofel_Wodring]

Diesel heaters are effective, but have you considered a 12V electric heater instead? It won’t be as powerful, but it could offer supplemental heat without the hassle of venting or adding fuel. Something like a PTC ceramic heater is safer and might work well for defrosting. Sure, it’ll still draw some power, but it’s less invasive and easier to set up compared to a diesel unit. Just a thought if you’re exploring options.

 

[SmokeyPete]

I've been taught in school that 12v DC is very inefficient way to transmit power due to electrical resistance at such a low voltage. In addition fuels such a diesel and of course gasoline are extremely energy dense by comparison. Defrosting a cloudy window on a damp/wet New England evening can literally be a matter of life and death. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying but my solution as of last month was a used 2017 Prius Prime.

 

[Infinion]

Diesel heaters are effective, but have you considered a 12V electric heater instead? It won’t be as powerful, but it could offer supplemental heat without the hassle of venting or adding fuel. Something like a PTC ceramic heater is safer and might work well for defrosting. Sure, it’ll still draw some power, but it’s less invasive and easier to set up compared to a diesel unit. Just a thought if you’re exploring options.

I haven't personally tried the 150W heaters but it would have to be very close to me and quite well placed to have a direct warming benefit. On the other hand, having a small tank of diesel to heat with is like having a second spark battery just for heating.

If I had to try 12V electric heating I would probably choose radiant heating over PTC convection heaters. With radiant heating, just imagine powering a heat lamp. Recently there's been a push to develop more efficient longwave IR heaters. Most of the infrared energy passes through the air to heat only surfaces in the path of its beam, so if you design it well, you can have instant heat, and very efficient use of power. The car will still remain ice cold everywhere else, though.

I should also mention that any heat not part of the HVAC loop will be heating moist air, which will be drawn around to the coldest surfaces where the air wants to naturally circulate. When the air drops across the windows, it'll lose its heat and then dump moisture that came along for the ride because the temperature dropped below dew point.

The climate controls mitigates unwanted dehumidification by running the A/C compressor to keep the cabin heat exchanger very cold as a moisture dump. The process needs to run together with the cabin blower fan so most of the moist air is fed into the HVAC loop rather than circulate over the windows on their own. You won't see it but water will bead up and accumulate all over the heat exchanger before dripping down to a drip pan, then slide into a drain that carries water outside underneath the car.

Smokey beat me to a response just now but he's right, it's tricky because windows are so good at being condensers. I'm pretty sure the Spark EV's glass is single pane too, so it gets an extra kick of winter power. Free dehumidification exactly where you didn't want it...