Heater affecting range?

[jsca72]

We've been having some cold mornings here. No frost yet, but nights have dipped into the 30's. I'm finding the heater has been dropping my range at a noticeable rate. No big thing, but noticeable. When I'm not running the heater, I basically use no range on my 4 mile drive. I drive through winding roads so get a good amount of coasting and regenerative braking. With the heater, I use 4 miles of range on my 4 mile drive. Has anyone else noticed the heater affecting their range?

 

[cwerdna]

Of course running the heater will reduce range. There's little "free" waste heat in an EV.

I don't know the what Spark EV has but EVs typically have either a resistive heater (e.g. '11 and '12 Leaf) or a hybrid heater that has both a heat pump and resistive portion ('13 Leaf SV/SL). The former people have complained is a power hog.

 

[fengshui]

The heater definitely affects range. I did a long-distance drive a few weeks back hoping to get the full 80 miles round-trip by hyper-miling and other techniques, but just a little bit of heater for defrosting in the morning ate up 10% of my range, and I had to stop for dinner and a quick top-off charge on my last leg.

 

[Electricbowtie]

Yes running the heater on both my Volt and our Spark EV decreases the range by as much as 25%. Using the heater sparingly and using the seat warmers is way more efficient if you are dressed a bit warmer.

 

[GeorgeChevy]

Another way to have the car warm but not lose as much range is to preheat the car using the remote start 15-30 min before you leave (while the car is plugged in). That way the car will be nice and toasty when you get in.

 

[markcmann]

Yes, even just sitting in the car with it on, in park and the heater on the Power Indicator Gauge will show 4-5kW of usage.

 

[WetOne]

We have seen similar power usage by the heater (4-5 watts); this is a big percentage of the power needed to drive at reasonable speeds on secondary roads.
My way to reduce the power draw is to wear a fleece coat and a hat, and use a lap quilt my wife made for me to keep my legs warm. I run the heater in defrost mode for a minute about four times on my 1/2 hour commute to keep the windshield clear in our cool, moist climate.
My early morning commute of 25.4 miles takes about 28 miles of range, due to three large hills I need to motor over. The regen is working well on the downhills, so the car gets about 60% of the climbing power back.
We'll see what happens when it gets wintery. Below freezing, I won't be suprised if the power-use graph shows more power being used for battery conditioning than for the climate controls.

 

[jsca72]

Yes running the heater on both my Volt and our Spark EV decreases the range by as much as 25%. Using the heater sparingly and using the seat warmers is way more efficient if you are dressed a bit warmer.

Good idea on the seat warmers. I'll give them a try. I warmed the car up in the garage the other morning while still plugged into the L2 charger. I used up a mile range before I even left the garage.

 

[gatedad]

jsca:
You might not have actually lost that mile. In my I-MiEV, as soona s I back the car vout of my garage, it shows a loss of 1 mile. I think in my case(and yours?) it is a function of the range predictor to lose that mile almost automatically...
Lou

 

[Theo]

We have seen similar power usage by the heater (4-5 watts); this is a big percentage of the power needed to drive at reasonable speeds on secondary roads.
My way to reduce the power draw is to wear a fleece coat and a hat, and use a lap quilt my wife made for me to keep my legs warm. I run the heater in defrost mode for a minute about four times on my 1/2 hour commute to keep the windshield clear in our cool, moist climate.
My early morning commute of 25.4 miles takes about 28 miles of range, due to three large hills I need to motor over. The regen is working well on the downhills, so the car gets about 60% of the climbing power back.
We'll see what happens when it gets wintery. Below freezing, I won't be suprised if the power-use graph shows more power being used for battery conditioning than for the climate controls.

That may be a bit extreme, I'm not sure I would recommend for people to be driving with quilts/blankets on themselves to keep warm in order to conserve range, at least not on regular basis. If your commute is 25miles and eats up 30 miles of range, you should still have enough range to keep the inside of the car warm and do the full commute, charging back to full overnight.

 

[lalacurf121]

I've been noticing anecdotaly from charging it at various different places.

 

[NORTON]

lala,

Again??
Are you for real?
Different quality electrons?

 

[nikwax]

Sounds like a GM troll :lol:

 

[NORTON]

And a non-English speaker.
I'm not sure what he is trying to say.