Green Car Reports Newsletter Sign up to get the latest green car and environmental news, delivered to your inbox daily! Sign Up Today! China's Geely reveals Homtruck: Big-data rival to Tesla Semi due in A Geely brand plans to roll out the sustainability-themed, data-focused electric semi to global markets beginning in Stephen Edelstein November 11, Cooler means quicker: How EV fast-charging stops might get shorter without bulkier cables A cooling method being explored by Ford and Purdue University is considering using coolant phase changes instead of just circulating liquid; that could introduce packaging advantages and make the system more efficient.
Brian Wong November 11, Bengt Halvorson November 10, Stephen Edelstein November 10, Wireless inductive charging could sell more EVs, concludes study for tech leader Those who aren't seriously considering an EV might be more easily convinced if they could skip heavy charge cables and plugging in. Bengt Halvorson November 9, EV vs. Most F Lightning intenders are EV newbies, so Ford is helping them get ready with AR With an augmented-reality experience, Ford aims to get F Lightning electric pickup customers ready by showing them around features, from home charging to the frunk.
Charging Mobility Sustainability. Gas Mileage Hybrids Electric Cars. Springtime in New England is the perfect time to take a long drive in an electric car. At about 68 degrees, the lithium-ion batteries in electric cars operate most efficiently, so a full battery can translate to driving miles in a car with an EPA-estimated range of miles. Range estimators in electric cars are sophisticated enough to consider temperature, terrain, and speed into account on the dashboard to give the driver a more accurate estimate.
In general, moderate weather conditions will lead to much more range. When the temperature climbs in the summer sun or drops in the winter snow, energy stored within the battery must be used for heating or cooling itself.
The impact of temperature on range is particularly noticeable in cold weather, when electricity stored in the battery must also be used to warm the air in the cabin to keep passengers comfortable.
While gasoline-powered cars can rely on heat lost from the engine to help keep passengers warm, electric cars do not waste as much energy and must redirect energy from the battery to keep the car warm. Electric heaters are efficient, but keeping a car comfortable in a New England winter requires a lot of heat and therefore, a lot of electricity. Plenty of New England drivers manage cold weather range loss, including Bruce, the Bolt driver in Massachusetts pictured here.
Here are some tips for extending range in the winter. The power characteristics of an electric motor mean that it is very easy to pull away and minimise wheel spin with an electric car. Simply release the handbrake and gently touch the accelerator and the smooth power delivery will usually allow the car to pull away with minimal fuss.
Electric car owners can use regenerative braking — where the motor progressively slows the car and uses the motion of the wheels to recharge the batteries — to provide far smoother and safer braking. The method for slowing a car using regenerative braking does vary between models. On the BMW i3 or Mitsubishi i-MiEV, for example, simply taking your foot off the accelerator will activate the regenerative braking, gently slowing the car down to walking pace before you apply the brakes to bring the car to a halt.
Because the motor is used for both accelerating and braking, the overall balance of the car remains more consistent. This is a significant benefit when driving on ice or slow. Regenerative braking reduces the chance of skidding or sliding and minimises the risk of losing control of the car. Overall braking distances are similar to other cars braking gently in slippery conditions. If you would like to find out more about electric cars take a look at our EV Info Guides or contact one of our EV experts today.
EV Heating in Winter. How does it work? What are the Negatives? What are the positives? In winter, I like the idea of having a warm car interior before driving off.
It's also a lot safer as there is then no issues with windows icing up when you start driving. With the weather we have had in the past week, it's quite possible that you wouldn't be able to access a charge point at one end of your journey and have to park a few streets away.
So you would need to use some of your battery range, to power the heater, to de-ice the car. Why can't they build in a small fuel tank and run a webasto type heater? A home has FAR better insulation than a car, especially as the windows in a car make up far more of the external skin of the car and most are only single glazed.
ICE cars don't have a problem, especially petrol engined ones, as their combustion process emits a lot of heat energy that can be used to heat the car deliberately or not , whereas EVs generate far less heat during usage - great for efficiency, not so good when stuck in the snow for hours. I suspect that the heat loss in a car would be near to 5x that of a modern home per m2 of interior space as a result of the poor insulation of the exterior and the vent holes that can never be blocked.
You might do better if you covered the car completely in snow EVs to make it like an igloo. Fuel heating method After the fuel heater is started, the oil pump starts to draw oil from the fuel tank and delivers the fuel to the heater.
The fuel is atomized into a combustible oil and gas mixture by the atomizing device and ignited by the spark plug. The coolant in the water circulation system is heated as it flows through the heater and then flows into the heater core to provide sufficient heat to the cab to provide a comfortable environment for the occupants to meet the requirements of the defrost and defogging regulations.
Most of the electric heating methods use PTC heating. PTC is the abbreviation of PositiveTemperature Coefficient, which means a positive temperature coefficient, which refers to a semiconductor material or component with a large positive temperature coefficient. A PTC thermistor is a typical temperature-sensitive semiconductor resistor.
When a certain temperature Curie temperature is exceeded, its resistance increases sharply with increasing temperature. That is, the power of the PTC heater will suddenly drop to a minimum, returning the temperature below its Curie temperature. Because of this characteristic, the PTC heater has the advantages of constant temperature heating, no open flame, and long service life.
Maybe the bigger problem is we're so utterly pathetic at coping with snow - which is why Norway cope with EV's a lot better! Norway have a lot more snow, but they prepare for it - they rarely close an airport, unlike us when we close with a dusting of snow.
And that's the main reason Norway are better than us at dealing with the snow. They have lots of it and have it all the time so money and resources are put into it as it's needed. Most parts of the UK see very little snow so it's not worth investing a load of money for a few days snow. But don't we keep saying that same thing every time we have snow - so maybe its about time we acknowledged that we do get snow pretty regularly, although varying amounts!
You mean get the small collective of misers who effectively run the UK to spend some of their billions on helping the prols, I certainly don't want lots spent on it when it will only have an affect once or twice a year at most. You have obviously never spent six hours travelling through snowdrifts to travel sixteen miles. Yes I had winter tyres, a snow shovel boots and a heavy coat and hat, but that doesnt get through 4- 5 foot deep snow drifts.
We need to have a central pool of snow clearing equipment, snowploughs gritters etc, so it can be moved to the areas worst hit.
But that is a sensible idea and when do we have politicians spending our money wisely? Having our major roads blocked for hours, with thousands of motorists stranded, is not acceptable to most people.
England's snowfall is unpredictable, both in timing and location - a central depot of snow-clearing equipment could take hours to arrive anyway. The Scottish method of closing roads at least keeps people safe. A couple of years on I've seen the terms " resistive heater" and "heat pumps" but, sadly, I'm too stupid to make sense of either.
Not that bright but I've read a bit today about heat pumps in a household environment. Think air conditioning in reverse- heat is sucked from the air outside and used to heat the car. Either can run while the car is charging and potentially store heat either in a liquid or blocks similar to those in a storage heater. If that gets the car warm before setting off, and can keep it that way without recourse to leccy that might otherwise be available to the motors for an hour, then that's enough for a hell of a lot of people's commutes.
Either way the whole EV thing sounds mighty complex for the average Joe when lights start appearing on the dash just as he's about to leave for Midnight Mass in the cold and wet. I think I'll put the whole thing off until either a I'm forced to adopt it by which time, hopefully, there'll be enough people around who understand it and can overcome the sundry problems that'll occur - or b I'm no longer extant and don't have to worry about it any more.
Keep a thick coat, blanket, a few bars of chocolate, and a couple of bottles of water in the boot. Will keep you warm, fed and irrigated for 12 hours! Alternatively you could join the numpties who, after having been advised of severe weather, simply think that they are immune from snowdrifts - just stay at home.
At least in theory, there should be fewer things to go wrong with an EV than an ICE car, so one would hope fewer reasons for the Christmas tree to light up on the dashboard.
I'm not particularly bright but a "resistive heater" sounds like a heater with a resistive element - like your common or garden mains powered fan heater. Heat pumps are in effect a refrigerator running backwards. The cold bit like the inside of your 'fridge is outside the car being warmed up by outside heat - you hope in a scottish blizzard! But why on earth any manufacturer would go the expense and complication of a heat pump system to provide heat for a car interior. I understand the electrical system of an EV generates quite a bit of heat.
How much of that can be used to heat the cabin, I don't know. I drove my Ioniq full electric to work today, when I left at 6am it was 8c outside and the range showed as miles. Once on the dual carriageways I sat at 60 with the adaptive cruise control on and when I reached work the range was miles left. In the case of the Ford Kuga EV, not very well designed with fires resulting from overheating.
Now redesigned and being retrofitted Typical of a company poor at testing new products. Whilst thanking those who replied, I don't think I'm any wiser with regard to knowing how EV heaters work.
The heater on an ICE is simlicity itself to understand even if getting to the matrix behind the dashboard isn't Maybe the simple explanation is it's just an element like a fan heater? If it's that simple then so be it. The heater on an ICE is simlicity itself to understand even if getting to the matrix behind the dashboard isn't. Your last sentence is so true, my son went to Newcastle Uni but used to go out in shirt sleeves when it snowed at home in the West Riding anyway.
I believe it's to give the EV more range by taking some of the effort of providing heat off the main battery. Someone more knowledgeable than I may be able to explain that in a more scientific way it could hardly be less, but then I'm a classics graduate.
Actually, Focussed, your answer to your own question is probably as good as any. The heat pump scavenges waste heat from the power pack and motors etc, which would otherwise go to waste and uses it as described above to produce cabin heat where required.
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