4 ms·

I'm curious how much of the electrical consumption the battery heaters take in the winter time.

• cptskippy 7y ago
  It really depends on the climate you're asking about but from what I understand, systems like the Nissan Leaf's hybrid heat pump, can use up to 6% of battery capacity per hour. I'm in the Southern United States and heating vs cooling uses roughly the same amount of power which is a 2-5 mile range penalty. Unless you're pushing up against the maximum range of your vehicle routinely then it's probably a non-issue. I've had my Leaf for several years and I can count the number of times I've gone below 20 miles of range on one hand.
  • cmrdporcupine 7y ago
    Running the heater isn't so much the issue in winter. It's that cold temperatures dramatically alter the efficiency of the battery. In summer, I get about 90-95km of range off my Volt. In winter, about 50-60. That has little to do with running the heater (I preheat in the garage before I go, use seat and steering wheel heater, and besides, I run AC in the summer).
    • zelon88 7y ago
      Right, but it was my understanding that the lithium batteries have heaters built into them to prevent them from ever reaching a low temperature threshold. You won't have a button to enable/disable this feature and you probably won't be made aware of its presence by any UI elements. This little piece of hardware would likely be powered whenever the battery temperature reaches a certain point, regardless of whether or not the key were present or the charger plugged in. I'd even be willing to wager that if you left your car dead, with 0% available charge, in a cold parking lot overnight the heaters would still be powered for as long as the batteries could physically maintain them without dropping below 3v/c.