Heating impact on charge / range?

[bellyer]

Now that it is getting cold here in Chicago and I have a couple of long road trips to make in the next 6 weeks, I want to make sure that I can get as much juice from my MME as possible between charging stops, especially since one of the trips is going to be a bit iffy when it comes to making it from the starting point to a DC Fast Charging stop. I understand that I will want to limit the use of the E-Heat and rely more on the steering wheel and heated seats for warmth, but since I will also have passengers in the back seat and my dog in the trunk, I do not want them freezing while I'm nice and warm in the front with the heated steering wheel and heated seat. I did just purchase two 12v plug-in seat warmers for the back seat occupants, but I am wondering if using those, as well as the front heated seats and steering wheel will end up any more efficient than simply relying on the E-Heat. I know that I am going to have to use the E-Heat to defog the windows periodically, but I am hoping that maybe these heated seat pads I am adding and the seats and wheel up front will be more efficient in helping to warm the car than using E-Heat will be.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

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[2FlyMache]

what's your distance for your questionable trip? My EX4 Premium sees about a 2.5 mi/kw with temps in lower 40's if I use the eheat. If I turn it off, I get 3.1. So basically for a 95 mile trip, I use up an additional 4% battery power.

 

[breeves002]

I just drove from STL to KC and back. 40ºF the whole way, a little bit of light rain for part of it. Speeds 70-75mph and light winds. Car said I did 2.3mi/kWh average for the trip but sections were as low as 2.1mi/kWh. I was on Pilot sport 4 A/S 245 tires so that may be up to about a 5% range reduction.

In reality the heater wasn't that much of a draw and unless you need like an extra 6-10 miles I would just leave it on. From my estimates it was about 1kW on average. So over my 8 hours of driving it used just shy of 10% of one fully charged battery. The largest heater draw is when it is heating up the cabin. Once warm it is relatively low unless it is super cold.

I manually estimated the last leg of my trip by calculating percentage used to kWh used then dividing mi/kWh. I got exactly 2.3 so the car seems to be pretty good. That would have been 202 mi to a 100% charge for me.

One other note...ABRP is super conservative. I arrived home on my last leg with 10% remaining when it said I would need to charge or I'd run out.

 

[bshaw]

Precondition your interior temperature before unplugging from your charging cable. Once you have that all set, I doubt you would need those supplemental 12V heaters for the rear seat passengers.

 

[bellyer]

what's your distance for your questionable trip? My EX4 Premium sees about a 2.5 mi/kw with temps in lower 40's if I use the eheat. If I turn it off, I get 3.1. So basically for a 95 mile trip, I use up an additional 4% battery power.

The questionable trip will be from our house in Chicago to our vacation home in Door County, WI. The total drive, door-to-door, is 257 miles. There is an EA charging station in Milwaukee that we normally stop at and put us back up to about 80% or just over even in the warmer months that puts the longest leg (Milwaukee to Door County) at about 177 miles. On our way up, we are going to stay the night somewhere about halfway up to charge and then go on the rest of the way, but then coming home from that trip, we are planning to just go from Door County to the EA charging in Milwaukee. The majority of the drive is 70 MPH posted speed limit, so I try to stay at 70 or even just under because going over 70 really does noticeably degrade the range on these trips. We do have the AWD Extended Range, but the (not-so) trusty ol' Guess-o-meter has had us floating around the 210 mile mark for a full charge now that it has gotten cold here in Chicago, so I am worried that with the speed and the use of E-Heat, going that 177 miles could be a bit tight.

 

[Thor2j]

what's your distance for your questionable trip? My EX4 Premium sees about a 2.5 mi/kw with temps in lower 40's if I use the eheat. If I turn it off, I get 3.1. So basically for a 95 mile trip, I use up an additional 4% battery power.

Actually that's about a 20% difference ,not 4%.

 

[bellyer]

Precondition your interior temperature before unplugging from your charging cable. Once you have that all set, I doubt you would need those supplemental 12V heaters for the rear seat passengers.

We definitely precondition, but even doing that, on a 3+ hour drive, the car will certainly get chilly. I find that the effects of preconditioning when it is in the 30s lately, the car still ends up getting a bit cold within about 30 minutes.

 

[gafear]

You should be fine, it uses a lot of power to warm the vehicle, but to maintain the heat with 4+dog occupants should be minimal

 

[2FlyMache]

Actually that's about a 20% difference ,not 4%.

I didn't state % difference just the additional battery % used.

 

[murphy62]

Now that it is getting cold here in Chicago and I have a couple of long road trips to make in the next 6 weeks, I want to make sure that I can get as much juice from my MME as possible between charging stops, especially since one of the trips is going to be a bit iffy when it comes to making it from the starting point to a DC Fast Charging stop. I understand that I will want to limit the use of the E-Heat and rely more on the steering wheel and heated seats for warmth, but since I will also have passengers in the back seat and my dog in the trunk, I do not want them freezing while I'm nice and warm in the front with the heated steering wheel and heated seat. I did just purchase two 12v plug-in seat warmers for the back seat occupants, but I am wondering if using those, as well as the front heated seats and steering wheel will end up any more efficient than simply relying on the E-Heat. I know that I am going to have to use the E-Heat to defog the windows periodically, but I am hoping that maybe these heated seat pads I am adding and the seats and wheel up front will be more efficient in helping to warm the car than using E-Heat will be.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The car heating system is about a 6 kW resistance heater.
Window defogging is most likely done with the air conditioner blowing very low humidity air.
What is the rating (kW) of the seat warmers that you purchased?
The 12 volt outlets are fused at 15 amps.
Wear a warm coat.
Start out with the car warmed up using 240 volt wall power.
When the car cools off turn the heat on to warm it up and then turn it off.
My car, Premium, has a 12 volt outlet in the trunk.

Convince your passengers that by using body heat to keep warm they will lose some weight during the trip.

I went through this in 2014 with a Tesla. Monitor your power budget and you may find that at some point you will have saved enough energy to use the heater for the rest of the way to the charger.

 

[2FlyMache]

The questionable trip will be from our house in Chicago to our vacation home in Door County, WI. The total drive, door-to-door, is 257 miles. There is an EA charging station in Milwaukee that we normally stop at and put us back up to about 80% or just over even in the warmer months that puts the longest leg (Milwaukee to Door County) at about 177 miles. On our way up, we are going to stay the night somewhere about halfway up to charge and then go on the rest of the way, but then coming home from that trip, we are planning to just go from Door County to the EA charging in Milwaukee. The majority of the drive is 70 MPH posted speed limit, so I try to stay at 70 or even just under because going over 70 really does noticeably degrade the range on these trips. We do have the AWD Extended Range, but the (not-so) trusty ol' Guess-o-meter has had us floating around the 210 mile mark for a full charge now that it has gotten cold here in Chicago, so I am worried that with the speed and the use of E-Heat, going that 177 miles could be a bit tight.

I would think that 200 miles would be a little risky but still doable.

 

[JamieGeek]

The questionable trip will be from our house in Chicago to our vacation home in Door County, WI. The total drive, door-to-door, is 257 miles. There is an EA charging station in Milwaukee that we normally stop at and put us back up to about 80% or just over even in the warmer months that puts the longest leg (Milwaukee to Door County) at about 177 miles. On our way up, we are going to stay the night somewhere about halfway up to charge and then go on the rest of the way, but then coming home from that trip, we are planning to just go from Door County to the EA charging in Milwaukee. The majority of the drive is 70 MPH posted speed limit, so I try to stay at 70 or even just under because going over 70 really does noticeably degrade the range on these trips. We do have the AWD Extended Range, but the (not-so) trusty ol' Guess-o-meter has had us floating around the 210 mile mark for a full charge now that it has gotten cold here in Chicago, so I am worried that with the speed and the use of E-Heat, going that 177 miles could be a bit tight.

When leaving Door county to go home precondition the car for a good 30 minutes. I bet you'd make it after that.

(You can also defog the window by cracking the side windows a little--used to do that a lot with my Focus Electric. Of course that does make it colder.)

 

[Thor2j]

I didn't state % difference just the additional battery % used.

You use 7.4kw more with heat onon your 95 mile journey.. Have an 88kwh battery I presume so about 8.4% of your total battery extra with the heat on.

 

[2FlyMache]

You use 7.4kw more with heat onon your 95 mile journey.. Have an 88kwh battery I presume so about 8.4% of your total battery extra with the heat on.

I normally use 36% battery when driving my daily commute. When it's colder, I use 40%. I precondition and don't heat my car cabin up very much.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Seat heaters in front seats, dog sits on passengers in rear seats? Rear seat passengers will be warmer than you. ??

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