Name them! Do not leave us in suspense!
My Cadillacs have not; Porsche, nope; Mazda still a no.
I have not owned a Bentley or S600.
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Who has or is planning to get an electric car / EV Talk
- Thread starter PracticalMac
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My Cadillacs have not; Porsche, nope; Mazda still a no.
I have not owned a Bentley or S600.
Some may have. I doubt all. Here in the UK it is illegal to sit with one’s ICE idling to defrost/heat your car. It was only brought in recently.
But sitting in the warm and getting into a nice warm EV is lovely. Especially at this time of year.
As said above. Pretty normal for versions in colder climates. My full fat Ranger Rover has it, as has my daughter Range Rover Evoque. My previous Mercedes GLS and BMW 7 serieshad it as well. Even a Nissan Patrol. All were able to be scheduled, apps didn’t exist yet
Sure but for many it was before the era of smart phones. Not really the fault od the cars 😂 And not all worked on the basis of an oil burner but granted some implementations were. Many were based around electric as well.
ICE vehicles: heaters as the one talked about are common in the Northern regions of the US, including Alaska, and in Northern Canada. The reason for this is because the very cold ambient temperatures during the winter. While these heaters aren't installed at the factory, they are installed at the at the dealerships in Alaska, and are optional at the lower altitudes in the rest of the US. But if a person decides to move to Alaska, he or she can have the heaters installed at dealerships and mechanic shops out through the US , before arriving to Alaska. Otherwise (during the summer for example), he or she can have the heaters installed locally.
The heaters are as follows:
a. Block heater. These heaters are installed either into the engine block in contact with the antifreeze, or attached to the block, and have a 450-Watt heating element that maintains the antifreeze temperature a few degrees above ambient temperature. The block heaters of larger diesel engines have more powerful heating elements.
b. Battery heater. There are two types of battery heaters: one is a 25-35-Watt insulated blanket that is wrapped around the battery, and the other is an electrical pad that is place in close contact with the bottom or one of the sides of the 12-VDC battery. However, some drivers and companies with work fleets prefer to use battery trickle chargers/maintainers to keep the battery top-charged. But these chargers are best when energized for long periods of time, not just two or three hours as done with a battery heating pad or an electric blanket. Those who can afford large electric bills live their vehicles plugged-in, regardless if using trickle chargers or not.
c. Oil pan heater. This is a 45 to 400-Watt electrical heating pad that is attached to the bottom of the oil pan. The low-wattage one is for using in most engines, except for large truck engines that have large quantities of oil, including diesel ones. A powerful heater attached to a smaller engine, can overheat the oil, so only the low-wattage heater should be used.
I have three vehicles parked on the two driveways of my house, and each vehicle is connected to its individual electric timer, to energize each vehicle heaters-set for a period of two ours before driving. The heaters speed-up the heating of the cabin, so my wife or I start the engine using a remote starter a few minutes before walking to the vehicle. If the windows or the vehicle aren't covered with snow and ICE, then the cab should be sufficiently warm before driving the vehicle. The reason my wife and I not using battery trickle chargers is because 2-3 hours is not sufficient to top-charge the battery, and we only power the electric timer of the vehicle we plan to drive instead of the three vehicles at unison. By local ordinances, it is recommended to plug the vehicle whenever the ambient temperature reaches 20-degree F. All the local private sector (supermarkets and so on) and public (government) business provide parking spaces that have electrical outlets for all employees. The cost of electricity is deducted from the employee salary, at least at the Universities and other institutions.
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I have no idea if this is done in Sweden, however
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Think there has been some confusion/misunderstanding.
There is no way to heat up the cabin with an ICE vehicle without starting the engine and thus having to open the garage door for ventilation.
Or having to wait 3 minutes or so while driving waiting for the engine to warm up in order for it to supply heat to the cabin.
That is the argument.
Thanks. I understand, thus the reason for explaining the use of engine heaters to speed-up the warming of the cabin after starting the engine. The heaters maintain the engine lightly warm, so it takes a shorter period of time to warm the cab once the engine is started. On an EV, you either heat the cabin using battery power, or by using the commercial electricity to both maintain the battery charged and warm, and to warm the cab.
The local ordinance related to plugging the ICE vehicles when the temperature drops to 20 degrees F. is done to reduce air pollution. Engines use more fuel during cold starts than when at normal operating temperatures.
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Not true there are several methods for ICE cars with electric parking heating, just as there are the versions that are based on an additional 'engine', and the versions that are based on the engine running. There are also versions with heat stores.
Heck not even EVs all operate in the same way. Current and modern ones are aided by a much more efficient heatpump system, the majority just don't have that. Some may do the cabin heating but not all of them, some only do it when plugged in others can do it under any circumstance, some also condition the battery others don't and so on.
I personally view that electric cars won't be really viable until around 2029 or so, when battery chemistry improves, and DC charging becomes easy and ESPECIALLY reliable. The technological success of the 2023 Toyota Prius proves there is still life left with ICE cars if they can be properly paired with a decent hybrid system.
Got it! We had block heaters on one of vehicles in Colorado and Minnesota. It did significantly reduce warm up time. I still would not say immediate warmth like the Tesla, but that was 20 years ago; I am sure improvements have been made.
Was going to say.... when I lived in Iowa - a lot of the older cars had an extension cable hanging out from the front engine area and most places had plug-ins available for cars to warm up. lol
A lot of the newer cars didn't have them (I guess that's an aftermarket thing you add?).
My 2018 Civic had a feature where I could press and hold the remote and it would start the car up and cool it down in the summer time. I almost never used it because you had to usually be LOS (line of sight) for it to work and the engine had to run for quite some time before the cabin cooled.
My 2018 Tesla - I've really come to rely on cabin cooling/heating before even getting to the car. Almost forgot what it is like to enter a car that's burning hot. lol.
Glad to see more manufacturers getting this because imo this is a feature I'd very much want on my next vehicle.
Oh definitely. Don't get me wrong, over the years this has significantly improved. The version we have on our EV is with a heatpump as well, its fantastic and super efficient to get ready before settings off. Both in warming it up, and also in cooling it down. In addition, when on a wall charger, it also pre-conditions the batter to the right driving temperature besides just the cabin which helps with getting the most range out of it despite the ambient temperature not being great for batteries. I love it, my wife loves, it, it is fun seeing the ice/snow melt, and lovely to get in a ready airconditioning vehicle in the summer
I don't own a car (sold it years ago) and have a bicycle. It runs on cake. I've no idea how efficient or environmentally-friendly that is.
Yes, I agree because in my state (CA), the state proclaimed all EVs by 2035.
I had to laugh, chuckle and snort !
No way - with the awful infrastructure in CA for public DCFC (L3) chargers - it's beyond dismal.
Not only are they located far away, the chargers themselves are not working most of the time.
Even paying $0.43 to $0.59 / kWH I still find chargers that are not working and not being reported onto the apps.
When I plan a long distance road trip, I have to plan for contingencies along the route with Plan A, Plan B, and holy......
That 2035 date is just for new cars sold, so still only a portion of the overall vehicles on the road. Do you assume that charging will not continue to grow and improve in the next 12 years? Seems unlikely.
Ethanol free cake or do you prefer the 80% blended?
Only 95% buttercream for THIS discerning gentleman.
As a Californian, I'll be surprised if it happens. The 3rd party charging is abysmal here. LAX finally got EV charging but the parking fees and charging rates are INSANE - so you have rows and rows of .... no one using the chargers.
Big venues are adding them but again, the charging rates are INSANE and usually they have added exponentially increasing parking fees ON TOP OF parking fees needed to enter the place. (WTF?).
Like others mentioned, half the time most of these are inoperable, don't work, won't communicate with the very frustrating and crappy 3rd party app, etc.
I HIGHLY doubt CA is going to solve this in a handful of years.
My .02 is that gas station companies are going to have to start adding EV chargers for this to work. But most gas stations are tiny with barely enough room for 4 pumps here in CA.
Already we get begged not to charge our cars in the summer months. Not sure how adding 10 million EVs is going to work. Cost of electricity is skyrocketing.
I’m not sure. If I PM you my address can you send me a sample of cakes so I can asses the environmental benefits. 😜
My daily drive ( ~65 miles ) uses the same amount of electricity as 10 old school incandescent lightbulbs running for 10 hours. Definitely an impact on the grid, but probably not the hit as 'advertised'. I think the average drive is less than 30 miles / day. My exterior lights ( all 8 at 23 watt LEDs that run 24 hours ) probably have the same impact.
My wife does 52 miles x2 every M W F. Weekends we do our shopping. (Work charging free - semester started so finding a charging spot is impossible).
Our house used like 250-400 kWhr/mo depending on time of year. Everything we have is pretty low power (Macs, LED bulbs, efficient TV, very efficient washer/dryer (gas) - heating/stove = gas too).
That's a pretty significant savings over gas! Have you figured our your ROI on this car yet, and if so, have you hit it?
Haven't done anything like that. We had 2 civics and we were guzzling $450/mo in gas. My work then went 100% remote so we decided to sell both the civics and get an EV. My wife's university offered "free" charging (turns out level 1 charging is really really slow and there are so many EVs now unless you get to parking at 6am, no spots available).
So February 2022 we got a used Tesla Model 3 2018 with 38k miles for about the same car payment as our 2 civics combined.
We're saving about $150/mo on car insurance, $200-$300/mo on gas (I'd drive more if I had a car), $300x2 a few times a year on oil changes, $200/year on registration costs, untold time being saved not waiting in a Costco gas line, and that's just what I can think of right now.
We've put about 20k miles on this thing so far and we love it. We didn't buy the car because of "savings" or anything else - wanted a Tesla and thought it would be cool to get one (I have a friend and an old boss who has one).
Helps we're in CA but also cuz we're in CA, supercharging costs have skyrocketed since we've owned this thing.