How do electric cars heat the cabin?
In: Technology
Typically they still use a heater core and coolant like a normal car, but use a heating element/resistive coil to heat the coolant rather than engine heat. Yes, using the heater can have a significant impact on ev range. To improve efficiency, the car will preheat this coolant when the car is plugged in/charging in low temperatures.
Electric heaters blow warm air.
But they also tend to have heated seats and steering wheels since it’s more efficient to heat you directly than to heat the air, which then heats you.
The engine of a car gets hot and air blows that heat inside the cabin
Electric cars use electric heaters. They engineer the cabins better to maintain the heat and make the electric heaters as efficient as possible since it uses the battery pack and it reduces mileage.
The same way normal cars do. Refrigerant-based heat pump. Check out r/hvac for more details on how a heat pump works.
The ‘pre-heating while charging’ information is very interesting information for me. This possibly explains why rodents (rats in the garden and neighbor’s outdoor structures) built a nest on top of the engine (elec. motor) of my nissan LEAF. They even used the hood insulation available right there as the building material. They came for the heat in the winter probably.
They use the electricity to power a more traditional heating unit instead of using the hot coolant from an engine block. You can read more here. [https://www.tesla.com/blog/blowing-hot-and-cold](https://www.tesla.com/blog/blowing-hot-and-cold)
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