Consumer Reports suffers range anxiety in a Mitsubishi iMiEV — Autoblog Green Consumer Reports Cars Blog: Behind the wheel: Mitsubishi i-MIEV electric car It'll be interesting to hear how much range or mileage loss there will be w/the heater on w/pure EVs like the Leaf and range extender EVs like the Volt. I can just see the complaints coming now in the press and if a certain whiner were a buyer... err... nm.
I don't know, he kind of nailed a key problem with this: People will have to learn to adapt their habits. Using the heat at 27 F is one of those. The author demonstrated some cluelessness turning up the fan and the heat at the same time (turn down the fan, turn up the heat)...but it is something many drivers will also do.
The iMiev also has one of the smallest packs out of any of the EV, (16kwh) the same size as the volt (which only gets 40 ev miles) and imiev isn't the lightest either! The 100 mile claim is based on the japanese standard which is notoriously optimistic (the 2010 prius is rated at 89mpg) I do believe the leaf will come closer to it's 100 mile range thanks to the improved battery. I think that there has to be more effective heaters out there. If using a heater, which a large part of many countries will use, cuts the range in half that's a HUGE problem.
Hi All, Yea, I think EV heat should be Natural Gas / Propane based. EV's are not going to be practical at 3 F (a recent morning drive in temp for my Prius) without a fuel based heater. This is not a real inefficiency either. As gas based heater designs are out there run at least 75 % and as much as 95 % efficiency. Compare this to the waste heat recovery used in an ICE car, about 30 % of the gasoline energy makes it into the water jacket, and there is still a great improvement going EV / N.G. Heat ...
That is not unreasonable. A fuel based heater could even be a cold weather option package. It is something that is going to have to be addressed to improve the versatility of EV. On the other hand, I don't turn on the Prius heat until it is down in the teens or to defog/defrost the window or unless I have passengers who need the heat. Even then I won't turn it on for the first several minutes since I need to let the engine warm up first. Grill blocking really improves the warm up time of course.
I don't know that it's that "clueless", esp. since I haven't been in one if these cars to be able to judge the heater. If it's fan speed's too low, the heat may not reach the driver or sufficiently heat the cabin, esp. at low speeds w/insufficient ram air or if in recirculating mode. That said, I keep the HVAC set to off if fWT (water temperature) is <=145 F unless I know the ICE will have to run anyway like during harder acceleration or I'm going to be driving >42 mph. Fortunately, having a ScanGuage now means I can actually monitor it.
Since he complained that the air was "just slightly warmer than tepid", he had the fan set too high. If the heater can't warm the cabin at all, that's a more serious problem. However, even then if the heater can't provide the duty, turning up the fan just makes the effect worse. Blowing cold air across you will make the environment feel even colder. Better to have warmer air at a lower speed. There might not be enough of it, but it will at least have a net warming effect rather than cooling.
