The distance that modern electric cars reach on a full charge is not far behind their competitors with an internal combustion engine. However, such a statement can be safely made about driving in summer conditions. In winter, the cold weather significantly affects the efficiency and availability of electric cars.
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However, there is one feature that helps electric cars survive in cold climates. It is a heat pump.
What to pay attention to in the list of electric car equipment
Winter affects the affordability of electric cars more than inflation affects wallets. When a minus sign appears next to the number on the thermometer, the declared range provided by a full charge of the electric car battery becomes an impossible mission.
Energy consumption increases, and the remaining kilometers melt like snow in spring. The driving distance can be reduced by a third, in extremely unfavorable operating conditions – even by half. However, it also depends on the specific electric car model.
How an electric car will survive the winter can be predicted just by looking at its equipment list. And that doesn’t mean that a super-expensive high-end electric car full of advanced technology will behave better than a small, affordable hatchback.
For example, even the electric hatchback “Peugeot e-208” can cover a significantly greater distance in winter with a full charge than a luxury SUV, which is several times more expensive. The equipment that should be paid attention to when choosing an electric car in Latvia is the heat pump. If one is installed in the car, it is likely that, even in bad weather conditions, it will be possible to move away from the electrical outlet without much stress.
How electric cars heat up
The efficiency of electric cars suffers drastically in winter mainly due to heating. In internal combustion engines, as the word itself suggests, combustion takes place, which releases heat. However, gasoline and diesel engines burn fuel inefficiently. Most of the energy is converted into heat, which can quickly heat up the car interior.
On the other hand, electric motors are extremely simple and efficient. They have one moving part and almost all the energy is transferred to the wheels, but the electric motor does not generate enough heat to be sent to the cabin to warm the driver and passenger. Interior heating is still one of the challenges for manufacturers in electric cars.
“Heat in electric cars is provided in two ways. With a heating element or a heat pump. The heating element heats up well, but its problem is poor efficiency. It is measured by the COP coefficient, which determines how much heat can be produced from a kilowatt of energy. The coefficient of the heating element is approximately one.
This means that from one kilowatt of energy it can produce one kilowatt of heat. On the other hand, the heat pump is much more efficient: its coefficient can reach 4-5 under ideal conditions,” explains the electric car expert from the Lithuanian blog “100 percent. electric” author Daiņš Jakss.
The principle of operation of a heat pump is the same as that of a refrigerator, only in reverse. The refrigerator recycles the warm air from the inside so that the milk and other products in it do not spoil, while the heat pump introduces the warm air into the interior.
Any heat coming from the battery, electrical system and the outside is sucked up and compressed at high pressure. As the compression further increases the temperature, the heated air is blown into the car interior. This process, which takes only a few seconds, becomes another advantage of an electric car.
For example, the interior of the electric “Peugeot e-208” warms up much faster on a cold winter morning than the version of this model with an internal combustion engine. The interior of a traditional fuel car starts to warm up only when the engine temperature approaches operating temperature. On the other hand, the heat pump, which is installed as standard equipment in such an electric car, immediately starts blowing hot air.
The heat pump reveals its advantages in the city
“In principle, the main advantage of a heat pump is the greater range of an electric car in winter. A car with this equipment consumes fewer kilowatts for interior heating, thus more energy is left for driving itself,” Jaks points out.
The expert admits that the heat pump demonstrates its effectiveness best when the air temperature outside is around zero degrees and when it has somewhere to take its heat from. When the cold approaches or exceeds the limit of -20 degrees, its performance drops, then there will no longer be a significant difference between the heating element and the heat pump.
The benefits of the heat pump will be felt less by people who drive long distances in an electric car, heating the cabin only once a day. After warming up, it no longer needs much energy to heat the interior, so after a few or tens of kilometers, electricity consumption decreases. On the other hand, in the city, when driving short distances, the pump is irreplaceable, because when the car is parked, its interior cools down, and therefore, when driving again, the interior heating process must also be restarted.
“In the Baltic climate, an electric car needs a heat pump. I can give you an example – I had a first-generation Hyundai Ioniq Electric with a 28 kWh battery and a heat pump, and then a Tesla Model S with a 70 kWh battery, but without a heat pump.
In winter, I drive in city mode, short distances. I measured several kilometers while driving to work, kindergarten, shop, the interior of the car became cold again in the intermediate stages, so every time I started the journey again, I turned on the interior heating. As a result, my fully charged Ioniq had the same range as a Tesla with more than twice the battery capacity.
If you often have to drive on the highway, the heat pump may not be a special advantage, because the cabin is heated at the beginning of the trip, and that’s it – energy consumption drops. On the other hand, when driving around the city and constantly heating the interior, the heat pump is a very useful thing,” the blogger summarizes his experience.
You may have to look for such technology
According to car manufacturers’ calculations, a heat pump can increase the range of an electric car by about 10 percent. According to experts, a heat pump is a mandatory attribute for an electric car that is operated in colder climates. However, such a technological solution has yet to be found in the car market, but when you find it, you will have to empty your pockets for it.
For example, the heat pump appeared in Tesla models only two years ago, Renault is asking almost 1,000 euros for the heat pump in the Megane E-Tech model, and Volkswagen is producing its electric cars without them at the beginning of 2023 due to the lack of semiconductors. On the other hand, “Peugeot” offers heat pumps in its electric cars as standard equipment in the entire spectrum, starting with the “e-208” and ending with the “e-408” model.
