2013 Heater

[evnow]

We know one of the biggest upgrades to MY13 Leaf is the heatpump. How well does it work in practice ?

Since I got the MY13 Leaf some 3 weeks back, not surprisingly we've not had real cold weather to test. But the last week has been fairly cold, dipping below 50 most days.

I've noticed a couple of things.
- Front window defrost is very fast and consumes less than 1kW in bursts. Compare this to '11, which consumed over 3KW and took some time actually defrosting.
- The heater comes on very quickly i.e. it is effective a lot more quickly than in '11. My wife's big complaint of '11 was the slow and somewhat ineffective heater. This has been effectively addressed.

 

[CMYK4Life]

We know one of the biggest upgrades to MY13 Leaf is the heatpump. How well does it work in practice ?

Since I got the MY13 Leaf some 3 weeks back, not surprisingly we've not had real cold weather to test. But the last week has been fairly cold, dipping below 50 most days.

I've noticed a couple of things.
- Front window defrost is very fast and consumes less than 1kW in bursts. Compare this to '11, which consumed over 3KW and took some time actually defrosting.
- The heater comes on very quickly i.e. it is effective a lot more quickly than in '11. My wife's big complaint of '11 was the slow and somewhat ineffective heater. This has been effectively addressed.

I am a first time Leaf owner (2013 SV). I live in a seasonally cold [frigid] climate, MI. I got the Leaf just after 'the thaw'(APR). I did use it in close to freezing conditions but have nothing but ICE cars to compare it to. I think the 2013 climate control and defrost is sufficient to good. However, I wont truly know until I get through the 2013 MI winter!

My benchmark is a 2003 Ford Sedan and 2005 Kia SUV. If you want to 'defrost' in those cars in the winter you are looking at 10 mins of 'warm up' time. If the Leaf can do that or better I would give it a thumbs up. I cant wait to find out.

 

[Mel4EV]

Congrats on the MY13. Thanks for the info on the new heater. Would you say that it is as efficient at heating as the AC is at cooling? I am impressed at how efficient the AC is. 1.5 Kw for maybe 20 sec then dials right back and cools well. Perhaps you could do a test setting the cabin temp say 15 or 20deg above outside and seeing how the heater performs?