Does Climate Control While Plugged in Decrease Range?

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BeachLeaf

Active member
Joined
Jan 23, 2019
Messages
43
Location
San Luis Obispo
Hi all, while plugged in and using the climate control (but not charging) reduce range?

That is, does the climate control use the vehicle's battery or the power supplied while plugged in. I've been using the app to start charging even though the battery is fully charged, then I turn on the climate control. Wasn't sure if I needed to actually start charging since the vehicle was plugged in. Hope that makes sense.

Thank you,

Mark
 
BeachLeaf said:
Hi all, while plugged in and using the climate control (but not charging) reduce range?

That is, does the climate control use the vehicle's battery or the power supplied while plugged in. I've been using the app to start charging even though the battery is fully charged, then I turn on the climate control. Wasn't sure if I needed to actually start charging since the vehicle was plugged in. Hope that makes sense.

Thank you,

Mark

The climate control is powered directly from the battery, and the battery is charged by plugging the car in. So if you have a charging setup that provides less than 20amps, the car will slowly lose charge while plugged in. 20 amps or more and the car will slowly gain charge if the climate control is run while plugged in, because unless blocked from charging by a timer, the car will start to charge under that circumstance. If the car is prevented from charging, of course, it will lose charge.
 
I always start charging first, then initiate the climate control. Not sure if that is necessary with the newer Leafs but with my '13 if I don't it totally runs off battery and uses nothing from the EVSE, even if plugged in :x My '12 is even worse in that the only way to use the EVSE and climate control is to use the preheat timer, manually running the HVAC even if plugged in results in 0 amps from the EVSE and everything coming from the battery :x :x
As Leftie said, a resistive heater can use close to 20a @ 240v itself(my '13 uses about 18a @ 240v max heat) but A/C will use quite a bit less as will a heat pump heater, especially in warmer weather.
 
Thank you for the responses. I am using a Juice Box Pro 40 and I wondered if the climate control started to take power from the batteries if it would automatically start charging again while plugged in. I suspect there's a sort of threshold of drain before charging would be initiated again.

I was hoping I could set the charge timer to begin charging then have the climate timer turn on the climate control. Seemingly that's not possible, given you have to pick a timer then pick what has priority charging/climate control (that is if I understand how the timers work...)


Thanks again,

Mark
 
BeachLeaf said:
Thank you for the responses. I am using a Juice Box Pro 40 and I wondered if the climate control started to take power from the batteries if it would automatically start charging again while plugged in. I suspect there's a sort of threshold of drain before charging would be initiated again.

I was hoping I could set the charge timer to begin charging then have the climate timer turn on the climate control. Seemingly that's not possible, given you have to pick a timer then pick what has priority charging/climate control (that is if I understand how the timers work...)


Thanks again,

Mark

The car should start charging again as soon as the climate control is activated. Now, about the bolded part above: it isn't a good idea to leave the car plugged in, but not charging, for more than a few hours, as this can slowly drain the 12 volt battery. New leafs seem to compensate for that, but not older ones. If it were me, I wouldn't take the chance...
 
jjeff said:
I always start charging first, then initiate the climate control. Not sure if that is necessary with the newer Leafs but with my '13 if I don't it totally runs off battery and uses nothing from the EVSE, even if plugged in :x My '12 is even worse in that the only way to use the EVSE and climate control is to use the preheat timer, manually running the HVAC even if plugged in results in 0 amps from the EVSE and everything coming from the battery :x :x
As Leftie said, a resistive heater can use close to 20a @ 240v itself(my '13 uses about 18a @ 240v max heat) but A/C will use quite a bit less as will a heat pump heater, especially in warmer weather.

First, the resistive heater always runs in cold weather to preheat, so that drain should be assumed even with a heat pump present. Now, about the bolded part: the climate control always takes power ONLY from the pack. The pack should always start to charge when the car is plugged in with the climate control running, so I'm not sure what you mean. If you are losing charge with the car plugged in and the CC on, it's because the EVSE isn't providing 100% of what is needed - it shouldn't be that the car is not charging from the EVSE. Are you using a charge timer?
 
When I checked the charging status when the cc was on and car was plugged in - I didn't see any lights indicating that the car was charging.

I have been leaving the car plugged in all night and haven't noticed any issues with the 12 volt battery maintaining charge. The car is equipped with the small solar panel on the back spoiler that is technically supposed to help keep the 12 volt battery charged...

I'll have to run some more tests to see how things work with regard to plugged in/charging and climate control usage.


Thanks again,

Mark
 
Once again: are you sure that a charging timer isn't presently set? Nissan did make some undocumented or little-documented changes in the 2018, so it isn't impossible that they did something in this area as well...
 
I do have a charge timer set with a very large window of time - 8:10 PM - 8:30 AM with the cc timer to come on within that time window. Seemingly, once the car is fully charged it doesn't matter if the charge timer is set to continue, as there's nothing to continue.

My hope/thought was with having the large time window of charging and having the cc set within that time frame, would be that charging would begin again once the cc comes on. Unless something is happening absent of the charge light indicator, the cc comes on as timed with no additional charging taking place...

I don't have the climate control on for very long, so that could be part of why charging doesn't resume (not enough battery drain to go below the threshold). As it stands now, I don't appear to be losing any range when the cc comes on for the short time frame I'm using it.

Thanks,

Mark
 
I do have a charge timer set with a very large window of time - 8:10 PM - 8:30 AM with the cc timer to come on within that time window. Seemingly, once the car is fully charged it doesn't matter if the charge timer is set to continue, as there's nothing to continue.

The charge timers have played a remarkable amount of Hell with Leaf drivers over the years. Just for giggles, try turning off all charge timers and see what happens.
 
I have charge timers set on my 2015 to allow charging only during off-peak power times. Lately, I have been using the EV Connect app to start climate control in the morning while the car is still plugged in and after charging is complete (still during off peak power time). The car always starts charging when climate control is activated and the email notification even says it is running on line power. No other actions are required. My 2011 functioned the same way except that the 3.3 kW charger did not have enough capacity to handle the maximum heater current so state of charge would drop for the first few minutes until heater power tapered down. Again, no other action was required.
 
LeftieBiker said:
jjeff said:
I always start charging first, then initiate the climate control. Not sure if that is necessary with the newer Leafs but with my '13 if I don't it totally runs off battery and uses nothing from the EVSE, even if plugged in :x My '12 is even worse in that the only way to use the EVSE and climate control is to use the preheat timer, manually running the HVAC even if plugged in results in 0 amps from the EVSE and everything coming from the battery :x :x
As Leftie said, a resistive heater can use close to 20a @ 240v itself(my '13 uses about 18a @ 240v max heat) but A/C will use quite a bit less as will a heat pump heater, especially in warmer weather.

First, the resistive heater always runs in cold weather to preheat, so that drain should be assumed even with a heat pump present. Now, about the bolded part: the climate control always takes power ONLY from the pack. The pack should always start to charge when the car is plugged in with the climate control running, so I'm not sure what you mean. If you are losing charge with the car plugged in and the CC on, it's because the EVSE isn't providing 100% of what is needed - it shouldn't be that the car is not charging from the EVSE. Are you using a charge timer?
Correct, the climate control always takes power from the battery, I think I figured out whats going on. I always have a timer set on my '13 so it wasn't during a time the timer would want to charge the car, it won't charge unless I push the timer override button which in my case initiates the battery charging which again in my case more than keeps up with the climate control as my EVSE is generally set for 19a @ 240v. Since the '12's charger maxes out at 16a @ 240v, they aren't quite able to keep up with the climate control in full heating mode, which can approach 6kw heating.
 
GerryAZ said:
I have charge timers set on my 2015 to allow charging only during off-peak power times. Lately, I have been using the EV Connect app to start climate control in the morning while the car is still plugged in and after charging is complete (still during off peak power time). The car always starts charging when climate control is activated and the email notification even says it is running on line power. No other actions are required. My 2011 functioned the same way except that the 3.3 kW charger did not have enough capacity to handle the maximum heater current so state of charge would drop for the first few minutes until heater power tapered down. Again, no other action was required.


Hi again all, thanks for all the replies. I checked my vehicle today and noted that the JuiceBox was in charge mode when the climate control was turned on by the timer I had set. I had previously only used the blue LED's on the dash to note if charging was taking place. I only ever saw the one blue LED in the middle blinking indicating the cc was on.

So, in the end, it does appear that the car automatically starts charging once the cc turns on. I have the cc set to 76 degrees and my garage stays around 50 degrees give or take, so I suspect it's not a big demand on the heater to warm things up. I am unsure how long the cc runs.

GerryAZ, I was curious about your bolded statement above regarding receiving an email and running on line power. My app does neither of these things. In the past, when I've checked the app when the cc was on, all I saw was the state of charge of the battery (which is generally 100% b/c I've had the car plugged in all night) and all the different options for rate of charge show as 0 since the battery is at 100%.

Thanks again,

Mark
 
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