Climate control with Charge chord (L2) plugged in

[mkjayakumar]

Why does using climate control (heating) on shore power actually ends up consuming power from the battery? I reach a full charge of 225 GIDs in the morning (2 bar loser) and then I start the climate control using the remote iPhone app, and I do get a text message which clearly tells me that climate control is turned on and using shore power (something to that effect). 15 minutes later when I get into the car to unplug the charge chord, the car is all nice warm and toasty, but I see 219 GIDs. A loss of 6 GIDs.

I understand if this happens on L1 charging, but this is on a 220V L2 charge using Clipper Creek on a 2011 model with an onboard 3.3 Kw charger. It makes me wonder if the heating system consumes more power than what an L2 3.3kW can deliver ? How can that be when my simple room space heater that I have in my house that runs on 120V can heat the equivalent space to the interior of the car in flat two minutes. If I can somehow figure out how to get the chord inside the car and keep the door closed, I would rather use that to heat the car than lose power from the battery and wait for 10-15 minutes.

 

[mwalsh]

The heater does consume a wee bit more than L2 is able to provide. I would go with the bump charge after you pre-heat.

 

[mkjayakumar]

The bump charge gives me 2 GIDs back.. out of the 6 lost, because you never get the full charge unless you charge from a low enough SOC.

In any case it just seems a bit odd that a very small confined and well insulated space of less than 75 cubic feet cannot be heated using an L2 charger? Heck I can heat a 1000+ cubic ft room in less than 5 minutes to a comfortable 68F running on a 120V, $25 space heater from Walmart. Something is amiss here.

 

[CRLeafSL]

You have to keep in mind as well that the Leaf is heating up a fluid like a hot water heater. A heater you buy from walmart to heat a room isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison to the Leaf heater. Better comparison would be to completely drain your Hot Water heater (if it's electric), and fill it with 1 to 2 gallons of water and see how long it takes to heat that water hot. Still not an exact apples to apples since the heating element on an electric water heater is probably bigger than the one in the Leaf but you get the idea. Your space heater from Walmart is just heating the air in the room. No fluid in the equation so were talking about two totally different heating methods.

 

[mkjayakumar]

But if the end objective is to heat the air in the confined car interior, then why go through the trouble of heating a fluid and then using that to heat the interior space by blowing air ?

Even after 20 mins of having the climate control On, I don't think the methodology whatever Leaf uses seems to be anywhere near as efficient as blowing air over a heated coil. You end up using more energy and transferring less heat to the occupants of the car.

 

[DaveEV]

But if the end objective is to heat the air in the confined car interior, then why go through the trouble of heating a fluid and then using that to heat the interior space by blowing air ?

Phil / Ingineer has stated that the heater cycles on/off using a very low frequency, so I suspect that if it didn't have the water to buffer the heat you might feel the cycling. There's probably other reasons, too, but probably primarily based around cost - they are probably able to reuse a lot more parts from existing vehicles by heating water.

Even after 20 mins of having the climate control On, I don't think the methodology whatever Leaf uses seems to be anywhere near as efficient as blowing air over a heated coil. You end up using more energy and transferring less heat to the occupants of the car.

There's definitely some heat lost under the hood as it appears that the heater pipes aren't insulated. I recall seeing some pics from Norwegian where they have insulated the pipes which increases heater efficiency, especially in extremely cold weather.

The other options is to upgrade to a '13 SV/SL with the heat pump. 3x more efficient!

 

[TomT]

But less efficient at cooling...

The other options is to upgrade to a '13 SV/SL with the heat pump. 3x more efficient!

 

[Nubo]

Why does using climate control (heating) on shore power actually ends up consuming power from the battery? I reach a full charge of 225 GIDs in the morning (2 bar loser) and then I start the climate control using the remote iPhone app, and I do get a text message which clearly tells me that climate control is turned on and using shore power (something to that effect). 15 minutes later when I get into the car to unplug the charge chord, the car is all nice warm and toasty, but I see 219 GIDs. A loss of 6 GIDs.

Start the CC a bit earlier. Once it overcomes the thermal inertia of the fluid, and the cold-soak of the interior materials, the heater consumption should drop down below the 3kW and the remainder will be used to top off the battery. How long it takes that to happen will depend on how cold it is, of course. It's probably already on its way to recovery when you terminate at the 15 minute mark. Give it 20-25 minutes and see what happens.

In my experience I sometimes start up the CC when I get in the shower, and end up leaving about a half hour later. By that time I will typically see 11 bars as the surplus power has taken me over the 80% I get from the charge timer. Our garage rarely falls below 45F, fwiw.

Keep in mind heating is not just about raising the ambient air temperature. The materials are cold-soaked (seats, body panels, windows, carpeting, etc...) That is a lot of thermal mass compared to the mass of the air in the car. By pre-heating longer, all of those materials will also warm. And this will extend your range, since you won't be spending battery power to overcome that thermal inertia as you're driving.

 

[stjohnh]

Hmmm..

I have a 2013 S and wife has 2013 SV, both gain charge when preheated w shore power. Typically I have the charge timer (80%)to end at 7:00am (to be sure car is charged on the one day a week I leave early) and the climate timer set to 8:10am ( to warm car for the usual leave time of 8:15. I haven't checked gids, but the SOC on the days I leave early (w/o preheat) is usually 80% (sometimes 79%) and on the usual days I leave at 8:15 the SOC is usually 82 or 83%.

Doesn't seem like preheat drains my battery when hooked to shore power.

 

[mwalsh]

Hmmm..
Doesn't seem like preheat drains my battery when hooked to shore power.

The heater in the 2013 is more efficient and/or takes less power to run.

 

[planet4ever]

Hmmm.. Doesn't seem like preheat drains my battery when hooked to shore power.

The heater in the 2013 is more efficient and/or takes less power to run.

stjohnh said he had a 2013 S model. Do you have evidence that heater is more efficient or uses less power than mkjayakumar's 2012?

Ray

 

[mkjayakumar]

Many here have seen evidence that the SoC does not decrease (in fact increases) during heating, but those are all at 80% charge.

Things are different when the car is already fully charged to 100% and the heating is started after. At this time when the battery charge drops by a few GIDs, the BMS does not top off. So a 15-20 min heating ends up with 5 or 6 GIDs loss. Maybe on a 2013 a 6 kW charger would draw enough energy off the wall and not drain any electrons from the battery

 

[XeonPony]

at -18c my heater was drawing 4.5Kw's much past -10c heat pumps lose all most all efficiency.

Needles to say cupled to the glacial speed of the l1 charger I made it home in a very cold car with very little range remaining, well actualy non as I got out of the door I had 6% soc!

 

[slinkyuk]

I have a 2013 UK model leaf with 6.6kwh charger. I have the charge timer set to only charge to 80% but have the overall setting for 100% so I can "overcharge" using public chargers.

So the car charges to 80% each morning but I have noticed that if you start the CC the charger will draw the full 6.6kwh and charge the battery in parallel to operating the CC. After 30mins this results in the car being on 85-90% charge.

A similar thing happens if the car is 100% charged, connected to charger but when you activate the CC remotely the battery discharges, so it appears that the charger module is not capable of only powering the CC in the 2013 model as it was in the 2011. With the 2011 model I would notice only kwh usage to power the heater (2-3kwh), and yes the 2011 heater was less efficient so would draw more current but it could still run and charge off the 240v 10A EVSE.

Does anyone know if this is a bug that might be fixed or just a new characteristic of the later model hardware?

 

[TimLee]

Hmmm.. Doesn't seem like preheat drains my battery when hooked to shore power.

The heater in the 2013 is more efficient and/or takes less power to run.

stjohnh said he had a 2013 S model. Do you have evidence that heater is more efficient or uses less power than mkjayakumar's 2012?

Ray

In another thread someone reported the 2013S had much less heat loss under the hood than was the case on 2011 and 2012. Maybe not more efficient, but less losses.
Have you observed this with your 2013S? Compared to your previous 2011 SL?

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

The question raised in this thread sounds major, but I think it's relatively minor.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I have a 2013 UK model leaf with 6.6kwh charger. I have the charge timer set to only charge to 80% but have the overall setting for 100% so I can "overcharge" using public chargers.

So the car charges to 80% each morning but I have noticed that if you start the CC the charger will draw the full 6.6kwh and charge the battery in parallel to operating the CC. After 30mins this results in the car being on 85-90% charge.

A similar thing happens if the car is 100% charged, connected to charger but when you activate the CC remotely the battery discharges, so it appears that the charger module is not capable of only powering the CC in the 2013 model as it was in the 2011. With the 2011 model I would notice only kwh usage to power the heater (2-3kwh), and yes the 2011 heater was less efficient so would draw more current but it could still run and charge off the 240v 10A EVSE.

This sounds as if the car is tapering the charge current to protect the battery and that affects the preheating as well. Not a bug but more likely an artifact of the battery charge system.

A point of curiosity: my 2012 has two settings for the CC timer: charge priority and climate control priority. I think I have mine set at CC priority since a small difference in SOC isn't important when I preheat. Perhaps the experiences of people using preheating might vary depending on that setting. Does the 2013 SV/SL also have this choice? I presume that the S model does not so it must be fixed at one or the other.