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More to the point, heating the battery up takes a lot of power. If you're plugged into AC then I would definitely preheat for half an hour, as this will reduce battery cycles.
Is it actually bypassing the battery and feeding power to the HVAC etc. directly? Or is charging the battery from 89.9% -> 90% repeatedly much better for it than charging it from 70-90%?
You can't charge and discharge a battery simultaneously. Even with the batteries connected to the circuit the power is going directly into the heaters.
Or having it in a warm enviornment. My garage generally stays above 0 - the last couple of days of extreme cold my car has been about 3C when I turn on the climate about 10-15 minutes before leaving. Would I still benefit heating the car 30 minutes ahead of time when I am starting at 3-7C? I am plugged into my HPWC at this time.Charging and driving are the only way to warm up the battery. if that is what your asking.
I wanted to write a more comprehensive answer, so here we go. There are four possibilities:
- You are going on a long trip, and the car is plugged in. Mandatory to pre-heat via App for at least half hour. This heats both the battery pack and cabin, and uses AC power to do it. Personally if I have the time (e.g. I'm waiting for the charge anyway), I'll do it twice (turns off after 30 minutes) for a full hour of preheat. You will save a great deal of driving range by doing this!
- You are going on a long trip, and the car is NOT plugged in. This is a bad situation, but preheating will make it worse by consuming battery power without the car going anywhere. Hop in the car, dial the cabin temperature down to minimum, crank up the seat heaters to compensate, and don't drive too fast. Keep an eye on your usage and hopefully you have a fallback charging location along the way.
- You are not going a long distance, and the car is plugged in. Strongly recommended to pre-heat via App for half an hour. Even ten minutes is useful though.
- You are not going a long distance, and the car is NOT plugged in. Preheating is optional; mainly for comfort and convenience. Preheating will not only make the cabin warmer, it will give you some regen braking. That said, you're using battery power to heat the car, so it is a little extra wear-and-tear on the battery pack. Personally in this situation I just preheat for 10 minutes, mainly to warm the cabin.
My drive most mornings is a 1.8km round trip to drop off my 7 y/o at school. It seems pretty wasteful to me to pre-heat even if connected to AC. Thoughts Doug?
I try to manually set charging each day so it finishes at 7am each day so the battery is as warm as possible for any morning driving...
The link doesn't work Doug
It will... Blog posts take a little time to approve.
Hi Doug, was just creeping on some peoples profiles and I saw you are an engineer. Just wondering if you were a civil engineer? sorry for the random question, lol.
Nope, electrical. I do try to be civil though.