How to heat the Leaf quickly

[Ingineer]

Q: How do I heat the Leaf quickly?

A: Crash a Chevy Volt into it. =)

(Just kidding!)

-Phil

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Here is my solution to get instant heat.

From Harbor Freight for $10-15 depending on sale/coupons.

As you can see I also installed the Seat Heaters front and also in the back. As a result I never have to waste energy or fog up the windows with the preheat option. Where I live I don't have good ATT coverage and it would take forever to get the app to work and send the command to the car. It also seemed that once it was turned on one day it would think it was turned on the next and I would need to turn it off (ever though it was off) to clear the bad status and then it would turn on again (if ATT could connect). Using UPDATE did not help. Total waste of time and energy.

Jim

hey i got one of those!! how did you mount yours? (mine was $7.49 plus tax on 50% off sale!)

 

[Turbo3]

I used a small Velcro strip at the top. The handle goes in the cup holder but I opened the unit and moved the switch to the outside and covered it in heat shrink tubing. I also moved the light switch inside since I don't use it and don't want it to come on at all.

 

[TomT]

It's fixed at 77 degrees.

I had heard that when you remotely engage climite control or use a climate control timer, the settings are all fixed, and the temperature setting is in the high 60F. That's what it seems to be for me anyway.

 

[planet4ever]

The heater system itself is very similar to a gas car. However, when stopped or moving slowly there is no heat coming from the charger and little if any coming from the motor or inverter, so an electric heating coil is used to heat the coolant that will warm the air.

There is apparently very little heat coming from the inverter or motor even when traveling fast, and of course none at all from the charger except when charging. There is actually one loop for the electric heater, heater pump, and heater core, and a separate "high voltage" loop for the charger, motor, inverter, DC/DC junction, radiator, and cooling pumps. The two loops do share a coolant reservoir, but little if any heat is transferred from one loop to the other.

So the bottom line is, at least for 2011 and 2012 LEAFs, that essentially all of the heat for the cabin comes from the electric heater, but it is slow to respond, like an ICE car, because the coolant must first be warmed up.

Ray

 

[davewill]

Something rotten here:

I had heard that when you remotely engage climite control or use a climate control timer, the settings are all fixed, and the temperature setting is in the high 60F. That's what it seems to be for me anyway.

... I'd heard that when you remotely engage climite control or use a climate control timer, the settings are all fixed, and the temperatue setting is in the high 70s (Fahrenheit). That's what it seems to be for me anyway

and here:

The heater system itself is very similar to a gas car. However, when stopped or moving slowly there is no heat coming from the charger and little if any coming from the motor or inverter, so an electric heating coil is used to heat the coolant that will warm the air. Like a gas car, it takes time for the coolant to heat up, so you don't feel the heat nearly as quickly as you would if it were a purely electric heater.

I'll give the edge to johnr on this one. There is no engine, but just like a gas car there is "coolant", i.e. diluted antifreeze, which has to get heated up somehow, and there is a heater core which transfers the heat from the coolant to the air that is about to be blown into the cabin. The coolant used by the heater comes from the same reservoir as that used to cool the electric motor, the inverter, and even the charger, so it can be heated by those components. Thus the heater system itself is very similar to a gas car. However, when stopped or moving slowly there is no heat coming from the charger and little if any coming from the motor or inverter, so an electric heating coil is used to heat the coolant that will warm the air. Like a gas car, it takes time for the coolant to heat up, so you don't feel the heat nearly as quickly as you would if it were a purely electric heater.

The bottom line, as both of you said, is that it takes a while before you feel the heat. If you warm up a gas car before leaving you can get heat immediately. The LEAF equivalent is to preheat, preferably while plugged in.

Ray

 

[grommet]

Ignore it. It's a spambot. Hopefully a mod will disable the account and delete the posts.