Pre-Heating without Timer

Based on my semi random schedule using the pre-heat timer in my S model doesn't seem to be a great option. What I would like to do is just go outside a few minutes before I leave and turn on the heater, similar to cranking up my ICE.

My question is while it's connected to the EVSE and turned on does it draw power from the EVSE or does it pull power from the battery?

EVSE, the only exception to this would be if your car was charged more than 80% and you had the 80% option enabled on the car(only an issue with '13?? model year Leafs). In this case it would draw the battery down to 80% first and then get power from the EVSE as the battery got lower than 80%.
Note like a ICE vehicle leaving your Leaf ON would enable someone to unplug your car and drive off.....I guess unless you were able to lock the doors, which I'm not sure you can do from the outside when the vehicle is ON.

I've got a 2015, I didn't notice any 80% options, but haven't really dug around much, so i'm not sure if that's an issue with this one or not.

I read somewhere that you may also need to enable the charger if it's stopped charging, perhaps by pressing the timer override button.

No worries about 80% with your '15, it won't have it. Yes if you have a timer set you may need push the override button, it wouldn't hurt. Note what kind of EVSE do you have? If your just using the factory 120v you will lose charge either way, it's not powerful enough to keep up with the heater, if you had a 20 or 30a L2 that should be able to heat the car and even charge a bit.
If you just have L1 I believe MNL member LeftieBiker preheats using L1, he could probably tell you more, I use L2.

I will have a 30A L2 by next week.

I did some testing and with a 30a EVSE you should get full heat and about 1% charge/3.5 min. Funny thing I noticed was if none of the power was going towards charging the car(I set charging timer way in the future) my Leaf would still draw full current(27.5a) so the heater must be able to modulate how much power it draws so it can heat and charge if needed or just provide maximum current to heat.
I did what your proposing, plugged the car in and then turned it on with full heat on, worked like a charm. I was even able to lock the car with either the remote or by pushing the little button outside the car, I was not able to lock the car using the interior lock button, it just kept unlocking before I could close the door. I'll do one more test tomorrow morning, my car is currently sitting at 50% and charging and climate control timers are OFF. I'll plug it in 30 minutes before I leave for work, turn it on and check it 30 minutes later. It will be interesting to see the SOC %, I'm guessing it will be at ~60% but we'll see.

Plugged car in this morning with a 30a L2 EVSE and turned car ON with heat on. 30 minutes later car was toasty warm and 10% more in charge.
For another experiment I used a 19a L2 EVSE and this time 15 minutes later car had only charged 2% but car was still toasty warm.
Note you have to plug car in first, then turn car on. I tried turning car on first then plugging in and got no heat or charge.
On another note with my '12 Leaf and it's 16a L2 EVSE after 30 minutes car was warm but SOC% had dropped several percent, IOW I don't think 16a L2 is enough to keep up with the heater, the car actually begins to draw power from the battery. Unfortunately for Leafs with the 3.6 kw charger 16a L2 is all it will take

Wow! Thanks for the testing and report.

Once I get my evse I'll give it a shot.

I plug in my Leaf (6.6kw charger) at night before I go to bed, (Clipper Creek LCS-25 EVSE) so it has a full charge before the morning. Then, about twenty minutes before I leave, I go out in the garage, turn the car on, and set the heater for 75* and the fans to about four bars. When I am ready to leave, I unplug the car and get in and go: toasty warm, even with 15* temps outside. Still sitting at 100% when I drive off.

craig said:

I plug in my Leaf (6.6kw charger) at night before I go to bed, (Clipper Creek LCS-25 EVSE) so it has a full charge before the morning. Then, about twenty minutes before I leave, I go out in the garage, turn the car on, and set the heater for 75* and the fans to about four bars. When I am ready to leave, I unplug the car and get in and go: toasty warm, even with 15* temps outside. Still sitting at 100% when I drive off.

Click to expand...

That sounds about what I observed. That is with a 20a L2 EVSE(your CC) it will at least hold the current charge if not charge a tad. I don't believe this would be the case with a 16a EVSE or for sure with a 16a EVSE and a 3.6 kw Leaf, that actually loses battery charge in full heat mode.

Lots of cold weather here in Maine. With only L1 for charging I went out and bought a small 120 volt room heater for 20 bucks or so. A half hour before driving, it takes seconds to put it in the back aimed over the top of the back seat. After a quick heater removal I jump into a toasty warm car.

boba said:

Lots of cold weather here in Maine. With only L1 for charging I went out and bought a small 120 volt room heater for 20 bucks or so. A half hour before driving, it takes seconds to put it in the back aimed over the top of the back seat. After a quick heater removal I jump into a toasty warm car.

Click to expand...

If you can run the HVAC (through Carwings or manually or with a timer) for three minutes the car will warm up noticeably and the wheel and seats will be warm, at the cost of just 2-3% of charge. I do this all the time. It's much better than getting into a cold car and much easier than using an external heater.

Well been doing more testing and here are my results pre-heating without the timer, all on L2:
30a EVSE on a 6.6kw charger S Leaf, 10% gain in charge and toasty warm after 30 minutes.
20a EVSE on a 6.6kw charger S Leaf, 2% gain in charge and toasty warm after 30 minutes.
16a EVSE on above, 2% loss in charge over 30 minutes and toasty warm.
16a EVSE(max it will take) on a '12 SL Leaf, 5% loss in charge and warm at best, the '12 heater that uses some sort of liquid transfer really sucks compared to my '13 air heater(which is much faster to heat and seems to take less power).

Note after having Leaf plugged in over night(with timer set to 80%) to initiate heat I needed first unplug then replug car in. IOW just turning car ON wouldn't give me heat no matter what I tried, I had to cycle the power cord.
My '12SL has a energy management screen that shows how much power(in Kw) the heater draws, it generally hovers around 3kw which would make sense it losing some battery power as the charger is just a bit over 3kwh, my '13S has no such screen so I don't know how much its heater draws but I'd guess somewhere around the same but I'm guessing it's more efficient and probably cycles more resulting in slightly less overall draw.
Lastly, and this is probably of little interest to the OP, on the '12 the A/C(or what I'd call air conditioning??) needs to be ON to get heat. Even though it seems counter intuitive to turn the air conditioning on when it's single digits, thats what one must do to get heat..... :?
I'd like a comment from anyone else with a '12 using heat on my last comment, I wonder if by A/C they must mean climate control??

So I still had the timer turned on in my car and set for 7:50am. However I got to work at about 7:30 and plugged in the car at work. When I walked around the side, I noticed the A/C Heat and Recirculate lights were all on. I opened up the car and sure enough the pre-heat was running.

Just thought that was interesting based on what you said about having to turn on the A/C as well.

Normally when i'm driving around I don't have to do that.

wikki said:

So I still had the timer turned on in my car and set for 7:50am. However I got to work at about 7:30 and plugged in the car at work. When I walked around the side, I noticed the A/C Heat and Recirculate lights were all on. I opened up the car and sure enough the pre-heat was running.

Just thought that was interesting based on what you said about having to turn on the A/C as well.

Normally when i'm driving around I don't have to do that.

Click to expand...

Yes I've had that happen too. Your also correct on the '13 you can independently turn off either the heat or cool(A/C) but I guess on the '12 you need to have the A/C turned on to get heat.......much prefer the heat/cool operation of my '13 vs '12 and IMO the 6.6kwh charger is almost a necessity for good morning warmups for sure without losing battery charge.

More testing "pre-heat without timer" and unfortunately unless the Leaf is plugged in, to get preheat to come on the Leaf needs to be totally ON, just pushing power button twice(without the break pedal) will bring on fans but not heat. Now the car can be locked in this state, by either outside button or remote, but leaving car in this state would allow someone to break into car and drive off, something less than desirable.
Sure wish heat would come on by just pushing power button twice like you can do if car is plugged in, that way someone couldn't just drive off with the car if they could get in it. Oh and after 30 minutes of being turned on, not plugged in, the car lost 9% SOC or 18%/hr which kind of makes sense as my 16a EVSE that basically just kept up with the heater, even slightly lost charge, adds ~18%/hr without the heater on, at least my numbers seem to agree.

Edit:
Tested my '12 this morning(6F) and note my '12 is missing 2 capacity bars. After 10 minutes of being ON but not plugged in my battery dropped 6.5% :shock: which would mean a loss of 39%/hr monitoring the energy management screen it looked like the heater was drawing between 4 and 6 kw/hr, dang going off percent of battery discharge even if it were running full time at 6kw/hr using ~ 40% of my battery would mean the battery only has ~ 15kwh capacity :? something doesn't seem right......time to bring out Leafspy and do some checking....

jjeff said:

EVSE, the only exception to this would be if your car was charged more than 80% and you had the 80% option enabled on the car(only an issue with '13?? model year Leafs). In this case it would draw the battery down to 80% first and then get power from the EVSE as the battery got lower than 80%.
Note like a ICE vehicle leaving your Leaf ON would enable someone to unplug your car and drive off.....I guess unless you were able to lock the doors, which I'm not sure you can do from the outside when the vehicle is ON.

Click to expand...

No, you have to recycle the power once unplugged in order to drive, with out the key it will fail at this point not allowing the car to be used.

To heat the car and draw of the evse unplug it and plug it back in then turn the heat on, give it 30m at -30c less time warmer it is. this is valid for the 2013 only as I have not used any other leaf.

XeonPony said:

jjeff said:

EVSE, the only exception to this would be if your car was charged more than 80% and you had the 80% option enabled on the car(only an issue with '13?? model year Leafs). In this case it would draw the battery down to 80% first and then get power from the EVSE as the battery got lower than 80%.
Note like a ICE vehicle leaving your Leaf ON would enable someone to unplug your car and drive off.....I guess unless you were able to lock the doors, which I'm not sure you can do from the outside when the vehicle is ON.

Click to expand...

No, you have to recycle the power once unplugged in order to drive, with out the key it will fail at this point not allowing the car to be used.

To heat the car and draw of the evse unplug it and plug it back in then turn the heat on, give it 30m at -30c less time warmer it is. this is valid for the 2013 only as I have not used any other leaf.

Click to expand...

You are correct on all counts, I've been experimenting around more and indeed if plugged in charging when you unplug the car you have to hit the power button again(with break pedal down) to move. The exception to this is if preheating while not plugged in, basically turning car ON and then locking doors. Of course in this case anyone who could get into the car could drive it off even without the FOB.

1 below F this morning and left for work with a toasty interior
Using the timer I'd be lucky to get a luke warm interior because it uses 100% fresh air and a very fast fan speed(almost max). It also loses several(+5%) SOC even when plugged in and using the max EVSE the '12 Leaf will allow, 16a@240v, it just can't keep up with the heater. Using pre-heat without a timer I only drop a percent or two SOC, what I do:
Have car fully charged, about 1/2hr before departure I unplug car(if it were plugged in) push the timer override button in car, plug car back in and finally turn car ON(hold down break pedal and push power button). I turn heat on(also need to have A/C pushed as at least on the '12's you won't get heat when plugged in if you don't) and select floor and face for mode. I enable 100% recirc(this is the key) and set fan about 60% speed and temp 74. About 25 min later I get in car(which is nice and toasty) and change mode to floor and windshield(which disables recirc). Note if I didn't do this the windows would probably be a bit frosty. 5 min later I unplug, push power button down again while holding brake and leave with a toasty car, even in sub zero temps
Note none of this is required with my '13 with it's 6.6kw charger, it can heat full and even add to SOC while heating. It also can manage some decent heat while on 100% fresh air, at least to zero F, -20F or colder may require playing with the recirc which again only works when no air is being directed towards the windshield, that turns OFF recirc.

jjeff said:

... I unplug car(if it were plugged in) push the timer override button in car, plug car back in and finally turn car ON ...

Click to expand...

I think I can save you some walking back and forth. On my 2016, I can unplug and replug the cable, and then get in the car and push the time override button. Does it work that way for yours?

Also, in mine, in this situation the dash says I can't drive away because the car is plugged in. So, even if a thief unplugged and got in, he wouldn't be able to drive away.

My quick test showed that the SOC dropped slightly while charging/heating, so I guess I don't have to worry about the dreaded "topping off" battery damage (right? Someone reassure me).

Here's a neat thing: Once my phone is connected to the ODB2 dongle via bluetooth, then even when the phone is outside the car in the charger box, it stays connected. I can just step into the garage to check the status: