Need help on heater

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LindaK

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 16, 2010
Messages
135
Hi all,
I know I can pre-heat Sally in my garage, but how about heating her at 10:00 at night when I come out from a rehearsal and head home? It's a 12 mile drive. Even if I turn up the heater up to 90*, the air that comes out of the vents is ice cold for a while. Is there a way to get the heater up and going, w/o having the fan on blowing that cold air on me?? It's aggravating to be watching the usable mileage drop while getting cold air instead of warm!! :(
 
You can preheat with the car unplugged, too. It will use just as much power as it will when you're moving, though (if not a bit more) but if you don't need the range, it's nice to come to a warm car when it's cold out.

The heater will run for a maximum of 15 minutes before turning off when preheating. You'll need a mobile phone and Carwings access to do it. Maybe a timer can do it, too? Not sure. I'm sure someone who has their car already will be able to say. :)
 
The Nissan owners manual states that the heater also has an "ECO" mode just like the car does, so maximum heat comes when the car is in "D" and not "ECO"...

I'll have to double-check, but I also remember the service manual saying something about a delay in the heater output when starting up as being normal....
 
smkettner said:
Is the wait for heat longer than an ICE car?
Since the heat comes from the engine in an ICE car, you can just leave the system off until the engine warms. Obviously that strategy won't work for the Leaf.
 
Ah, pre-warming while on the go. That's an idea that will work...at a cost on range of course. But it will work for me. Thanks! With all this talk about pre-warming while still tethered in the garage, I hadn't realized I could talk to the car from my phone and get it pre-warmed while sitting out somewhere.

I'll go looking on the forum, but can anyone point me easily to some data on what the "cost" is per degree (or 10 degrees) of heating on the battery?

Thanks!
Linda
 
I looked at how much power my LEAF was drawing while on preheat as soon as I got TED. Right around 1.4 kWh to heat the car to 77 degrees when it was around freezing outside. That is a large chunk of my total consumption, since my drive requires about 10 kWh daily. I changed the 'leaving time' on the climate control to ten minutes later then I actually leave. That way the car gets to heat for five minutes instead of fifteen. Works for me; still plenty warm. 'Leaving time' is only adjustable in 10-minute increments.

I have been using preheat nearly every morning. Nice to be able to turn it on with smartphone if I forget to set the timer!

Back to your question, I'm using $0.15 per kWh for my estimates; in that case, my preheat costs somewhere between ten and twenty cents, depending on whether I shorten it or not.

-Karl
 
Heater on full is about 5 kW usage rate (power).

Run for 15 minutes preheating (1/4 hour) => 1.25 kWh of energy used from the battery. Perhaps you had to use 1.5 kWh to charge the battery that much.

So, call it one and a half kWh to make it easier to do the "higher" math.

Then, whatever you pay for one kWh while charging, say 16¢, ...
(here comes the higher math) ...
times 1.5 => 16 + 8 => 24¢

OK, maybe not HIGHER math, but later 3rd grade math, HIGHER than 2nd grade! :lol:
 
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