Opinions on this 2015 Leaf SV w/ charging and premium packages

@jjeff,
The breaker is cheap. More important is knowing that the wiring is safe for whatever amperage is running through it. I cannot imagine ever knowingly breaking electric code standards. The risk of fire and worse is just not worth it. Period.

Note the S heater does have one advantage over the heatpump in that it basically heats right away, just like an electric heater, the heatpump takes a minute or two to start heating.

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Heatpump-equipped cars also have the resistance heater, and use it for initial heating. My SV provides heat in the same 30 seconds as an S. If a '13+ SV takes two minutes to heat then the resistance heater has probably failed.

LeftieBiker said:

Note the S heater does have one advantage over the heatpump in that it basically heats right away, just like an electric heater, the heatpump takes a minute or two to start heating.

Click to expand...

Heatpump-equipped cars also have the resistance heater, and use it for initial heating. My SV provides heat in the same 30 seconds as an S. If a '13+ SV takes two minutes to heat than the resistance heater has probably failed.

Click to expand...

Interesting, even if it was relatively warm out, say 60? I guess that might explain the much higher than expected energy draw when viewing the energy screen, climate control kw draw. I mean I'm used to seeing a 3kw+ draw on my '12SL with resistive only heater but was wondering why the '13SL w/heatpump I drove showed the same ~3kw draw, at least for the minute or so I turned it on. It did seem to take longer for the heat than my SL but maybe it just seemed that way I didn't leave the heat on long enough to see the kw's drop but that makes sense.

I'm not sure how fast my car provides heat at 60F, mainly because it's usually set to Floor only. I'll check that when I can. I do know that while it might take two minutes for the car to get warm, it doesn't take nearly that long for warm air to come from the vents.

Agree with LeftieBiker. My 2016 SV initially ramps up to around 3 kW on the electric resistance PTC heater. Heat starts coming out the vents within seconds and the blower takes about 30 seconds to ramp up from a cold start, presumably so you're not blasted with cold air at first.

Over the course of a few minutes it transitions entirely to the heat pump. Set to Auto at 72F cabin temp on a typical Seattle 52F day, the heat pump might draw 150W to 300W on an intermittent duty cycle.

If I activate defrost or force A/C on with Heat it will run the heat pump in cooling mode with PTC electric resistance heat simultaneously. If you like drying A/C and heat in a ICEV all the time, then the LEAF heat pump is of less value.

In my testing on a 50F night with the climate control set to 72F, maintaining cabin heat with just the heat pump took about 300 Watts. Using Heat + A/C increased average consumption to 1200 Watts. This was at night with the car parked. I used LeafSpy Pro to track energy use over a 10 minute window after allowing the system to stabilize.

A downside of the heat pump is when it switches from cooling to heating, it can turn into a very effective cabin humidifier until the cabin-side evaporator coils dry out. It can take several minutes to dry the system out. I've heard complaints that the LEAF heat pump makes the cabin feel stuffy, but I suspect that's just the temporary wet coils effect.