mitch672 said:
The "battery pack heater" uses battery power to generate the heat! except when connected to the J-1772 EVSE... the heat/AC in the vehicle uses battery power. You get stuck in one of our typical traffic jams or one of our famous 3-4 hour winter commutes, you're going to have to shutoff the heat, to have any chance of making it. What I am saying is, even though an EV could work here, drivers will have to make a lot of compromises, and many are not willing to - yet. $4,$5, or $6 gasoline, maybe more will, but larger packs would also help
Mitch, I don't know you, and don't particularly care whether you buy a Leaf, a Volt, a PHEV Prius, a Ford EV, or a Corvette. Nor am I particularly bothered by your 'kvetching' on account of not being in one of the
Fair Weather States getting preference in initial deliveries.
However I am pretty interested in how you assess your own situation, as it bears on adoption of EV's nation wide in the long term. Much of the answer seems to depend on how long your normal commute is, how frequent are the cold weather traffic jams, and what your other options are.
Clearly if you have a 70 mile round trip commute with no option of plugging in at work, with your car sitting outside all day in a sub-zero parking lot, then a frozen traffic jam on the way home would be enough to give Carlos a bad case of range anxiety. If you have a 10 mile round trip commute, maybe it doesn't matter that a few days per year you have to use up nearly all of your battery capacity staying warm, and you still make it home with reserve to spare. Maybe the only difference would be that when a winter storm is forecast for the next day you set your car to charge to 100% instead of 80%.
It looks like people have a pretty good idea how many kW the heater draws. Maybe you could figure half that for heated seats with the heater turned down. Maybe half again for heated seats and plug-in electric lap blanket and the heater only doing enough to keep the windows clear? Based on your commute distance, and whether or not you can plug in at work, you should know how many kWh you'll normally use up going to work and how many kWh you'll replenish at work. Factor in whether the car is garaged and pre-heated, or outside and pre-chilled. Then estimate the typical and worst case traffic jams. So many hours stalled in traffic times so many kW to run the heating gives you that many kWh off your remaining capacity.
So can you make it home with kWh's to spare? If not, do you have any options? Myself, I don't like sitting in traffic jams in any weather, and sometimes prefer to stop at a cafe to have a bite to eat and to read, waiting for the traffic to clear. What if there were a Starbucks along your route where you could plug in your car and have some hot coffee while waiting out the worst of the traffic?
Finally, do you have any pre-commute options? Say you know there's a storm coming in the next day and based on your calculations it's too likely that your Leaf won't make the trip. Can you work from home on such (rare?) days? The best foul weather commute is a tele-commute. Do you have an old beat up pickup truck in the garage which you hate to drive, but could do so on the occasional storm day? Could you carpool with your insufferable neighbor in his SUV and take the carpool lanes while listening to him lecture you on why EV's are totally impractical? (Getting your satisfaction back the other 364 days when he burns $4/gallon gas and you don't.)
Bottom line, what does a Leaf look like for you in typical cost to operate, how often you'd expect atypical days and what would be the impact of those days? What does a PHEV Prius or a Volt look like? An Altima? So yeah, although I don't care what car you pick, I am interested in how you make your decision... should you feel like kvetching about it here.
