Gas on to heat car - does it defeat the purpose

Yeah, a heated front windshield would go a long ways towards reducing the times when you need to run the blower just to keep the fog off. That said, I'm surprised at the lack of perspective from many here - just because the need doesn't fall into your use model doesn't mean it isn't something that would suit others.

Some additional electric heat would have some fairly significant benefits for some of us.

1) it would allow for remote heating of the car while still plugged in. Here in the northern climates that's a lot more useful than remote a/c.

2) Even a small auxiliary heater would do quite a bit to warm things up and would not have that large an impact on the battery life. Running the hvac blower already reduces electric range by 5-10% in cold weather (about 1 mile of range). Some smartly designed radiant heat, in the windshield, and worked into the dashboard could provide a decent amount of heat just by warming the large mass of cold surfaces around you for not much more energy draw, while also effectively keeping your vision clear. Even a 1kW draw used for 30 minutes (hard to drive the PiP on electric for much longer than that) would only consume 0.5kWh from the pack, or about 15% which is in the right ballpark.

The largest benefit to the PiP is in really short trips where I'm now all electric vs. 15-20 mpg in my gas cars. That kind of use is where a PiP pays back - not by getting you 70mpg vs. 55mpg on longer drives, yet Toyota has so far ignored this fact. I can state with certainty that it will be a large consideration when the time comes to replace my PiP in a few years - my next plug-in will need to have better cold weather behavior.

 

Did someone not do their homework before they bought their current PiP?

 

Volt has preheating feature and L1 charger does not provide sufficient power. Owners report needing 15+ mins to preheat and it does not get to satisfactory level when very cold. You really need L2 if you want to preheat. Note that, preheating lowers the MPGe figure since you are using kWh without moving.

I am glad Toyota did not include the preheating feature and kept it simple. However, it would be nice if they include it as an optional feature. Perhaps in the next PiP generation (NS4).

 

I gather people here are playing the 'no ICE' game for short trips with a PiP. While the traction battery may have enough energy for the task, if the 12v is part of the circuit then there is not enough power if ambient temperature is below ~32F or the humidity is high.

I drive a regular Prius and try to avoid using 'defrost' at the start of a trip to save energy while waiting for the ICE to warm up. So long as it is not too cold, I direct cold but dry outside sourced air on to the windshield inside. This works well if I first wipe all snow and ice off the exterior glass. Sometimes it also helps to use the wipers.

The physics of getting rid of fog on the glass are pretty simple: either heat it up, or dry it out

 

I think that even today here at PC the winter behavior of the PiP is varied enough that there is no cut and dry answer to how the winter behavior will be - it completely depends on each personal use case. Even with me not liking how it works in the winter, I am still well above my lifetime mpg estimates I made when crunching numbers pre-purchase, I just can see how much better they could be with a little bit of electric heat.

 

It also would have cost you more off the top. So the money you would save on gas would probably be a wash unless you own the car for quite a while.

 

Perhaps, but there was a lot of tech included in this car that I didn't really 'pay' for at the price I got it for. I'd have been glad to trade the dismal navigation for some electric heat for example.

 

The "Arctic Vortex" is quickly approaching the Northeast- I'm hoping I can even open the PIP's doors tomorrow... . Trust me- at zero deg F that ICE will be running as soon as I get in the car!

 

if i had to commute in zero degree weather, i'd probably be using the ice.

 

Amen!

 

I see what you did there.

 

Speaking of preheating for getting rid of ice on windshield, in Europe one can add something like this:
DEFA / WarmUp
Maybe it can be imported to the US (for L2).

 

At 7F last Saturday, the ICE came on all on its own.

 

didn't even need the fob!

 

Thanks for the link. I bookmarked the site. It should be possible to import items like that from the EU. Fortunately not everyone is blind to the concept of not wanting to run a 100+HP gasoline-powered cabin heater! I know from reading here that there are plenty of people who want to be zero emissions at least for short trips, so it would be nice if the people who don't understand or agree with the idea would just accept it and not snipe at us. We aren't crazy, we just have different priorities from you.

At some point I'm going to test the 200 watt personal heater as an AC preheater, measuring the temp rise achieved in 15 minutes or so. Somebody, Holmes, I think, makes another personal type heater that may be even better for the job, as it has 1500 watts available for house current preheating, and a 375 watt setting that should work with an inverter. I've also figured out an easy way to avoid having to wire the inverter in, although there is a weight penalty: keep a deep cycle battery in a marine battery box on the rear passenger floor, with power ports mounted in the lid. (I already have one of these for short power outages.) The inverter could run from that, and a low amperage car to car accessory port "jumpstarter" could recharge the second battery when not in use. With two ports you would never need to bother with plugging in or unplugging the components at the box.

EDIT: The power port connections on a battery box could run the 200 watt heater ok, assuming good quality marine plugs and ports, but I'd suggest the inverter be connected to the battery with regular battery terminals (possibly with a high amperage quick disconnect plug) if you wanted to run a higher wattage heater like the 375 watt unit I mentioned.

 

Did my 15 mins (10 miles) commute this morning in 7 deg F temp. Got 66 MPG with 7 EV miles left for the drive back home. I hope I can use all of it.

I set the cabin temp at 70-72 deg F.

 

It makes sense if majority of your year round is that cold and windows fog up. I can see the benefit, especially if your car has no gas engine.

For me, I may just need it about a month and lug the dead weight for the other 11 months.

If I weight the cost ($ and efficiency opportunity), using gas for cabin heat makes more sense for me.

One of the fundamental idea of HSD is to assign hardware as many roles as possible. For example, MG1 is a starter, generator and even drives the wheel in the overdrive mode. From that perspective, keeping the hardware to minimal makes sense.

 

Ah, the Ford one is nothing like as visible - just fine lines in the windshield. Having looked some more, it first came out in 1985, so the original idea, at least, must be out of patent protection - and, depending on country, lots of other manufacturers do now seem to have them, though I'm only aware of Ford in the UK. Really would be an obvious solution for the PiP.

 

I agree that an electric heater only makes sense for a very select few, and extremely narrow range (in miles) drive.

Less than 3 mile commute? Just use seat warmers and bundle up since you aren't going to get the car up to temp in that short of time anyway.

More than 7 mile commute? You will need the ICE at some point anyway (unless you charge at work).

So it seems to me like the only people where an electric heater would be handy for would be people with commutes between 3-7 miles (with some obvious exceptions). These people would also need to live in a pretty cold climate as well (pretty dang cold for 3+ months out of the year).

Just my opinion, so it's not worth much.

 

The big one for me is needing some way to defrost the windshield without having to run the ice. You typically need that capability to travel any distance. I don't really care about additional heat for short trips.