Featured 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning to Includes Vapour-Injected Heat Pump on All Models

Tesla is using the equivalent of ground source vs air source for their heat pump. Heat pumps work by moving heat around; it's in the name. Cooling is moving excess heat out of the space. Pretty straight forward. Heating becomes trickier as the heat needed to move into the space likely isn't abundant outside when you want to warm things up.

When getting that heat from the air, there will be a point when there simply isn't enough heat there for the heat pump to collect, and the system stops working. Ground source means getting heat from under ground, where the temperature level is at a constant level. Can't do that in a car, so Tesla(I think others might do this too) goes to places on the car where excess heat can be available when the air is too cold.

Vapor injected heat pumps can work at heating at even lower air temps than a standard model. They could be used in a ground source system. There just isn't any benefit to do so.

How much would it have cost to do that a few years ago?

Air conditioning in cars has been standard for decades. Millions of units are made, and production has been optimized. The first EV using a heat pump might have come out a decade ago, and for a low production model. It takes time for production levels to increase. Tesla surely knew of the advantages of using a heat pump, but they used resistance heating for some time. Either because the cost was too high for them, or supply couldn't meet their demand. It has changed for them and others. i just can't say when heat pump production will be like AC production.

Aside, cabin heating doesn't have a big impact of official tests. The EPA cold temp cycle is only used in part to determine to adjustment factor for the window sticker, and car companies can choose to skip it.

 

I wonder how much GM paid for the heat pump in the EV1. Would've come in handy now. It's in the lower left corner.

 

did they destroy the plans with the cars?

 

I'm sure all the info on the car is sitting in their archives. I believe around 40 were saved from the crusher, so they should have at least one in their collection. I know they still have the 1966 Electrovair and the fuel cell van they made.

 

i wonder if they are planning one for the ultium series

 

The Ultium series vehicles have heat pumps.

 

is there a link to that effect somewhere?
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When I was at the Chevy dealer, I asked the parts guy, who looked it up in the parts catalog. From the illustration, it's the A/C compressor and it looks pretty big, probably doing a reverse cycle type of thing.