Gasolene heater

What's your point? The PiP is going to use waste heat from the ICE, to heat the cabin, they have zero intention of trying to heat the cabin from the battery pack.

Once again, the PiP is NOT an EV, it's a hybrid, and as such will be using gasoline when it best for the situation, such as cabin heat and defrost. If you want a pure EV, you can always buy a Leaf, whose winter range is reduced by %25-%35 in winter using heat/defrost.

 

I drove VW diesels for years, the Prius is like a heatwave inside the car. I'm sure the PIP will be the same.

 

You could always use the gasoline heater from a salvage 1960 Corvair

Detectable heat in 15 seconds, full blast at about 40 seconds. Just be sure to maintain the spark plug.

 

The point is that a 15 mile EV range can cover some people's commute. It will cover even people's trips to the local store. If the Prius PHV does have a pure EV mode, those people don't want the ICE turning over just for heat.

I think some people will be disappointed with the plug-in. They're hoping for an EV experience, but won't be getting it. While far, far more capable, the EV mode is like the one on the gen2. The car will turn it off under certain circumstances.

 

Yep, my brother had a green 1960 Corvair 500 4 door, and when he'd turn the heater on, it sounded like a rocket taking off.

 

The PiP comes w/standard heated seats as it's more efficient to heat the seats than the cabin.

Some Leaf owners use 12V Heater w/ Fan. See My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Heater/Cabin Temp Management Suggestions and Observations for more details.

 

In the winter, in a PiP, if you want heat, the engine is going to run, as it does in the non PiP. There's just no way around it... You can "tough" it out and use no heat (bundle up), or see if the heated seats/steering will will get you to your short destination... Once again, the PiP was never designed to be an EV, under all operating conditions, and it doesn't have to, it has a gasoline engine that's far better for certain things, heat being one of them.

Like I said, if you want an EV expereince, buy a Leaf. You will be sadly disappointed with the winter EV range on that as well, as using the heat in the Leaf can reduce your range by nearly 1/3 as well. TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)

 

I have wondered about gasoline powered heaters over on the Leaf forum as well. My understanding is that gasoline (and other fossil fuel powered heaters) are very efficient in turning the energy in gasoline to heat, vs a ICE which is maybe 30%-ish efficient. For a EV car, or even the plug-in Prius, to me it would make sense to be able to select a gasoline powered heater so that your battery can completely be used to drive the car as far as possible, and if one HAS to heat the car, do it as efficiently as possible with a gasoline powered heater.

 

"Webasto" does have heaters that run on gasoline, mainly designed to keep an ICE water jacket warm for starting in very cold tempatures, also heats the interior.. These run without the ICE on, you just need a water jacket in the heating circuit to get one to work.

Compact / middle-range cars

 

Where would you mount the gasoline heater?

 

We have a Webasto diesel fired heater on our boat. They make great heaters. Ours is big enough to heat a small house.

Tom

 

Under the hood, needs access to the water jacket loop, gasoline, and power, it also has a controller that runs it, and the vehicle heater fan, etc

 

Sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

 

Obvious? What distance? With my commute, firing up the engine for initial vehicle heating will work fine. Save the EV for once everything is warmed up. Of course, HV will result in quite a bit higher MPG even in the coldest of conditions.
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Who will still be expecting an EV experience? Word is getting out about the reduction of range caused by heater use. Don't you think the misconception will be fairly well dealt with by next winter?
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In January of 2004, when I got my Prius, in Fargo, North Dakota, I was disappointed with the heat. The car was just starting to put out good heat about the time I arrived at the end of my 3-mile, ten-minute commute. I had to dress very warm. And because I had the heater on, my gas mileage was poor.

But the mileage was still better than any other car, and I was willing to sacrifice some comfort for efficiency.

A PiP in such circumstances would probably be no better than a non-plug Prius. That's a far cry from calling it a miserable experience. And if you have a longer commute, say, 10 or 15 miles, the ICE would warm the car after about 5 miles, and then you could run EV for a while before having to run the ICE again for heat.

It would have been nice if they'd given the PiP the ability to heat the cabin and the ICE from grid power while plugged in. If I could have pre-heated my Prius to a toasty 75 degrees before starting out on my commute in Fargo, I'd have arrived at my destination before needing any more heat. And if the ICE had been pre-heated it would have saved some gas.

FWIW, I get heat, and lots of it, in less than a minute in my EV. It's just a matter of having a large enough battery pack that you can "afford" to "spend" some of your range on heat. You wouldn't buy a 40-mile EV (like my Xebra) if you have to drive 50 miles. Don't buy a Leaf if you have to drive 125 miles in summer, or 90 miles in very cold weather. The PiP is not an EV. It's a plug-in hybrid. So it has a gas engine for heat and high power demand situations. In winter driving, after the initial warm-up, if your drive is long enough, it will probably end up blending gas and electric so that you get heat and the benefit of grid power even if the ICE doesn't shut down.

Bottom line: If you are unsure, wait a year. There will be plenty of real-world experience to draw on to decide if the PiP is right for your situation.

 

There were quite a few folks that used these in Fairbanks to pre-heat aircooled aircraft engines:

http://www.aerothermheaters.com/product_desc.php?id=5

And this is a handy cellular activated gadget to turn on heater remotely:

http://www.aerothermheaters.com/product_desc.php?id=6


And this is one example of a heated clothing selection; others strictly for motorcyclists are out there:


http://cozywinters.com/battery-heated-clothing.html

 

There are still rampant misconceptions about the conventional prius, it will take a long time for all the misconceptions about PiP or PHEVs generally to work out.

When I started telling my friends I bought a plug in and was super excited about it, several of them commented that they thought I had been pluggin in the prius all along.

Then months later, some of them still were asking me what I have to do when the electric range runs out, assuming I get stranded after 35 miles.

I doubt any early adopters are going to have many misconceptions when they take delivery. They tend to do their home work and be very informed, and current prius drivers in general are better informed than the bulk of the public on these technologies, but that doesn't mean most people will "get it" any time soon.

 

Those misconceptions thrived due to the internet not being ubiquitous back when it emerged into the market and not having a basis of comparison available. Neither of which is the case for the rollout of PiP.
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When I first got my Prius, people asked if I had to plug it in. By the time I got the Xebra, people knew about hybrids and I was always being asked if it had a gasoline engine. I ended up having lettering applied to the back of the car, saying "ALL ELECTRIC ALL THE TIME." A few people still asked if it had a gas engine. People don't pay attention. Or they don't process the information available to them.

Off topic, but related to people's inability to process unexpected information, I once had a t-shirt that said "NUKE A GODLESS COMMUNIST GAY BABY SEAL FOR CHRIST." I was wearing it, sitting on a park bench, and an elderly couple came by, stopped, stared for a long minute, and finally the woman said, in her sweet little-old-lady voice, "Oh. You love the lord. That's nice." I never wore the t-shirt again. I donated it to a clothing drive for Nicaragua.

I'd have loved to get my hands on heated gloves and boot linters when I lived in North Dakota. I wonder, though, how much heat you get, and for how long.