Heating tip while Winter Driving on the Highway

A few days back in the Facebook group for Canadian Kia Soul EV owners (https://www.facebook.com/groups/783719698403049/) a topic of winter driving tips came up and a video was made regarding it.

*Credit to Dan for the tip.

https://youtu.be/WhcRgSlEBWI.
))UPDATE(( Here's Night 2 of the test to see which method of winter driving is better. Interesting results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOE9kiri-Ns

I have been playing a lot with the vents switch trying to keep it closed as much as possible, just as suggested. I found that regardless of what combination I tried, the moisture would build up quickly and windows fog up. Ottawa is much colder. After 10 min I would actually get ice build up on the inside with vents closed and climate off. So really it is not practical.

The problem with on/off method is that the sensor find colder temp and high RH so kicks heater and AC into high mode trying to keep up so in the end uses about the same energy as simply leaving it steady on.

Vents are indeed the problem as any heated air is quickly lost, yet there is no option as you have to keep removing moisture.

I also found increased resistance causing motor to pull more power at -20. I am heaving heater problems so happened to drive this morning at -20 with only AC to keep windows clear. Clearly I drove faster, 110 on highway which is normal here. I arrived to work having spent halt batter (50%) for 52km trip!!!!! That is AC only, no heat.

So around freezing point I found steady always on climate is reasonably efficient. However once you go down to -20 range ... ouch. I have to top up at work even to consider using anything besides windows defrost.

I came to the conclusion that there is no point in messing around with controls too much. Leave the vents open - no choice there. Then simply set your setting to whatever you can afford and turn on either at the start or end of a trip.

perhaps, the solution is on this diagram ... :mrgreen:

If you look on the EV screen it gives you range with and without climate control. The difference even at -20C is usually only 6 or 7 km. When you first turn on the heat, particularly if it is on defogger (manually selected or automatic) then it can hit 5kW, but it soon drops to around 1kW. Now 1kW isn't going to make much difference to the range compared to what the motor draws.

Biggest tip is to keep the speed down, I try to keep to 105kph max on the 417, but I still see the Guessometer reading around 100km for a full charge.

Very good observations Fred

Yesterday with AC alone (no heat) speeding on highway between 100 and 120 at -20C I got about 23 kWh/100km, arrived to office at 51%
Today warmer around -7, no HVAC at all, not even AC, moderate speeds up to 110, around 17 kWh/100km, arrived at 63%

I could observe the motor pulling a lot more power while driving and since resistance heater was off both times, it not a factor.
Indeed I am seeing increased resistance especially at high speed when it goes below -10. It seems to amplify the power use at higher speeds, so the difference between moderate and high speed driving is even greater than during summer.

Regarding the closed vents, by far it is the best method of keeping heat and using less power on heating when possible.
Today storm is coming causing RH to shoot up to 65% right now.
So I managed to drive full hour trip with closed vents, no fogging.

Compared to yesterday when the typical cold day RH is around 20%-30% range then fogging occurs very quickly, 5-10min
The problem is that the coldest days have lowest RH, which is when you need the heat the most, so having to open vents is a real pain.

It would be interesting to see how keeping the vents closed affects the battery pack temperature. Remember that the cabin air is what is vented through the battery pack to either cool or heat it. A cold battery is not as efficient as a warm one.

Well considering that even easy driving will pull between 0.5C and 1.5C from the battery I would say that the battery itself will generate plenty of heat to stay fairly warm. So far I am finding far bigger issues. I just inflated front tires from 30/33 PSI to 37 PSI and this morning commute used about 2 kWh less (52 km trip) :O