Best practice heating

[steveinleith]

Hi All

As a new ID3 owner and with the recent drop in temperatures, I'm looking for tips on the most efficient use of the car heating please? The heating system seems to really drain the battery when switched on from cold.

Thanks for your help
Stephen

[Deleted User 314]

I regularly used to pre-heat the car before a journey, made a MASSIVE difference!

[steveinleith]

Thanks. Unfortunately we don't have a charger at the house (on street parking only).

The thing that would help is if the air could be set to 'blow through' /a flow of (unheated) outside air. I've not been able to get beyond on or off.

[OllyExeterID3]

I regularly used to pre-heat the car before a journey, made a MASSIVE difference!

Agree with Anduain - as an example, headed from Exeter on to Dartmoor yesterday, was hovering around zero degrees first thing. Preheated the car for around about 30 minutes before driving - then turned AC off and just had blowers on windscreen to demist. Works really well, mileage dropped a bit but a 50 mile round trip 'used' 65 miles of range - which at that temperature doesn't feel too bad! I should check the mi/kWh usage really - it has been hovering around 3.8 for short journeys.

I was always told (not sure if this is right) with our previous car (BMW i3) that the heated seats drew energy from the auxiliary 12v battery rather than the high voltage battery so we used them a lot in that car rather than heating the cabin. It certainly seemed to have zero impact on range to keep them on. Not sure what the case is with the I.D3?

***In light of your new post, I would still say preheating is a good bet. We only had on-street parking for the two years of our previous EV and I am confident we still saved range by preheating - it benefitted the battery even if we lost 2-3% in the process***

[steveinleith]

Thanks. I'm new to this, so didn't realise the car could pre-heat from the battery. I'll give it a go.

[Deleted User 314]

Where you have your car on the road, is it practical to use a "granny charger" to pre-heat the cabin?

[Daveion]

I have been doing that lately from a granny.
I have only done it when the batteries have reached the desired charge though. The range does not drop suggesting that the granny can support the heater load without drawing from the batteries. Other threads have suggested the heating system draws up to 5kW and that would be beyond the granny capacity but that is not my experience so far.
Hope that makes sense.
Dave

[steveinleith]

Thanks. Will give the granny charger a go too.

[CarterHounslow]

Preheating from battery doesn't make any sense from a battery saving perspective. The car will need to get the temperature whether it's standing stationary or if it's being driven along. It will arguably be more efficient to wait until you are in the car for two reasons.

1. You are in the car providing heat too.
2. The car is turned on for a shorter amount of time.

If it heats the battery too that's a different story, but I don't think it does.

A great feature would be to display battery temperature in my opinion, as you would then know if charging would be faster as Public chargers too.

[OllyExeterID3]

Preheating from battery doesn't make any sense from a battery saving perspective. The car will need to get the temperature whether it's standing stationary or if it's being driven along. It will arguably be more efficient to wait until you are in the car for two reasons.

1. You are in the car providing heat too.
2. The car is turned on for a shorter amount of time.

If it heats the battery too that's a different story, but I don't think it does.

A great feature would be to display battery temperature in my opinion, as you would then know if charging would be faster as Public chargers too.

As I understand it, it does 'pre-condition' the battery (or at least it did in my previous EV - https://insideevs.com/news/325863/bmw-i ... ing-works/), optimising efficiency. This means that the overall temperature of the car (and inside the cells) reaches optimum prior to driving, meaning that the battery is more efficient and drives better.

[OllyExeterID3]

Ah - I have just understood what you mean - in which case I stand corrected as it does only appear to pre-condition when plugged in!

[Daveion]

Ah - I have just understood what you mean - in which case I stand corrected as it does only appear to pre-condition when plugged in!

I thought the standing AC would function without being plugged in providing the battery had a reasonable charge level. What that level is Im not sure. This morning I tried the standing AC on 57% bat capacity unplugged 22C and left the car to de-ice.
10 mins later returned and found the car was still iced up. The fan was running but no heating at all?
Cleared the screen with a scaper and set off. Heating was immediate once the car was on/drive available.
The reason I did it this way is because I cannot get the AC to start via the app. Setting it to start once unlocked makes no difference plugged in or unplugged. The app hangs and eventually reports a connection error. On my car this has been the same situation both pre and post 2.1.
We have another early frosty start tomorrow so will try again but plugged in.
Any advice on setting the AC to start from the app would be much appreciated.

[CarterHounslow]

Ah - I have just understood what you mean - in which case I stand corrected as it does only appear to pre-condition when plugged in!

I thought the standing AC would function without being plugged in providing the battery had a reasonable charge level. What that level is Im not sure. This morning I tried the standing AC on 57% bat capacity unplugged 22C and left the car to de-ice.
10 mins later returned and found the car was still iced up. The fan was running but no heating at all?
Cleared the screen with a scaper and set off. Heating was immediate once the car was on/drive available.
The reason I did it this way is because I cannot get the AC to start via the app. Setting it to start once unlocked makes no difference plugged in or unplugged. The app hangs and eventually reports a connection error. On my car this has been the same situation both pre and post 2.1.
We have another early frosty start tomorrow so will try again but plugged in.
Any advice on setting the AC to start from the app would be much appreciated.

It definitely does function when standing, it's a separate thing we're discussing about whether or not it's more efficient (definitely is when plugged in, I would say it isn't if it's not plugged in)

However in your case it definitely works via the app as I did it this morning, I just pressed start on the homepage as mine is set to 20.5 degrees. Are you getting no heat at all? Or is it the windows not defrosting?

In the app, go to the vehicle tab, settings, in there is automatic window heating, which will kick on the window and mirror heaters if you turn on the air conditioning.

I did have the app hang once when synchronising the car, but only once so far.

[Daveion]

"In the app, go to the vehicle tab, settings, in there is automatic window heating, which will kick on the window and mirror heaters if you turn on the air conditioning.

I did have the app hang once when synchronising the car, but only once so far."

So I checked the app and the window heating option was off. I thought this option only applied to models with Heat Pumps?
That said if my normal setting includes the screen I would have thought air would be directed there.

This morning all I had was the fan, nothing else.
My app has hung a lot more since 2.1. I deleted it and reinstalled and there was an improvement. I need try the app now I have set the windiw heating to ON.

Thanks for your help.
Dave

[CarterHounslow]

"In the app, go to the vehicle tab, settings, in there is automatic window heating, which will kick on the window and mirror heaters if you turn on the air conditioning.

I did have the app hang once when synchronising the car, but only once so far."

So I checked the app and the window heating option was off. I thought this option only applied to models with Heat Pumps?
That said if my normal setting includes the screen I would have thought air would be directed there.

This morning all I had was the fan, nothing else.
My app has hung a lot more since 2.1. I deleted it and reinstalled and there was an improvement. I need try the app now I have set the windiw heating to ON.

Thanks for your help.
Dave

No problem, if you were getting heat in the car generally but the windows were frosted, I can only presume this was the issue.

[Daveion]

There was no heat at all. The temperature in the car was 4C. The fan was running but just distributing ice cold air.
I have tried a number of different things with set ups on and off all day and I had 2 consistent outcomes.
1, the app hangs followed by the message Error, not possible to connect to the car try later.
2, in the car the fan starts then stops after around 30 seconds.
To be clear this is the AC setting in stationary non drive mode. When drive is enabled and I drive off the AC is perfect. All heater controls work 100%.
Its a bit frustrating but will live with it like this until it next needs to go into the dealership.