Pre-Heating While Charging

[Anonymous]

Guess I could check the manual which IMO is unreadable for the most part. No wonder folks are hesitant to by electric, manufacturers make the whole thing so complicated when it's not as we all know now. So its pretty cold hear in the Northeast. NOT plugged in, the interior warmed up pretty nicely in 5 min using about 3% of battery with the engine in READY. Thought if plugged in you could avoid battery usage by pre-warmimg. Had it plugged in to Level 1, in the second key position and the car blew cold air the whole time never getting warm. Any suggestions or what I'm doing wrong?

 

[bcurious]

Guess I could check the manual which IMO is unreadable for the most part. No wonder folks are hesitant to by electric, manufacturers make the whole thing so complicated when it's not as we all know now. So its pretty cold hear in the Northeast. NOT plugged in, the interior warmed up pretty nicely in 5 min using about 3% of battery with the engine in READY. Thought if plugged in you could avoid battery usage by pre-warmimg. Had it plugged in to Level 1, in the second key position and the car blew cold air the whole time never getting warm. Any suggestions or what I'm doing wrong?

The pre-departure climate control activation will not change your climate control settings to the ones that you need to warm the car. You must set the climate control, with the car switched on, to the settings that you would imagine needing if you jumped in and switched on the car and climate control a few minutes before departing. For whatever reason, I find that the "Max Defrost" setting seems to deliver the earliest heat of all settings I've tried from a cold start. The manual and online instructions seem to indicate that you must at least leave the climate control on the "auto"matic setting with a sufficiently high temperature selected (72F is their recommendation, I believe) that heat would be requested by the system.

I suspect that the heating system draws more current than your level 1 EVSE supplies, so you lose some energy from the battery during the warming cycle despite being plugged in. I have not had enough experience yet with our vehicle plugged into the level 2 EVSE to have an opinion about losing battery energy during such an operation, although I have monitored a Chargepoint session and noticed that the power draw grows during the warming. A 6.6kW-capable connection was drawing about 3kW while warming - clearly something that your level 1 EVSE won't muster. I think that leaving the system on Max Defrost before you switch it off and await your next departure will solve your immediate issue with the blowing only of cold air, and that a 240v EVSE capable of 3kW will alleviate any loss of stored battery energy while warming before departure.

 

[Anonymous]

THANKS BC... I'll give that a try!
Have read before about the limitations on 110V but had forgot. Also did see in the Settings menu about the Pre-Climate. Now I know a bit more about it.

 

[wtzouris]

So is leaving the climate control in Zone OK for pre-conditioning? I like your idea of Max Defrost I find that the heated windshield really gives off heat I just wish I could have footwell heat and a separate switch for windshield heating.