Turning on the heating has always been a nightmare for electric cars.
In the traditional fuel body, the engine operation generates heat, and this part of the heat will be wasted if it is not used, so the designer slightly changes the direction of the heat dissipation line in the vehicle cooling system, which can provide a steady stream of heat energy for the car in winter.
But... This seemingly simple thing is extremely difficult in the field of electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles don't have engines, don't generate much heat during operation, and even at low temperatures, battery systems need extra heat to help them heat to the most active temperatures. Therefore, the way early electric vehicles produced heat was actually very simple and crude, that is, through PTC technology, the core was the electric heating wire.
Didn't expect that? Such an advanced thing as an electric car, its heating method is essentially no different from the "little sun" of 200 yuan at home. However, the disadvantage of "Little Sun" is that it costs electricity, and the power of more than 2000W makes it a large consumer, but the electricity at home is cheap after all, and it is endless.
However, when placed on electric vehicles, this flaw is further amplified. The capacity of the vehicle battery itself is not large, and then the loss at low temperatures, coupled with the consumption of high power, leads to the winter electric vehicle as soon as the heating air conditioner is opened, and the endurance will "urinate avalanche".
As a result, electric vehicle manufacturers have focused on heat pump air conditioners. In fact, this thing is not a high-tech, the air conditioner at home is the principle of using heat pump + PTC combination when heating. Compared with the inefficient mode of heating wire input 1 watt of electrical energy to produce 1 joule of heat, the heat pump can achieve an efficient mode of input 1 watt of electrical energy to generate 3-4 joules of heat, which is not to break the law of conservation of energy?
Of course not, the heat pump is actually a heat handler, not a production worker, after the power is applied to the core compressor of the heat pump system began to operate, and collected heat from the cold environment outside the car, and carried to the relatively warm environment inside the car.
To obtain the same heat, the heat pump theoretically only needs one-third of the power of PTC heating or even less, so it is favored by electric vehicle designers. On electric vehicles such as Tesla and volkswagen ID series, we also see optional heat pump air conditioning systems.
However, the heat pump air conditioning system is not a panacea, and Tesla riders in Canada have encountered new problems this winter.
Recently, an overseas netizen exposed a Tesla official service announcement shows that from 2020 to 2021, the Model 3 and Model Y equipped with heat pump air conditioners, the three refrigerant pressure/temperature sensors in the heat pump air conditioner will fail over time, so these parts are required to be replaced.
However, according to the owner, even after the Tesla service center re-introduced and replaced the heat pump system, the problem was not completely solved, and the heat pump system still often did not work properly.
Although on the surface it is a quality problem of Tesla's heat pump air conditioner, in fact, this failure is inseparable from the overload operation of the air conditioning system in the extremely cold temperature of winter. Because in the Canadian winter, which is often minus 20 or 30 degrees, the on-board heat pump system becomes a consumable.
In the icy environment, if the heat pump air conditioner is damaged and there is no spare PTC auxiliary heating system, then driving in this situation is like sitting in an ice cellar, and a quilt is really needed to warm the driver.
Therefore, users in extremely cold weather areas should honestly choose traditional fuel vehicles! Don't be easily confused by the technical publicity PPT of automobile manufacturers, after all, any new technology has its limitations.
If you really want to choose an electric car, you must also choose an air conditioning system with heating wire heating, because in the temperature environment below zero, PTC heating, although it consumes electricity, is really more reliable.