Have you ever wondered how your EV’s HVAC system works? Conventional vehicles use the engine’s heat to heat up your cabin during the cold months of the year. But how do EVs manage this same task efficiently?
Gasoline-powered cars also use a belt-driven compressor for the AC, which is powered by the vehicle’s engine. The question is, how do EVs manage their AC system without an engine?
How Does the Air Conditioning Work in an Electric Car?
In normal vehicles, the compressor is one of the most important parts of an air conditioning system. The great thing about the compressor in conventional gas-powered vehicles is that the engine generates the power needed to spin the compressor’s pulley. This is done through an engine-driven belt that ultimately spins the compressor.
Obviously, electric vehicles don’t have an engine that can be used to power the air conditioning system’s compressor, so what needs to happen for the compressor to work?
Well, the answer is pretty straightforward if you consider the power source for an electric vehicle. In electric vehicles, pretty much everything revolves around the battery, which is exactly how an EV’s compressor works. EV compressors are powered by an electric motor with power from the battery.
The small electric motor engages the compressor, just like the engine’s power would normally do in a conventional automobile. Once this process is underway, the actual functioning of the air conditioning system is similar to what occurs in a regular car. Electric vehicle air conditioning systems also feature an evaporator, and a condenser, just like in any typical car.
The only downside when using an EV’s air conditioning system is that you need to be mindful that you’re using battery power, which will affect the vehicle’s total range.
How Does the Heater Work in an EV?
Depending on the electric vehicle, the cabin’s heating method can vary. When considering an electric car versus a conventional internal combustion vehicle, EVs are more efficient. When you want to move in an electric vehicle, the electricity from the battery will be mostly converted into mechanical energy, ensuring that the process is very efficient. But, with an ICE car, a lot of the energy from the gasoline doesn’t help move the car; it’s wasted as heat.
This is definitely a bad thing, but in terms of helping heat your vehicle’s cabin during the winter months, it’s not such a bad problem. In essence, a gasoline engine’s inefficiency actually helps keep your cabin livable in cold climates without wasting much additional energy. In the case of electric vehicles, heating your cabin requires extra energy. This is why if you’re trying to increase your EV’s range, driving in frigid weather is not the best idea.
In some EVs, the cabin is heated using resistors powered directly by the battery’s electricity, which is a problem because the EV range is directly impacted when you’re using your battery’s electricity to heat your cabin. This becomes a problem when driving in super cold temperatures, and your range is quickly diminishing, but you still need to keep blasting the heat. If the nearest charging station is a ways off, the entire situation can get a bit scary. No wonder some folks suffer from range anxiety!
The battery of an EV also performs less efficiently in freezing weather, which is another recipe for decreased range. Heat pumps are actually a more efficient method to heat your electric vehicle’s cabin, as they don’t employ resistors to heat the EV interior.
How Do Heat Pumps Help Keep Your EV Warm?
Heat pumps are very efficient contraptions that can be used to heat your vehicle’s interior. Tesla has begun implementing this technology across their entire lineup of vehicles. One of the main reasons is that during the winter months, many EVs suffer from loss of range. Heating a resistor to get the cabin warm uses energy directly from the battery, so the more heat you need, the more depletion the battery will face. This is obviously a dilemma that needs to be addressed.
The heat pump is a great solution because it works like a conventional air conditioning system. Heat pumps even have components that will sound very familiar, such as a compressor, an evaporator, and a condenser. These elements work in unison to provide heat for electric cars during winter. The heat pump is a super ingenious device that basically reverses the end product of your typical air conditioning loop, delivering heat instead of cold air.
The heat pump is more efficient than resistors for heating. The trick is that instead of using battery energy exclusively to heat up the cabin, the heat pump uses outside air to transfer energy to the refrigerant in the evaporator. This refrigerant, which begins to boil due to its very low boiling point, turns into a gas and travels to the compressor. The refrigerant passes through the compressor, resulting in a higher-pressure gas at a higher temperature.
This hot gas travels to the condenser, where air is blown across it, transferring the heat to the vehicle’s cabin. This process cools the refrigerant, which becomes a liquid once again. The process repeats many times and is much more efficient than using resistive elements to heat the vehicle, mostly because you’re introducing energy from an exterior environment. If the outside air is sufficiently cold, there will eventually be a point when the heat pump won’t work as effectively. While this is true for extreme cases, the heat pump will work absolutely fine in most winters.
Heat Pumps Are the Best Way to Heat Your EV
There are different ways to heat your vehicle during the winter, but heat pumps are the best solution at the moment. Whenever you’re shopping for your next EV, make sure to ask if the vehicle is equipped with one.
