Things Are Heating Up in Here
Image 1: Two people driving in cold weather
In Warming Up to Face the Cold, there was discussion on ways to responsibly warm up your car in the winter. What is another upside to warming up your car? In the winter time, it’s using your heater sooner to stay warm! But how does this work? Let’s take a look to see what’s going on exactly.
Figure 1: Cooling system in an internal combustion engine (ICE)
As you can see, cars with ICE power plants have heater cores that direct warm air to the cabin. This is where the heater in your car gets the warm air and is also why it takes a while for the heater to start working if your car has an ICE. Thus, it’s better to wait just a little bit for the heater to start working before driving off to wherever you need to go. You can read more about this in the “Quenching the Heat” subsection in Unifunful’s Old School Heart with New School Brains.
This article from Edmunds lists the different types of heaters used in electric vehicles (EVs). While different, they use electricity rather than engine heat to warm up the car’s interior. Since it uses electricity, the downside is that it might lower your driving range. This is why it’s always best to make sure your EV is fully charged or is charged as much as possible when driving in the winter.
Image 2: Porsche Taycan, Porsche’s EV sports sedan which uses electricity from its battery to power everything in the car (Image Courtesy of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG).
So, while heaters are a huge plus during the winter time, you should be aware of how they work in your car and how they can affect your car’s overall performance.
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