Chevy Volt defrost?

[Gunbuster]

Why no mention of automated defrost? Chevy is coming up on a billion in dev costs and no mention of a $5 ecu feature to set an alarm and have the thing warm up on cold mornings...

It is plugged in after all.

 

[Fenixgoon]

people obviously care so much about engine block heaters above all else......

 

[herm0016]

what... ? i have never seen a car with this feature. maybe they should have remote start to warm up the car, then the engine can kick back off when its warm.

 

[StageLeft]

This aside, the volt is going to have issues in the cold. When batteries get cold they really suck. I know it causes a loss of performance in hybrids, but apparently not a huge one. A 100% battery initial-distance, though, is going to suffer substantially. I know that at least one battery powered glider pre-warms the batteries. If you have one of these cars that's sitting in the cold at 15F I would be surprised if its 40 mile distance is even 20.

On top of this, there's the fact that in cold temps one needs a heater. A regular car uses wasted engine heat. I don't know the BTU of a cabin heater, but a google search shows 14-20,000 BTU are what air conditioners use in a normal car. My guess is the heater has to be more, but let's say 20k BTU. That's 8 horsepower being pulled away from already-cold batteries. I think the initial charge of this car when it's really cold will have extremely poor performance, so it's going to kick to the gas motor very quickly.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Very interesting points here...

 

[MovingTarget]

Meh.... living in the South I've never seen a car even offered with an engine block heater. However, for all you up North, I hardly think that this has been overlooked. GM has already been getting regular beatings from Cpt. Obvious the past few years. It is a simple enough system to design and would probably be able to heat up both the batteries and engine block simultaneously when plugged in. If this is overlooked, I imagine hoards of early-adopter Yankees converging on Detroit for a good ol' tar and feather show.

 

[MikeMike]

yup, im sure they havent thought of or done experiments on any of those things you mentioned skoorb, i mean michigan is sooo warm right now, and the engineers there are dimwits and no way in hell could have thought that up.

 

[sdifox]

me think the car would have battery warmers built in. They have to expect people parking it outside, and since it is plugged in, power drain is not an issue.

 

[Bignate603]

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE
yup, im sure they havent thought of or done experiments on any of those things you mentioned skoorb, i mean michigan is sooo warm right now, and the engineers there are dimwits and no way in hell could have thought that up.

There's a reason why they aren't using lead acid batteries too. Choosing the right battery can have a huge effect in its cold weather performance.

Normal cars use lead acid batteries because they are dirt cheap and they're good enough. When they become the primary power source the concerns shift so you pick a different kind of battery.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://gm-volt.com/2008/08/27/...rts-and-use-of-onstar/

The current hybrids also suffer on mileage in cold temps due to having to run their engines a lot more.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://gm-volt.com/2008/08/20/...d-performance-is-good/

 

[RU482]

With respect to that, he describes an interesting scenario where its 40 below in North Dakota and the battery needs to be warmed in order to function properly. He notes this would be a big challenge for a pure EV, but in the Volt the car would start out with the combustion engine on and ?run for a few minutes to warm up the battery so that the battery can take over.?

http://gm-volt.com/2008/08/27/...rts-and-use-of-onstar/

 

[Gunbuster]

To be clear I could give a rats ass about the batteries. I want the ice off my windows and the cabin warm in the winter mornings.

Being able to have it crank up the ac would be nice too. It has onstar right? activate this junk via phone?

 

[LTC8K6]

It will probably have remote start and auto climate control, which would take care of everything.

My new Jeep has both and it's apparently smart enough to turn on both the front and rear defrosters by itself when I remote start it in cold weather.

Since turning on the rear electric defroster also defrosts the side mirrors, this is pretty handy...

 

[StageLeft]

Thanks for the GM links!

 

[thomsbrain]

In addition to having a block heater and a battery heater when plugged in, they should have a climate control button on the key fob that you can use to bring to the cabin to the right temp while it is still plugged in. Kind of like remote start, but without actually starting the gas engine.

I like Gunbuster's phone activation idea, too. That would be useful when you're out of range of the fob.

 

[SparkyJJO]

And let me guess, you guys want all these billions of features yet would complain that it costs more

 

[boomerang]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
And let me guess, you guys want all these billions of features yet would complain that it costs more

Most are complaining now.

They're all moot points anyway, the chances of this car ever getting into production are slim and getting slimmer.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, if the car has auto climate control, it already brings the car to your selected temp when you remote start it...but I think it should also provide hot cocoa or a cold drink as appropriate for the weather...