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Cold-weather range hits aren’t as bad for EVs with heat pumps (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 70 points 2 years ago (13 children)

Actually, I'm surprised they weren't using them long before. It's basically AC with an extra valve. Thought they get priced like they're some sort of new technology.

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  • [–] 43 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    There was never really a need in ICE vehicles since they can primarily use waste heat from the engine.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Vapor injection is the new technology. It's why older heat pumps were useless below 32f.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    Vapor injection becomes an excuse to downsize the compressor and lowers the cost, it seems. You could easily go lower than 32 if you oversized the pump before EVI, but those were only in specific heatpumps.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I suspect the reason for that was that the pumps used in car ACs are not really very powerful. They were alright for cooling the car down, but for heating heat up in a cold environment you need a fair amount of throughput, they work if you have the throughput, but you need it to be there.

    They work by pulling ambient heat out a large part of the outside and dumping it into the small inside. You need many times the contents of the interior to warm up if it's a cold day outside. Thus you need a lot of air and if you want it to happen in a reasonable time frame you need quite a powerful little motor. The ones on houses are fine because they're huge anyway.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    It uses the same amount of energy to create cold as it does to create heat.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    They also need to be able to get the cold side colder than the outside air so once it gets too cold they don’t really work. There can also be some problems with condensation but when they do work they’re great.

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