passenger seat heater

I have purchased an aftermarket seat heater for the passenger in my iMiev. It plugs into the cigarette lighter. Does that pull only from the 12V battery or from the main propulsion battery? How does the 12V battery get recharged? Is it possible to drain it too quickly with an infrared seat heater set on low?

blake
oakville, ontario

I guess it is the same like Karin's pants warmer, 12V 50 Watts, that is some 4A and it comes from the 12V battery not the HV. Ours is dead when charging except when I put the key in and at least switch to ACC.

As far as I can see our 2010 i-MiEV does not charge the 12V. That is why I have got us a 12V charger, 4/6 A that is 6A eff or seen by Murphy and 4A arith(metically) for the heater actually. Our 12V battery gets only charged when the dashboard says "ready" and when charging it never gets ready. That may be different for later i-MiEVs.

The i-MiEV has got an extremly tiny 12V battery. We do not need it to start an engine after all. That is why it is good to have a means to charge it, just in case. We do not need a big jumper cable but the thin plug and cable from cigarette liter to cigarette liter will do nicely for us. It is more fool proof the the jumper cable too.

Temps were down to -9C (15.8 F) yesterday morning. I'm looking at getting a passenger seat heater cushion also, Canadian tire is having a 40% off sale on these this weekend.
Where and what kind did you get?

There is a DC to DC convertor on board that keeps the 12v battery charged. You'd have to do the math for the seat cushion to see if you are in danger of overloading your battery, but I'm thinking you'll be fine. These infrared heated products use very little amps to operate. They are quite popular with the motorcycle set because motorcycles don't put out much amps with their tiny alternators. I have a heated jacket liner I used when I rode and it kept me very warm and didn't overload my charging system on the motorcycle.

How's your wife's commute going? Did you figure out the remote preheat functions? I was thinking of another tip for you - I mostly use the 'defrost' precondition option on the remote as I find it works better than the HEAT option.

Plus 1 on the Defrost preheat option

oakvilleblake said:

I have purchased an aftermarket seat heater for the passenger in my iMiev. It plugs into the cigarette lighter. Does that pull only from the 12V battery or from the main propulsion battery? How does the 12V battery get recharged?

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Yes, in effect every single watt of electricity used in the car comes from the 330 volt traction battery pack, via the DC to DC converter, which 'charges' the 12 volt battery just the same as the alternator does in an ICE powered car

Don

Never liked heated seats. I would favor heated floormats. Do they exist? I suppose a google search is in order.

fjpod said:

Never liked heated seats. I would favor heated floormats. Do they exist? I suppose a google search is in order.

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I was thinking the same thing, found a place online but it appears they are no longer making them.http://www.floormat.com/heated-mats/heated-car-mat.html
At the bottom of this page, it says 'Discontinued Item'. Darn, looked like a good idea.