Preheating the car while plugged in

We've tried repeatedly to pre-heat the car while it's still plugged in (EVlink L2) before my wife's range-busting commute to work (where she cannot plug in) up here in Canada, with limited success.

As far as I can determine:
a) the remote is not very clear at confirming the right signal has been received and the heat is actually on
b) what heat comes out (I've run out to the car to check) is very mild and at very low fan speed, which means it needs the full half hour to make a dent in the morning
c) it doesn't always seem to work

What can we do? It was my idea to get the car but she's the one driving it most of the time, so you can appreciate I need to get this resolved to her satisfaction soon! ;-)

blake
(oakville, ON)

As far as the amount of heat coming through, after you've parked the car, put the temp gauge all the way up and the fan on high. also, if you want the seat warmer running, turn that on. I've gotten a sauna-amount of heat in only 20 minutes.

As far as the remote goes, I've had no problem getting the heater to come on, although the car was always finished charging when I put the heater on. You may have a different result if the car is still charging when you pre-heat. I believe the remote shows the little plug icon when the signal to pre-heat has been successfully received.

As been noted in another posting, some users are having problems with the remote and the EVSE. Hopefully, you are not in that situation. http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=686&start=40

You'll generally know from whats been discussed in the posting, that while trying to set the remote the main drive warning light goes on.

I'm not in that boat and my remote is working as advertised and my car is nice and toasty warm in the morning. To set the remote, pull the antenna and point it at the car. Press the power button (top button) and hold until the chime plays and the display illuminates. If it is plugged in, which you will need to precondition the car - you should see a plug icon on the top right and antenna icon on the left. To get to the the precondition controls on the remote press the side middle button labled 'mode' twice. This will move the display from Charge Start, to Charge End and finally to PreCondition. Then you press the front buttons left or right to cycle through the precondition options - A/C, Heat, Defrost, A/C Off. After selecting your desired option, press the side top button (Power) once quickly. You should hear a button tone and see the antenna icon flash while a connection is made. If sucessful, then the chime should play. The display will show in the lower 1/3 your precondition option.

The precondition phase will only operate for a 1/2 hour. Also, I find that it doesn't matter what my current climate control settings are - the precondition setting on the remote will set the temperature correctly.

If you have trouble with your L2 charger, try it with your L1 unmodified charger and see if you get sucess. If so, then the L2 charger is interfering with the remote.

How far is your wifes commute? I'm going from Niagara on the Lake to Buffalo everyday (43km each way). I'm using a bit more energy these days with my heater on the first or second notch but I have not yet crossed over using 1/2 of my power meter yet. I have found a source of power during the day, it definitely helps. Where does your wife park? One idea I had was to canvas the neighborhood near my building to see if anyone would let me use their outlet during the day for a small fee. So far, I have not resorted to that but it doesn't hurt to think creatively.

This morning we did what MLucas suggested with our Level 1 that was modified (upgraded), for the first time. I had do do it twice to get the preheat going.

Previously we have always used our home charger, Schneider level 2, and had no problems on the first attempt.

Blake, I can only give you my limited experience. I have one of those charging stations that hiccups when the remote is used. But as long as the car is done charging, there is no hiccup when I pre-heat the car. And the first two times I pre-heated, I had the fan and temp settings on low and the car didn't heat up very much. The next time I made sure the fan was on high and the temp was on high and the cabin was toasty. But that's the end of my experience. October has been too damn warm!!

sandange said:

This morning we did what MLucas suggested with our Level 1 that was modified (upgraded), for the first time. I had do do it twice to get the preheat going.

Previously we have always used our home charger, Schneider level 2, and had no problems on the first attempt.

Click to expand...

This is consistent with what others are experiencing with the remote. The unmodified L1 definitely works and so does the Schneider L2 - which I also have and have had no problems with using the remote.

How's the car doing with the weather?

We've had ridiculously warm weather so far this fall, haven't had to use the heater much ''Yet''.

But I did get the snow tires on this morning!

Thanks everyone for your input.

I think this morning we figured out the remote.

What you helped me realize is that there is another crucial ingredient we were missing. I was under the impression from the manual that it didn't matter how the physical dials (fan speed, temp) were set b/c the remote had it's own setting, but I learned from your comments that that's not the case. I'll bet that's been most of our problem, since we are typically driving with the settings quite low (so it's just not enough on a cold morning to do the trick).

Thanks again.

I too was mislead by the owners manual.

Something that makes this even more baffling: While the pre-heater DOES get effected by fan speed setting, the AC pre-cooling fan speed is indeed automatic.

tried your suggestions and with the fan speed and heat pre-set manually from within the car the remote was able to warm up the car very nicely - my wife said the car was "very toasty" this morning when she left.

thanks again!

Has anyone seen a reduction in range after preheating plugged into the 120V charger?

The OEM 120V charger can only put out 8 amps so if you set your heat and fan too high you would exceed what the charger is putting back into the battery pack. Volt owners, who only get a 10 minute preheat, have seen up to a 8% reduction in battery capacity and their OEM charger puts out 12 amps. If you are using a L2 240V charger preheating will not be an issue.

It's not a reduction in battery capacity, more so a reduction in the amount of juice being poured into the batteries. I've preheated on the L1 unmodified charger and yes, you don't get as much of a fill up if you preheat. The L2 chargers can deliver more juice and do just fine with preheating, from my own experience. Its a trade off, you have to think about how far you are going and how much juice you will need. I need at least a 1/2 tank before leaving my office. I know coming in, that I have about a 1/2 tank - I can afford to preheat on L1 because the L1 charge will give me mostly 15 bars sometimes 16. It's worth it to have a nice toasty car that I used the wall to make happen instead of my traction battery. This also saves some juice for the road since I'm not trying to get the heater to warm the car, I just need maintenance heat is all.

Temps cooled off and I was trying out the pre heat/defrost functions.
Sitting in the car using the remote, connected to L2 charger after a night of charging.

I turned up the fan speed and heater temperature setting, cycled through the remote and engaged the pre heat function -
to my surprise it went to a default setting and would not use the dial settings.
Cancelled it.

Did the same as above but this time engaged the defrost function instead of the heat , this time it engaged the dial settings, (Fan speed and heating level) I had selected.

Has any one else had the same experience?

Edit to this post
This morning I tried again the exercise I posted here and found that the DEFROST does default with the setting for the fan speed set on high & the dial had no effect, not sure on the temp level setting.

Still learning...