eledille
TMS 85 owner :)
Well, Norwegians usually are, particularly in January
No wonder EVs are popular here, from December through April everyone has to plug in their cars to power the engine block heater anyway...
But seriously, having a heater that does not drain the battery really is necessary. When we visited my wife's parents this christmas, the temperature was about -20 to -25 deg C (-4 to -13 F) and the trip took almost 8 hours due to poor visibility and icy roads. The distance is 430 km (255 miles).
A colleague of mine drove the same route the day after we did, he got stuck for two hours waiting for the road to be cleared. This is commonplace.
An ordinary electric heater like the Roadster has would have burnt off at least 24 kWh shortening the range of the 300 mile battery by 30%. A heat pump would have cut the range reduction to less than 10%, and a diesel heater would not have affected range at all.
Heated steering wheel etc is not really necessary, of course, but after three months you do get rather tired of driving with mittens on. The -25 degrees we had isn't even very cold, many places inland get -40 every winter. I expect the Canadians, Swedes, Finns and Russians will feel the same way.
No wonder EVs are popular here, from December through April everyone has to plug in their cars to power the engine block heater anyway...
But seriously, having a heater that does not drain the battery really is necessary. When we visited my wife's parents this christmas, the temperature was about -20 to -25 deg C (-4 to -13 F) and the trip took almost 8 hours due to poor visibility and icy roads. The distance is 430 km (255 miles).
A colleague of mine drove the same route the day after we did, he got stuck for two hours waiting for the road to be cleared. This is commonplace.
An ordinary electric heater like the Roadster has would have burnt off at least 24 kWh shortening the range of the 300 mile battery by 30%. A heat pump would have cut the range reduction to less than 10%, and a diesel heater would not have affected range at all.
Heated steering wheel etc is not really necessary, of course, but after three months you do get rather tired of driving with mittens on. The -25 degrees we had isn't even very cold, many places inland get -40 every winter. I expect the Canadians, Swedes, Finns and Russians will feel the same way.