Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Do all EV let you sit in the car with CC for hour?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

SlimJim

Active Member
Jul 25, 2019
1,037
1,053
USA
Do all EV’s let you sit in the car with climate control on for an hour without driving the car?
I sit in my car during lunch break and this is the #1 reason i drive a Tesla.
I will be shopping for a new car next year and I would like to know if all EVs can do this.

Thanks.
 
Do all EV’s let you sit in the car with climate control on for an hour without driving the car?
I sit in my car during lunch break and this is the #1 reason i drive a Tesla.
I will be shopping for a new car next year and I would like to know if all EVs can do this.

Thanks.

I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Yes, very valuable and little known feature of EVs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SlimJim
When you get in a car and "turn it on", you don't need to put it in drive and leave immediately. In the worst of situations, maybe a car would "time out" and turn off by itself, in which case you'd simply push the "turn on" button again and have another time slice. I can't see why they'd do that but even if they did, it would be easy to work around IMO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Akikiki and SlimJim
Check Bjorn Nyland's video reviews of other EVs- a lot of them will shut off the air after 30 minutes. You can re-start the process easily enough but many EV's have a set amount of "on time".
Tesla's still do that by default, but now they have a "stay on" setting. And, as you say, it is easy enough to turn back on.

I use Tesla's "stay on when I leave the car" feature frequently when I'm grocery shopping at more than one location - I can leave groceries in the car for a little bit without worrying the temperature will climb to 100.
 
Other EVs that have a "Start" button do stay on but some have different behaviors.

For example, we had an e-Golf and if you drove it and then stopped, put it in Park and set the parking brake and got out without turning it off, like to open a gate or something, it would turn itself off in about 10 seconds. Annoying. However, if you don't put it in gear after starting it, it would stay on indefinitely, whether you got out and back in, with or without using the seatbelt, multiple times.

Basically, my thinking is that if you want to sit in the car with climate control on, every EV can handle this. If you want something like Dog Mode where the car is locked and the climate control is still running, that's much harder and most EVs can't do that.
 
ICE have been doing it for decades before EVs.
Not without emissions, of course. It is actually illegal in some cities to park and idle an ICE engine.

And not without keys in the ignition, which means you really can’t leave it unattended with the AC on.

And running an EV’s AC is a heck of a lot more efficient that idling an ICE engine to supply power for the AC.
 
They should all do it. Your car is on and it doesn't know where you're going.

There have been some EVs that limited HVAC _while charging_, but I think by now manufacturers have figured out that that's dumb.

Not without emissions, of course. It is actually illegal in some cities to park and idle an ICE engine.
Fun fact: the wording of some anti-idling laws makes it illegal for an EV to be left on, because they assume that if the car is on an engine is running.
Not that you'd ever be fined for idling an EV.
 
Last edited:
Do all EV’s let you sit in the car with climate control on for an hour without driving the car?
I sit in my car during lunch break and this is the #1 reason i drive a Tesla.
I will be shopping for a new car next year and I would like to know if all EVs can do this.

Thanks.
You mean another Tesla? I think all Teslas can do that. And there are no cars but Tesla.
 
I think all EVs should be able to have stuff like Camp Mode and Dog Mode, but for now most don't seem to have it. Some EVs, such as my wife's Volvo C40, is probably too inefficient to have HVAC run for a long time while the car is parked. It's one of the things I love about my Tesla. I often sit in the car for 1~2 hours waiting for kids during things like orchestra practice, and waiting inside a Model Y with HVAC on while watching some shows on the screen is pretty nice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SlimJim