Although I took delivery of my (leased) 2012 volt in June, and haven't driven it in winter, that many report the Volt gets significantly lower miles-per charge with the cabin heater running.
What I don't understand is why GM would elect to use a resistive heating element (which are very inefficient) when they already have an electric A/C compressor that can be easily reversed and used as a heat pump.
One post here mentioned that the heater uses ~5000W full blast, whereas the A/C uses about 1500W full blast.
If the compressor was used as a heat pump, I would expect the power draw to be 1/8th of the A/C power draw to achieve the same temp difference (i.e. 10 degree increase with heat pump vs. 10 degree decrease with A/C)
Opinions? Comments?
Did the engineers at GM miss this one? Or is there a very specific reason they went with the current heating system?
What I don't understand is why GM would elect to use a resistive heating element (which are very inefficient) when they already have an electric A/C compressor that can be easily reversed and used as a heat pump.
One post here mentioned that the heater uses ~5000W full blast, whereas the A/C uses about 1500W full blast.
If the compressor was used as a heat pump, I would expect the power draw to be 1/8th of the A/C power draw to achieve the same temp difference (i.e. 10 degree increase with heat pump vs. 10 degree decrease with A/C)
Opinions? Comments?
Did the engineers at GM miss this one? Or is there a very specific reason they went with the current heating system?