De-snowing this morning

Sesshoumaru

Just thought some people mind find this interesting. The climate control in my Nissan Leaf comes on via a schedule or using the Leaf app on my smart phone. This morning I turned it on via the smartphone app and took a picture of the car. About 20 minutes later I took another picture. I was just curious would preheating shift the snow!





It would have been nice to take the Leaf to work this morning, but unfortunately the wife needs it. I only use it in the morning for the school run, before coming back and getting on the Piaggio for my morning commute... which kept cutting out this morning

Henry Ford III

Meh. I started the engine this morning, clicked on the heated windscreen and was on my way within 30 seconds.

_Kaiser_

Actually..

Seeing as I have 2 sets of keys for the Passat, I could presumably start it with one, get the heaters going and lock it again with the other while I wait inside (oh how I miss my own quiet driveway).

Or would that make the alarm go crazy with the vibration of the engine?

Indricotherium

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Actually..

Seeing as I have 2 sets of keys for the Passat, I could presumably start it with one, get the heaters going and lock it again with the other while I wait inside (oh how I miss my own quiet driveway).

Or would that make the alarm go crazy with the vibration of the engine?

I do this and it never bothers the alarm.

I would like to be able to do it from the comfort of looking aout a window though.

Thatnastyboy

Like every day,

I start my motor, give the 'idle up' knob a few twists,

Lock her up with the second fob,

Go inside and drink tea, come back out to a nice warm cabin with clear windows all round

Would love remote start but id fear it for 2 reasons - getting caught out with the motor in gear.
- these systems often leave the starter motor engaged for much longer than it needs be, thus destroying them etc...

_Kaiser_

Indricotherium wrote: »

I do this and it never bothers the alarm.

I would like to be able to do it from the comfort of looking aout a window though.

Thatnastyboy wrote: »

Like every day,

I start my motor, give the 'idle up' knob a few twists,

Lock her up with the second fob,

Go inside and drink tea, come back out to a nice warm cabin with clear windows all round

Would love remote start but id fear it for 2 reasons - getting caught out with the motor in gear.
- these systems often leave the starter motor engaged for much longer than it needs be, thus destroying them etc...

I'll give it a go tomorrow morning so ... and if I wake all the neighbors with the alarm going off I'll blame you guys!

Voodoomelon

Very cool.

Thatnastyboy

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

I'll give it a go tomorrow morning so ... and if I wake all the neighbors with the alarm going off I'll blame you guys!

for the record, i already wake my neighbors with the burble and turbo whistle coming from my straight through coming from a clanky old 3.0td lump.

*cannot be held responsible for angry neighbors

dgt

Scrape off all snow, jump in, start and drive off. Whats difficult about that?

useless

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Actually..

Seeing as I have 2 sets of keys for the Passat, I could presumably start it with one, get the heaters going and lock it again with the other while I wait inside (oh how I miss my own quiet driveway).

My Ford won't allow me to lock the car using the fob when the engine's running. Found that out a couple of weeks ago on an icy morning. Quickclear windscreen is the business though.

SQ2

Lived in Colorado in 2001, guy I knew over there had a remote control key fob to start his Jeep Cherokee for the wintertime. Theft of "puffers" is common over there

tossy

dgt wrote: »

Scrape off all snow, jump in, start and drive off. Whats difficult about that?

Be careful what you scrape it off with though - destroy your paint work.

dgt

tossy wrote: »

Be careful what you scrape it off with though - destroy your paint work.

Ice scraper maybe with de icer or lukewarm water if really stuck on...

Sesshoumaru

OSI wrote: »

That's actually a feature I'd love. How's the cold affecting the range?

It does have a noticeable affect on the range. It really does depend on what kind of trips you make though. Lots of short trips have the biggest affect on range, the car frequently being heated from cold. If I don't preheat, on a cold morning like today, the heating system will definitely jump up to about 4.5kw of energy consumption for at least the first 5 minutes and then slowly decrease as the car reaches temperature.

If you preheat, once you unplug and get going, the energy graph shows about 100 or 200 watts of energy consumption, which then slowly starts to increase. For the rest of your journey it holds fairly steady somewhere between 1kw a 1.5kw.

miller50841

Always let your car tick over for at least 2 minutes before you drive off and with the snow just use your kitchen floor brush and sweep the snow off.

It may seem like a good idea starting the car and locking with spare key just remember your insurance will not pay out if some thug breaks the window or pops the lock and drives off.
These people are out in these types of mornings.

Easy pickings for them all they have to do is jump in and go.

Sesshoumaru

dgt wrote: »

Scrape off all snow, jump in, start and drive off. Whats difficult about that?

Nothing difficult about it at all. That doesn't make your car nice and warm though and there is nothing difficult about using the app either

Sesshoumaru

OSI wrote: »

Don't turbo timers allow you to start the engine without the key, and kill it once the handbrake drops if there's no key in the car?

In my old MR2, the turbo timer would kill the engine if it was put in gear and no key in the ignition.

Tabnabs

Does the Nissan Leaf have heated leather seats?

/thread.

Sesshoumaru

Tabnabs wrote: »

Does the Nissan Leaf have heated leather seats?

/thread.

This years Leaf has heated seats as standard, leather is an option. So you can buy one with heated leather seats. 2011 and 2012 Leafs don't have either.

MugMugs

Snow has turned into a pro/anti ev thread? You people amaze me!

Alanstrainor

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

It does have a noticeable affect on the range. It really does depend on what kind of trips you make though. Lots of short trips have the biggest affect on range, the car frequently being heated from cold. If I don't preheat, on a cold morning like today, the heating system will definitely jump up to about 4.5kw of energy consumption for at least the first 5 minutes and then slowly decrease as the car reaches temperature.

If you preheat, once you unplug and get going, the energy graph shows about 100 or 200 watts of energy consumption, which then slowly starts to increase. For the rest of your journey it holds fairly steady somewhere between 1kw a 1.5kw.

So how does all that translate into range, or percentage drop at this temperature compared to say 12/13 degrees? Was just talking about this thread with my dad there who was commenting on how the cold must kill EVs, I wasn't so sure the effect would be as drastic as he was suggesting!

Sesshoumaru

Alanstrainor wrote: »

So how does all that translate into range, or percentage drop at this temperature compared to say 12/13 degrees? Was just talking about this thread with my dad there who was commenting on how the cold must kill EVs, I wasn't so sure the effect would be as drastic as he was suggesting!

My wife and I would only really notice the drop in range when it gets down to 7/8 c and lower. This is just a rough guesstimate, but on a day like today I would expect about 20% to 40% drop in range if undertaking a lot of shorter journeys without preheating. If it was one longer contiguous journey, maybe somewhere around a 10% to 20% drop in range.

We went from Celbridge to Bray a few days ago, which is mostly motorway driving. It wasn't as cold as it is today, but going by the battery gauge, we used about the same or maybe a little but more than we would have in summer. Compared to last winter there are a lot more charging points around now! We get to do a lot more opportunistic charging, which is nice

seamus

Scraping the snow off isn't a whole lot of use if there's a layer ice under the snow or the inside of the window is fogged up. Can definitely see how it would be great to be able to warm up the car while you're still in your boxers. And presumably since the car is still connected to the mains, you're not using any battery.

Tip which worked well for me in the last big snow - If you know it's going to snow/be cold overnight, place an old sheet across your windscreen, pinned in place by catching it in the front doors. In the morning, you just remove the sheet and you have a windscreen clear of snow & ice.

It's ideal if the sheet is some kind of waterproof tarp (so it doesn't stick to anything), but I used a linen sheet and it worked fine, just got a little bit stuck to the rubber around the doors.

Turtle-TM

Is it free to charge your ev at one of the on street esb points?

Sesshoumaru

seamus wrote: »

Scraping the snow off isn't a whole lot of use if there's a layer ice under the snow or the inside of the window is fogged up. Can definitely see how it would be great to be able to warm up the car while you're still in your boxers. And presumably since the car is still connected to the mains, you're not using any battery.

Lol that was exactly how it happened this morning Heating runs off mains power when plugged in. You can preheat on battery power as well, but that runs on a 15 minute timer and then turns off after 15 minutes.

Sesshoumaru

Turtle-TM wrote: »

Is it free to charge your ev at one of the on street esb points?

Free charging and free parking (in Dublin city anyway).

Turtle-TM

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

Free charging and free parking (in Dublin city anyway).

Hardly seems fair, you get a grant against the price of the car, free fuel(apart from charging at home) and free parking.
Of course the Green Party probably didn't think the whole thing through, they just wanted as many of their initiatives pushed through while they were in coalition.

Not meaning to derail here, just seems terribly biased towards an initiative that isn't really that "Eco friendly"

I will how ever ad that the fact you can pre heat the car from an app is fantastic. Something that should be available on all cars, not just high end saloons

Sesshoumaru

Turtle-TM wrote: »

Hardly seems fair, you get a grant against the price of the car, free fuel(apart from charging at home) and free parking.
Of course the Green Party probably didn't think the whole thing through, they just wanted as many of their initiatives pushed through while they were in coalition.

Not meaning to derail here, just seems terribly biased towards an initiative that isn't really that "Eco friendly"

The vast majority of our charging is done at home, which we pay for. Charging on street is only free at the moment because we are like beta testers. The ESB need feedback on these chargers. As this is all new they use several different models, not wanting to be tied to one model I guess. That particular model I plugged in to one day and it started rebooting itself. Still worked though, just took about 5 minutes to initialise

To use those chargers every EV owner has their own smart card to unlock them. When the system is fully developed the card will be linked to your electricity suppliers account and it will appear on your normal monthly bill. Alternatively I think they said they will offer the option of a pay as you go account which you can top up like a mobile phone.

Alternatively some of these chargers are in multistory car parks and shops like Tesco have some as well. I presume they pay their electricity bill, so you could say in some cases it is private enterprise offering a perk to attract EV owners?

MadYaker

tossy wrote: »

Be careful what you scrape it off with though - destroy your paint work.

Why would you be scraping snow off the painted areas? Windsreens and windows is all you need to clear.

Turtle-TM

I know it's early days for the charging stations, in fairness I'd say most owners do the majority of charging at home. It's the free parking I'd be more annoyed about, especially in the city centre where parking is at a premium, although I never got to the bottom of whether a non ev can park in a charging spot and pay for parking, or are they reserved for Evs who get parking for free

jameshayes

MadYaker wrote: »

Why would you be scraping snow off the painted areas? Windsreens and windows is all you need to clear.

you should clear the snow from your roof & bonnet too - otherwise a good heavy brake will land it on the windscreen or on the road!

Turtle-TM

jameshayes wrote: »

you should clear the snow from your roof & bonnet too - otherwise a good heavy brake will land it on the windscreen or on the road!

Not to mention the fact your carrying around an extra few kgs on your roof and boot lid. Plus on a motorway it'll start to shift and could leave your car and land on someone travelling behind you, which could be a shock to them causing a swerve or other dangerous manouver.

MadYaker

Id say we'd need a couple of inches of snow before that would become an issue but thats true I hadn't thought about it sliding off the roof. There was no snow last night in Galway, a little this morning but it didn't stick. I hope we don't get any its a pain in the arse.

Sesshoumaru

Turtle-TM wrote: »

I know it's early days for the charging stations, in fairness I'd say most owners do the majority of charging at home. It's the free parking I'd be more annoyed about, especially in the city centre where parking is at a premium, although I never got to the bottom of whether a non ev can park in a charging spot and pay for parking, or are they reserved for Evs who get parking for free

Right now anyone can park in a charging spot. Getting to use an on street charger in some locations is like a small miracle at the moment That last picture from Bray, that was really nice that time as we were bringing the kids to the aquarium. However most times we get to Bray, the two on seafront, the one near the library and the one near the train station all have cars parked there. The funny part is, we have gotten to use them a couple of times and every time we do charge there, people always come over for a chat. Every time, I always get told something like "I never see any electric car charging there!"

Popoutman

It's always better to scrape off the snow and ice than to use any water. No icy puddles on the ground to slip on, and no thermal shock to your glass. De-icer sprays work a treat when used right. No real need to scrape the ice/snow off the roof/bonnet, but certainly brush any loose snow off.

In my Audi on the really cold days I've started the car and then locked the doors with the spare key. No opening the car as the deadlocks work at that point, so it's safe enough to leave running,.Note though that it's actually against the law (afaik) to leave a car running and unoccupied on a public road, so I've only done the start and lock when I'm not actually on the road. Takes ~15 min to reach warm though, the MR2 reaches warm inside of 5 minutes. One of the few advantages of petrol inefficiencies...

To the OP - is the Leaf plugged in when you are setting off the pre-heat?

Sesshoumaru

Popoutman wrote: »

To the OP - is the Leaf plugged in when you are setting off the pre-heat?

In the pictures it was, it doesn't have to be though. But when plugged in you are using mains power.

JJJJNR

I got a free gift of a windscreen cover about 3 years ago, all you do is cover car in the evening, take off in the morning and drive.. no messing about 8 euro in halfords.

furtzy

jameshayes wrote: »

you should clear the snow from your roof & bonnet too - otherwise a good heavy brake will land it on the windscreen or on the road!

Certainly should. The one time I didn't do it during the last big freeze and braked in heavy traffic and entire windscreen covered from the snow on the roof. Not good and felt like a right tit

biko

Scraping the windows while car is running warms me up

#oldschool

rocky

jameshayes wrote: »

you should clear the snow from your roof & bonnet too - otherwise a good heavy brake will land it on the windscreen or on the road!

:eek: not on the road, please!!! :eek: