Couple therapy - take homebuilt car to a 3 months extreme winter expedition

[johu]

So here's a good one for you and I'm sure hundreds of you have looked into the same problem challenge:

My wife and I will be living in mid-Sweden for the three winter months December, January, February. This will be in the Jämtland region where it can be -20°C for prolonged periods and sure will be well below 0 for our entire stay - unless climate change has prepared some sort of surprise.

The original plan was to borrow the Diesel car of our neighbour who is so sick that he can barely walk to his car. To our surprise and delight he has lately recovered a bit and resumed using his car. So this plan might be up in the air, somewhat to my delight - I hate Diesel fumes, especially in cold winter and I want to leave this technology behind.

Now the obvious choice would be driving up there in Touran. Getting there might not be the greatest challenge (400 km to drive through Germany, 400 km to drive through EV heaven Norway and 100 km to drive through not so much EV heaven Sweden). But then getting around could be. From watching Teslabjörn videos I expect consumption to be 25-28 kWh/100km. So a safe travelling distance of about 120 km with the heater on.

So if we drive 50 km one way, we're good (Grocery shopping will be about that far!). But as soon as we go for a longer trip around Jämtland we're basically screwed. Fast chargers are not very abundant plus I cannot run CHAdeMO while the car is on due to the unique way I've wired it. So no heater. And last but not least I don't know how well the car will hold up in this largely untested climate. Remember I couldn't fast charge in France because of rain. What about snow getting into every corner?

So now comes the couple therapy part. While I'd totally have the endurance to pull this off, my spouse understandably does not. For me it's fun to be stranded and search for a solution, for her it isn't.

Is it money well spent on to hire an MG5 or something for 3 months? This would cost just shy of 2000€

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

1 - Buy a portable diesel heater, a Little Buddy or equivalent, and use that instead of battery to heat your car.

2 - Buy/borrow a little generator, to extend your range a bit and avoid getting trapped. If it's the day to day grocery shopping stuff, just drive slower. With diesel heat, you don't have to worry about losing range by driving slower.

Between the two of those you generally won't have concerns with the cold.

[johu]

Interesting, found this as a propane powered version. Would be good enough for charge stops I suppose. Seems a little dangerous to run it for prolonged time inside the vehicle. So while driving I'd opt for my electrical heater.

A 2 kW generator would only give me like 7 km per hour of running.

In the town we will go grocery shopping they also have hire cars. So for longer trip we could just go there and continue with a loaner.

[arber333]

Hmm.. i noticed up there most cars use diesel webasto coolant heaters to keep the engine warmed up. Mind you the legislative reason for webasto is to keep the engine at optimal temperature when it starts - ecology, not driver comfort...
You could setup a y junction and take some of the coolant to the batteries and setup some alu tubes under the cells to prewarme them for charging.
https://leafdriveblog.wordpress.com/?s=webasto

I just had an event that showed me the seriousness of temperature management with modern cells. Here you can read about it...
viewtopic.php?p=46591#p46591

[johu]

Wow, that sounds terrible. Nissan BMS allows full power up to 52°C or so and then derates power so 57°C is never surpassed. Longest trip we completed on one day was Malmö to Kassel, I think 700 km and 4 charging sessions if I remember correctly.

I will install Nissans "cold climate" heating pads if we decide to use the car.

Also I can plug in my 2 kW heater into Schuko as it is meant to be, e.g. while visiting super market.

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Interesting, found this as a propane powered version. Would be good enough for charge stops I suppose. Seems a little dangerous to run it for prolonged time inside the vehicle.

So, "van life" has been a big thing in the US the last few years. And apparently, these Little Buddy propane heaters are okay to be run indoors overnight. I think they have a built in CO2/CO sensors. Apparently just not that much CO2 is put off.

From what I understood, just about everyone in Norway uses diesel heaters for their winter heat in electric vehicles. I forget who here in the community mentioned that. It's a very small amount of fuel used.

A 2 kW generator would only give me like 7 km per hour of running.

7km at highway speeds, yeah.

2kw should get a 1500kg car you something like 20km/h contionuous. That's a moped engine basically. It's enough to limp around town and not run out. (in traffic do you even average much faster than 20km/h?). It satisfies the safety paranoia of being stranded if nothing else (plus, you get a generator!). If you leave it on while you're driving and drive a bit slower, leave it on at your destination, it's a small but not insignificant amount of range added. Especially if you're looking at "we can almost get there but not quite" as your limitation.

[johu]

Tesla Björn has helped me to abandon that automatic thinking "if in doubt resort to fossil fuels" Check out this one:


He also uses this Ecoflow to recharge the car just enough to get to the next rapid charger after he runs them down on purpose.
Mind you, I wouldn't go for an ecoflow but cobble something together with some left over LFP cells.

Anyway, we have pretty much settled on not using Touran but renting an MG5 for 3 months.

[whereswally606]

I direct you to the thread i started on speakev for my nissan leaf 2011.

https://www.speakev.com/threads/heating ... st-3101650

cheapest thing is to install heated seats they are amazing for extra heat when moving or stationary and take the least power for the best comfort. they keep the core warmer which is what you really need.

then its an ac lfbros 2k heater for the supermarket or home preheat the coolant loop

and lastly mines a eberspacher d3wz hydronic diesel but annoyingly it needs a code clearing using a edith tool or clone (my fault). but i hear alot of folk have success with webastos too.

i also run mower 40v battery stepped down to power the seat heaters to remove any dependency on the cars 12v system to run the seats. god knows the leaf 12v system is hard enough to keep happy without overloading it. Having said that I had a "fun" this weekend when my low 12v and a rapid charge just killed my outlander this last few days. a new Bosch agm 12v on order from amazon.

am slightly jealous of your trip, so is my husky.