Climate control when on AC power

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robbert
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Robbert

Robbert

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I saw something curious this weekend when I enabled climate control (heat) remotely through the Blue Link app. It was pretty cold outside (high 30s) in the morning. After 15 mins, I got the message that the climate control was completed (I think that means it shut back off). And then a few minutes later I got a "charge complete" message. The battery was already full (not charging, max charge level set at 90%) prior to turning on climate control, so I thought that was a little weird.

Question to the group -- does climate control take power from the battery only, and then the charge circuit charges the battery later as the SoC dropped because the heater took energy from the battery? I was hoping that the climate control would directly get its power from AC if the battery is full and not use the battery and then just recharge it.
 
Robbert said:
I saw something curious this weekend when I enabled climate control (heat) remotely through the Blue Link app. It was pretty cold outside (high 30s) in the morning. After 15 mins, I got the message that the climate control was completed (I think that means it shut back off). And then a few minutes later I got a "charge complete" message. The battery was already full (not charging, max charge level set at 90%) prior to turning on climate control, so I thought that was a little weird.

Question to the group -- does climate control take power from the battery only, and then the charge circuit charges the battery later as the SoC dropped because the heater took energy from the battery? I was hoping that the climate control would directly get its power from AC if the battery is full and not use the battery and then just recharge it.
Click to expand...
My guess would be the climate control takes power from the battery circuit as it normally would, and the charge circuit replaces the power back to battery, so there would be a small delay To recharge to your set level
 
KonaTom said:
My guess would be the climate control takes power from the battery circuit as it normally would, and the charge circuit replaces the power back to battery, so there would be a small delay To recharge to your set level
Click to expand...

And here I was hoping that the available power on AC (7.2kW) would cover the AC/heater load directly. Guess they didn't do it that way. Not that this would be a big impact, but it is another (tiny) cycle on the battery...
 
The climate uses power on the DC side, both directly off the traction battery and via the LDC (the 12V battery charger). The on-board charger is providing up to 7.2-7.6 kW to the DC side. Whatever power is not taken by use of the climate is available to charge the battery.
 
Not sure if it is identical on the Kona but on a friend's Bolt, the heater takes 9kw and his charger is 7.2 kw so some of the electrons have to come from the battery when he pre-heats up the car. So while pre-heating the car takes 10 minutes, he needs an extra 5 minutes to charge the battery back up.
 
Taking those numbers literally for the sake of a quick analysis, the heater is using all 7.2 kW charging power plus an additonal 1.8kW x 10/60 = 0.3 kWh off the traction battery in that 10 min. With the cabin now warmed and heater off, the 7.2 kW charging power will deliver 7.2 x 5/60 = 0.6 kWh in that 5 min, about 0.5 kWh added to the SoC after losses. So, those numbers are close enough to make sense.
I'm uncertain as to what the capacity is of the Kona's PTC (cabin heater) for those who don't have the HP. Can't imagine it's more than 5 kW, not to be confused with the 2 kW battery heater, where equipped.
 
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