John Lumsden
Active Member
George, you may be overstating the effect of the windchill factor on your car, because windchill refers to the temperature the human body feels it is exposed to - i.e. it is a measure of the rate of cooling. It will have some effect on the car, depending how quickly heat passes from the interior to the exterior skin, and will be different whether you are in a headwind or tailwind, but unless you are driving a convertible it's not likely to be a large effect. I'm not at all saying you're not getting cold, just it's not so much due to windchill. (I'm used to wind-chill - lived in Montreal for many years)Driving at -40C at 110 km/hr on a highway makes it windchill -70C - not only for the front windshield but for the whole body of the car. Some parts of the car are more exposed than others but at windchill -70C it may not matter much.
The parts of the body which are not warmed up by heated airflow from inside will get fog and frost accumulated on them. Known areas - the whole rear side windows, most of the front side windows, corners of the front windshield.
The FRONT button airflow is really powerful and cleans up the front windshield (though not its corners) and small front parts of the front side windows that are needed to see the mirrors.
For my family's needs and likely others living in the Prairies, NWT or Yukon, and driving at highway speeds it would be useful to have an equivalent of the FRONT button airflow intensity for the combined up & down (windshield & feet) airflow.
The current intensity of the combined up & down airflow is not sufficient to keep our feet warm and have the front windshield defrosted at the same time. The windchill of -70 is powerful.
On some occasions, we put on all the gear (snow pants, hats, mittens) and we stay like that.
The children on the rear seats do not have the luxury of heated seats and the heated airflow is not even directed to the rear seats at times as it needs to be directed at the front windshield. With full occupancy we cycle between three modes - FRONT, combined up & down (windshield & feet), central chest airflow (for children on rear seats).
I am not going to mention in detail that the airflow is kept at the temp +27C as it is the only temperature able to counter the -70C windchill on the front windshield. Some may understand. Some may not.
Possible suggestions for Hyundai designers to consider - at the Hyundai Kona EV price point (which in our case was CAD51,999 with financing CAD66,000) - could be:
- separate heated air duct/tunnel for the rear seats
- heated airflow for the rear side windows as we do look over over shoulders to check what is there (the currently only working way of "defrosting" rear side windows is to ask the children to scratch the frost with their nails, for some reason they do not want to do it all the time)
- heated rear seats
- an air heat pump more powerful than the current one, or two separate one (one for the front and the other for the rear) as the pump's ability to extract heat from the cold outside air drops more and more the colder it gets. It is my understanding that around and below -25C the current air heat pumps do not work very well and it is better to use electric resistance heating
Perhaps somebody living in the mentioned cold climate areas may find it useful in cases such as buying an EV and choosing the one right for their needs.
In our car, we have got sleeping bags and more clothing in case something happens. We do not want to freeze (to death). The distances are distances. We leave our small rural town and there is not much on that 90 km commute to Edmonton which we could use as an emergency shelter.
Happy New Year to all when it comes.
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