05 DECEMBER 2023 · 16:44
Heat pumps conspiring to keep EV drivers snug in snow drifts, whatever next!?
There are no shortage of myths and memes that attack EVs and Heat Pumps, particularly in the pages of The Telegraph and other right wing outlets. It’s a curious phenomenon, railing against thermodyanmics.
There is of course an inevitable transition to a clean, electrified and decarbonised world. The goal of naysayers is not to stop it happening (they are not that silly), merely to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. That’s what the fossil fuel lobby wants to achieve – wringing out as many dollars as they can before the bubble bursts; before assets are stranded.
There are several myths about EVs and Heat Pumps that are widely shared. These have been refuted many times, such as in these plain English pieces on the Nailsworth Climate Action Network website: myths about EVs and myths about heat pumps.
One I hadn’t seen before popped up on my social media timeline. It suggested that if EVs got caught out in a snowdrift, the batteries would get cold, so couldn’t work, and occupants would freeze, whereas those in petrol/diesel cars would be OK with their idling fossil fuel powered engines.
I can imagine The Telegraph readers – fed on a daily diet of hit jobs on any clean tech – chuckling at the idea of EVs freezing up in the snow.
The truth is quite the opposite. This meme is just another lie powering another social media storm; another myth to add to a growing list. Reuters provides a great factcheck refuting the points being shared widely across social media. Reuters quoted Professor David Howey from the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science:
“Electric vehicles use very little power when stationary … the motor doesn’t consume power at zero speed … only the car electronics and heating/cooling systems use power when the car is stationary, and the amounts are relatively small … [and could run climate settings for] at least a day, probably many days”
Dr Katherine Collett, was also quoted, saying of EVs that “Many of them are installed with very efficient heating systems nowadays”
But it gets better, because the “very efficient heating system” being referred to is – hold onto your hats – a heat pump. This means that both the car’s battery and car interior are kept snug by a heat pump; and just as for home heating, that means electrical supply stretches further. A heat pump can turn one unit of electrical energy (in an EVs case, from a battery) into a few units of heat energy, as explained here. If you had a resistive heater for the EV that would keep you warm for so many hours [1], with the heat pump it could be 3 times as long that you would stay warm.
The efficiency of EVs and Heat Pumps, and the future-proofing that electrification enables, means that The Future Is Electric.
This will all probably make The Telegraph readers heads explode.
Their bete noirs – EVs and heat pumps – are now conspiring to keep EV drivers snug in snow drifts long after the petrol heads have started to freeze because their fuel has run out.
Stuck in a storm of disinformation about EVs and heat pumps, this is the perfect cautionary tale on what not to believe, for those who have been misled by a right wing propaganda machine. A machine in part funded by fossil fuel interests and in part motivated by misplaced culture wars ideology.
My advice is, don’t get caught in yet another bullshitstorm of disinformation, get off social media and the papers, and hunt down genuine experts. They’re not exactly hard to find.
(c) Richard W. Erskine, 2023
Notes
[1] In one test an older Tesla that had resistive power heater (so not with a heat pump) and at about -10C, it was found that “No surprise, but the Tesla is vastly more efficient, burning 1.6 kWh per hour versus the Hyundai sucking gas at the rate of 10.3 kWh per hour”, and both the Tesla (2019) and Hyundai were able to maintain a comfortable internal tem[erature for nearly 2 days .
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