Unexpected happenings

[keithr]

I've experienced some unexpected happenings with my Honda e recently. Twice now I've been for a walk so I was hot when I got back to the car, so I turned the fan on to blow some cold air onto my face to help cool down. It was cool outside, I only wanted the fan on because I was hot. Initially it did what I expected and blew cool (ambient temperature) air from the vents, but a short while later it started blowing heated air from the vents. When this happened yesterday the ambient temperature was 8 - 9C and the temperature of the climate control was set to 16C, but I was just using the fan, not the Auto or Heat functions, so it should not have been heating the incoming air. Strange.

Also today the ventilation was on screen and car but I noticed air was coming from the dashborad (face level) vents too - that shouldn't happen.

The weirdest unexpected thing was when I went out to the car today, just before noon. As I got in the car I thought that a passing car sounded louder than normal, so I looked round and was very surprised, even shocked , to see that the rear nearside window was fully wound down. No wonder the car felt quite cold inside! Had it been open all night, I wonder? I certainly don't remember hitting the window button while getting out of the car the day before, nor hearing or seeing the window wind down. Very strange.

[Reuben80]

You need to be sure that AC was off and set it to Lo. Without auto it can still be on and if you set a tempreture that is higher than the outside it can start the heater anyway. In my previous hybrid it used to switch on the engine to heat up even if AC was off.
Regarding window if you press the buttons without looking could be that you pressed the back window button and if not paying attention you would not realise that your window did not go down. Happened to me in the past. Just hearing a sound of a window going down is enough to trick your mind.

[keithr]

I'm fairly sure that the AC was off, as I normally would only use Auto mode, but I'll try setting the temperature to Lo and hopefully it'll then work as I want it to. It will be slightly annoying that whenever I want some heating I'd have to change the temperature setting too, but I can live with that if that's how it works.

Regarding the window, the only time I've opened any windows recently was when I had a trip to the recycling centre (three days earlier) when I opened both front windows at in order to speak to the staff there. If I had accidently opened the rear window then I'm sure I would have noticed it being open on the drive home, or on my drive a couple of days later. The window buttons don't work unless the car is powered up, so it's not possible that I accidentally opened the window while entering or leaving the car, so I'm really puzzled by how it came to be open. Hopefully it was user error though, and not a problem with the car.

[rickwookie]

How does the e heating system work? Is it circulating a liquid like a heat exchanger system, to an internal heating matrix?

I thought that by simply selecting a fan speed, you're effectively turning the system on - i.e. there's also an associated temperature displayed.

[SwissChris]

Yeah, it heats up the liquid in the heating circuit. Its not even using the excess heat from the fluids cooling the battery and the engine, some more intelligent layouts are capable to do that.

[keithr]

How does the e heating system work? Is it circulating a liquid like a heat exchanger system, to an internal heating matrix?

It has a heat pump, i.e. it uses the air-conditioning in reverse. By operating some valves it can reverse the flow so that instead of absorbing heat in the cabin and transfering it to the outside air (front radiator/condenser transfers heat to the outside air, and the in-cabin radiator/evaporator absorbs heat) it works in reverse and absorbs heat from the outside air and transfers it to the cabin (front radiator/evaporator absorbs heat from the outside air, and the in-cabin radiator/condenser transfers heat to the cabin air). It also uses a PTC heater (Positive Temperature Coefficient resistive heater) for initial heating to speed up the heating. Different manufacturers design their systems differently, so some are more complex and may also absorb heat from the motor, inverter and charger, and the BMW i3 uses the heat that's generated to heat liquid, which then flows through a traditional heater matrix to warm the interior. Exactly how Honda have implemented their heat pump I don't know for sure.

I thought that by simply selecting a fan speed, you're effectively turning the system on - i.e. there's also an associated temperature displayed.

I think the temperature is only displayed when you use the Auto mode*. But maybe I have misunderstood how it works because I've been used to the climate control in the Nissan LEAF. That has a button for heating only, and another button for air-conditioning only, whereas the Honda doesn't have a heating only button. In the LEAF you could seperately control the fan for ventilation, the heating and the air-conditioning; or you could press Auto and let the climate control decide how to control those features. So I had assumed that likewise in the Honda just turning the fan on would simply just turn the fan on! Maybe it does also always turn on either air-conditioning or heating depending on what temperature you have set. If it had a climate control power consumption meter like the LEAF had then it would be much easier to figure out what it's doing!

So maybe to turn off heating I would need to press the air-conditioning button to ensure that it displays A/C OFF?! I guess I'll just have to enjoy playing around with it until I understand it better.

Edit: * I was wrong about that! It does show the temperature when you just turn the fan on. My memory is quite poor!

[Peanutbutter]

As long as I know, the Honda e does not have a heat pump.

If it would, Honda would advertise with it. Which they dont.
It should be an electric coolant heater.

[londiniumperson]

As long as I know, the Honda e does not have a heat pump.

If it would, Honda would advertise with it. Which they dont.
It should be an electric coolant heater.

It definitely does not have a heat pump; it uses a very inefficient PTC heater, which has a significant impact on the efficiency/range on cold days.

[keithr]

As long as I know, the Honda e does not have a heat pump.

If it would, Honda would advertise with it. Which they dont.

It definitely does not have a heat pump; it uses a very inefficient PTC heater, which has a significant impact on the efficiency/range on cold days.

According to someone who contacted the Honda Reservations Team in this discussion a year ago, the Honda e does have a heat pump, so that is what I've assumed it had. I've not used the Honda's heating much yet (just once briefly, but it's not been all that cold here yet) so I've not been able to observe the effect of heating on the estimated range (which would indicate whether or not it has a heat pump). However, thanks to SwissChris who privately sent me an extract from some Honda e related technical document that he has access to, that confirms that it uses an electrical heater and not a heat pump. SwissChris asked me not to publish the document extract, but I think it should be ok to just publish the information below, which doesn't reveal any technical information other than what kind of heater the car has. (I hope that's okay!)

[Theolegit]

Sounds haunted