Diesel/hydronic Heater for Honda E

[Striiter]

Hello!

Thank you for this lovely forum.

I purchased a used Honda E September 2023.

Since the consumption is higher than i expected in the winter, the range have become an issue for me. I was wondering if a hydronic/diesel heater from brands such as Eberspaecher, could be used as an addition or replacement to the existing heater, for cabin heating.

I found this forum post: viewtopic.php?t=592 ,which have a diagram of the cabin heating cycle. Since the cycle is so simple, i can't see a reason why it wouldn't be possible. Space under the bonnet/hood shouldn't be an issue either since a hydronic heater isn't very large.

Regarding savings, I've done some testing in Denmark during a cold period where the temperature ranged around -10C, and my avg. consumption with mixed driving was about 21-26 kwh/100km, at 21, step 2, aircondition off and recycle air, but if i switched off the climate all together the consumption would drop down to 14-17kwh/100km.

I pay about 2,3 kr/kwh, which means pr. driven 100km, having heat would mean a cost of 9,2 to 27,6kr pr 100km.

If we assume that the car, with my climate settings use

1L diesel currently cost about 10 kr, and diesel have a kwh value of about 10,7

However, if i used diesel for heating, i calcuated 4-12kwh, i would use between 0,370L to 1,121L, meaning a cost in Diesel of about 4kr to 11kr vs 9,2kr to 27,6kr/100km. Not only that, I would increase the max range of about 50%

Regarding the usage of the heater, it uses power from 12v, and could be controlled with a remote or a controller that would be possible to have inside the car. It uses a lot of power on startup, but once its going it uses about 30w, for fuel pump, pump and fan.

Do any of you have experience with this?

And yes, I know it goes against the idea of an EV, to have diesel heat, but is not uncommon on electric buses in colder climate. And yes I know I then should've bought another EV, however, I've fallen in love with the Honda E, so I want to keep it as long as possible!

[EEEE]

The problem is that the bulk of the energy is used to heat the battery, not just the cabin.

That means that multiple journeys eat into the capacity quite quickly, as each journey the battery has probably lost most of it heats since the last trip.

I wouldn't want to artificially heat the battery as this would no doubt interfere with various systems, let alone the complexity of integrating such a system to the heating loop etc.