Prime Cabin Heater Question

I always figured it was from the Flux Capacitor.

 

if you turn the temp to low, does the air cool down? what is the outside temp?
older pri had electric preheaters

 

A Prime has an electric heat pump.

 

Interesting observation. I have never checked the vent to feel the warm air coming out, but I do drive my PP with the fan off most of the time. As you noted, when the fan is set to off, HVAC is OFF, and the PP's A/C ratio on the Eco Diary stays 0%. The question is by "feel warm air" what exactly is the air temp in the cabin and outside of the car at the air intake. It may be that the ambient air outside is slightly warmer than the cabin temp?

 

I will have to see what I can feel out of the vent. If your outside ambient temp was 55-65F and you are noticing warmer air coming out of the vent, then this passive heat must be substantially warmer than 70F. As I said, I have never checked the vent on my PP while the HVAC fan is set to OFF, but if ~70F or higher temp air is coming out passively, then I am sure I would have noticed it by now. I usually keep my HVAC OFF even when the ambient temp is well below 32F. In fact, I don't usually use heat unless the ambient temp is lower than 20F, but I have never noticed ~70F or higher temp air coming out of the vent in my car.

 

is there a way to test if the heat pump is on while the fan is off?

 

Maybe it is just me but the HVAC is considerably loud and noticeable when it is turned on.
Specifically when stationary and no ambient noise around.
Even over the whole pedestrian noise maker.

 

I've observed something similar. It's a mystery to me, too because when I stop I don't hear the heat pump running.

 

Does the inverter coolant also feed the heater core?

 

I've never worked on a Prime, but that would sure be very Prime-specific if it did; nothing like that happens in Gen 1, 2, or 3.

 

No.

 

OK, I run my weekly errand today and drove ~40miles in my PP. I did all 40miles with the HVAC fan set to off position. I was only able to drive on EV mode for the first 25miles or so. During that time, I tried feeling the vent. Absolutely no warm air coming out of the vent. If anything, it felt cooler but I think it is just because of the drift. BTW, the ambient temp was 28F cloudy with some mixed precipitation. When I run out of EV range and switched to HV, even though I did not turn on the HVAC, there was definitely warmer air coming out of the vent.

 

My observation is similar. Another thing is if you set fan off, air coming from outside, then you pull down the window a bit, you can fell the vent air blow a bit stronger vs when the window close.