Volvo V60 Diesel Plug-in Hybrid

No different than Prius is it? Prius runs at start up to get warm and often comes on specifically to get its heat up.

In winter, the heating requirements of the passengers require the engines, Diesel or gas, to come on more frequently.

Once warmed up, like the gas engine, the automotive Diesels can start/stop with no problem.

 

But diesels are a bugger to warm up in winter, especially in town driving. Even in -10c temperatures I know heat will start to come from my heater after a mile. With a diesel car it is much longer. A diesel hybrid would be problematic in that the engine would have to be switching on or staying on much much longer in winter to provide the heat, that a petrol car would.

 

Could you compromise and dedicate a portion of the battery to a block heater? I'm not saying keep it fully operational temp. but if you kept it ambient summer temp it wouldn't have that hard of a time and shouldn't be too huge a draw and that portion of the cells could get recharge priority when the engine did start.

 

It already has a plug. A block heater shouldn't break the bank. It might even help with summer time efficiency.

 

We are talking plug-ins so the battery is charging and the block heater is on as needed when its cold. Diesel would actually start better than a cold gasoline engine under those conditions.

 

Ah that's an interesting comment. We don't normally bother with block heaters here as we only ever go to -5c in winter, though get the odd week where it is -10c or -15c and most people then will just not even bother going to work.

But in a plug in diesel car, then a block heater could be incorporated into the design and negate any cold start up issues. I should have realised as being Volvo it comes from a Country where it does get a little cold in the winter.

 

Many owners of the gen2 here installed and used near year round block heaters to shorten the preheat stage. They saw efficiency gains doing so.

Between an engine block heater, and possible cabin preconditioning, passenger comfort shouldn't be an issue. Belly pans and active grill shutters will preserve engine heat better than the typical diesel car. No reason that electric from the battery couldn't be used for heating when not plugged in. The diesel can also run at high load where more heat is generated, regardless of driver demand, in theory. It could also run its own block heater and charge the battery while doing so. If freezing temps are a regular occurrence, then there always diesel fired heaters.

It is a loss in efficiency, but all types of drive systems lose efficiency in the cold.

 

Sounds like you had some thermostat issues as Diesels will run up to operating temp pretty quickly due to higher compression and resulting heat even if no block heater is used over night.

But again, with a plug-in vehicle, even the issues you raise about old time Diesels, go way. It's plugged in by default. Block heater on, ready to go.

 

Beg to differ from experience of many diesels. We don't get very cold winters here in the UK but diesels (without block heaters) are a real bugger to warm up. As Pakit said, you can be sat at the lights and watch the temp gauge drop or it only just moves out of the blue once in a while, the heat coming from the heater being very weak.

 

We get very cold winters here at the ski resorts. Lots of the big pickups you see in these Western ski towns are Diesels. Not to mention the trendy Mercedes 4Matics. Key is the block heaters at night and getting dealer to adjust the thermostat. Diesels actually run inherently hotter due to higher compression ratios. Many times the thermostats are adjusted to prevent overheat in summer and this leads to too much cooling in winter if not running with a load on the engine.

To the issue of the plug in Diesel EV/Hybrids, due to the plug in nature, they inherently avoid the start up issues. Be interesting to see about using the solar roof for block heater use during the day when car senses outside temp is freezing or below. Once the car has been running and warmed up, the slight trickle charge heat generated by the solar roof would keep the block at a good start up temp during the day when it is not running.

 

Maybe there's a big difference between the big block pickups and the small European diesel cars without block heaters (which are just not required 360 days a year).

Interesting about the thermostat adjustments though. Can they all be adjusted or just the ones sold in cold climates?

 

Easy add option, kind of thing a dealer in a Northern area would likely sell with a car as one of those high margin dealer installed options, the veritable Fargo sealant.

Subaru's which are popular in the US offer it as factory option/dealer installed item on all vehicles and these are gas vehicles.

Plug-in hybrid (Diesel or gas) is perfect for cold clime since it is based ALWAYS being plugged in so block heater is part of the plug in routine.

Entire point of thermostat is keep the car at operating temperature which in cold climate is keeping it UP to operating temp. We see how specific the Prius ICE's are with this aspect of operation.

Depends on controls. I'd guess on some cars, it is electronically controlled so it may be programmable. Others may install different ones for different markets, Arizona and Alaska cars have, literally, polar opposite heating issues.

Diesel engine idling is going to be hotter than gas engine idling so not sure why you would see temp drop in a Diesel vs. a gas engine.

Bottom line, it is not really an issue for Diesels in cold climates, a matter of right options and setup. Diesel hybrids no different than regular Diesels. Perhaps some of our Calgary members with -30F winters will chime in.

 

It is likely switching out the thermostat for a higher rated one. Ecomodders will do it to speed up warm up time and higher running temps, which can improve efficiency.

Diesels take awhile to warm up because of their inherent efficiency. Converting more of the chemical energy to kinetic means less for waste heat. As pointed out, while idling they can lose heat.

I suspect the diesels in our heavy duty trucks are oversized. They are nearly all V8s. While delivery trucks and semis get more work done with an inline six. The paper specs of the Mahindra truck are as capable as a half ton V6 gasser with 4 cylinders and smaller frame. The extra cylinders of the V8 might produce more heat, and the extra mass could hold more while parked.

Then again, my friend's '80 diesel Rabbit was always bleeding heat from the vents. The original owner had tinted the windows and installed a five speed. So who knows what else he did.

 

Efficency of ICE is not directly related to heat it outputs, there are also unburned particles, how much I don't know. Many diesel cars have dedicated heaters that operate on the same diesel that is for ICE.

 

True. The PHV's and even the plain old Prius have an electric heater to supplement the engine. I have never heard of a diesel personal vehicle coming with a diesel heater in NA, though.

 

I've had one car that did. It was a Mercedes Viano Exectutive people carrier;

Mercedes-Benz Viano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It would fire up automatically when the car started to add a boost heat to the cabin and would run additionally in very cold weather. It was connected to the diesel lines so ran off the normal fuel tank. You could tell when the extra heater was running as outside it sounded like a jet engine turbine, esp when you turned off the diesel engine.

 

Ill take the Brabus 6.1