So it becomes comfortable to travel when you've Air Conditioning in your car. You can travel with ease even if the sun is super hot out on the road. Similarly, as the winter becomes unbearable and it's snowfall everywhere outside, it becomes a nightmare to travel without some heat along. Heating in cars is another blessing that the technology has provided us in the recent years. But do both of these come for free or is their an extra price you have to pay for the heating and cooling to keep functioning in your car? In this blog, we'll explore the cost of Heating and Air Conditioning in cars.
The heating and cooling in cars don't come from the same source so don't imagine it as your heat pump or your Split Inverter Air Conditioner. Things do get different when it comes to electric cars but let's first talk about the cars we are now using.
Did you know, Car Heating is almost FREE! O yeah!
This might be something new you're hearing but actually, making your car warm does not cost you anything extra. It just the engine that gets hot and the heat of the engine gets transferred to the indoor of the car instead of escaping out as it does in summer. But we'd be honest here. It's not 100% free. There's a fan to push the heat of the engine inside and that fan needs some energy to operate. It takes that energy from the battery. For that purpose, only a negligible quantity of petrol is consumed.Cooling isn't FREE, it comes at around 1 Litre per 100 KM
Unlike the heating, the cooling cost does take enough. It takes almost 1 litre of petrol for the car's air conditioner to operate for a distance of almost 100KM. A rough estimate could be between 0.2 to 1 litre per 100 km. The consumption varies according to the usage and the outside temperature.How things work in electric cars
So in summer, you don't need heat, right? Which means the heat of the engine that you use to warm your car in winters simply go wasted all the times you're not using that heat. Electric cars have an ideology of energy consumption so both heating and cooling use the car's battery. Which means no energy is going to waste and as you don't use heating in winter, no energy is going to waste either. Similarly, as you use Air Conditioning in summers, it operates only when you want it to operate. This ensures energy consumption and saving.A few tips for heating & air conditioning in cars
- If you think turning on AC takes loads of energy and you can be comfortable will only a little cooling, consider using a portable desktop fan. It will suffice perfectly for you if you drive all by yourself
- Use blinds as you go for long drives. The direct sunlight that reaches the car heats the indoor more, requiring more air conditioning
- How about hot and cold pads? Try them out this time you go for a long drive. It's a cool idea that can keep your travelling comfortable both in winters and summers.