While electric vehicles (EV) have the advantage of emitting no carbon dioxide, their cruising distances are relatively short compared to vehicles with an internal combustion engine. That has often been pointed out as the primary reason that prevents EV from becoming popular. The use of EV during the winter in the cold region depletes the battery faster because of the use of a heater, making the cruising distances even shorter. Therefore, this research examined an alternative of using a combustion-type hot-water heater in place of a vehicle-mounted heater (PTC) to see how much improvement could be achieved in the interior environment as well as the cruising distance during the winter. The goals of our test were to obtain information on what kind of influence a hot-water type heater for the EV may have on the cruising distance and compare that with a heater using BDF, and also to assess what kind of problems a BDF heater may present us.
