A Method to Analyze Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption of Heating Systems for Electric Cars

In electric cars, heating the cabin is similar to that of combustion engine vehicles. This causes two problems. First, the need of energy for this system is high and thus reduces the range of the car. Second, research results show that other systems could improve the driver’s thermal comfort. Therefore a method to analyze different systems is needed. In this study we show a method to analyze and evaluate different heating systems by help of a proband study. The main focus of this analyzing method is to determine the influence of different heating methods on the driver`s thermal comfort. Additionally, the method provides results for the energy consumption of different heating systems. Compared to other methods, we established a method to evaluate those systems in an unsteady system in a real driving situation.