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The principle of the heat pump is very simple: Instead of using electricity from the drive battery and a heating element to heat the interior, the system uses the waste heat from other components in the car to supply this heat energy to the heating system - the heat is virtually recycled. This means that the actual heating system has to draw less or no electricity from the battery, leaving more electrical energy in the battery for driving the car.
The coolant of the heat pump is evaporated with the waste heat. The now gaseous coolant is led from the compressor of the heat pump into the condenser, where the coolant becomes liquid again. The heat energy released is then used to heat the interior.
While the system used in 2014 used the waste heat of the electric motor, the DC charger and the inverter, the current generation can also use the thermal energy of the battery pack and the AC on-board charger, as Kia wrote in a message. The further energy sources increase the potential of the heat pump to relieve the heating or to take over its tasks completely.
To transfer the efficiency of the entire heating system to customers' everyday lives, the Koreans refer to a test by the Norwegian automobile association NAF. This had compared 20 electric cars in warm and cold weather. One of the tests was the deviation of the range in cold weather in relation to the values given by the manufacturer. The Hyundai Kona Electric achieved 405 kilometers in the test, i.e. 91 percent of its WLTP value of 449 kilometers determined at 23 degrees. The exact temperatures of the Norwegian test are not mentioned.
Another test by the Korean Ministry of the Environment had shown that the Kona and the Kia e-Niro came with 90 percent of the comparison range at 26 degrees when the air conditioning was activated and the temperature was -7 degrees Celsius. With the competition, however, the range has decreased by 18 to 43 percent. However, the exact test conditions (test bench or road or the driving profile used) are not mentioned.