The Mornings Are Heading for the Forties: Heat Without an Engine in the Equinox EV

Dual motor all-wheel drive gives 300 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque with an EPA estimated maximum range of 307 miles. Heated seats for front and rear outboard, a heated steering wheel and a heated wiper park are available rather than standard. It will all depend on the trim and package selection.

Torrington is still seeing highs in the high seventies this week, but overnight lows are beginning to fall into the mid-fifties.

In another few weeks it will be in the forties by dawn, after which in the morning you'll get into the car, switch it on and just sit there while the engine warms up slowly so that it supplies you with anything but cold air; on a good day this takes five minutes, but it takes longer when it is actually freezing.

An electric car does not do that, and the reason is simple enough to warrant a straightforward explanation.

Where the heat comes from

A gas engine loses a huge quantity of energy in the form of heat; your cabin heater is merely a system that channels this waste into the vents. It costs nothing but is slow since you have to wait for the engine to warm up first.

An electric vehicle has no waste heat to draw on; instead, it generates heat deliberately by using electricity from the battery.

That trade cuts both ways, and an honest article must include both sides.

The positive aspect is that heat is produced instantly; there's no warm-up time. You just push the button and the system begins to work immediately rather than having to wait for an engine to reach operating temperature. On a morning in January when the temperature is 20 degrees, that difference is far from subtle.

The other half is that using heat reduces your vehicle's range. With a gas car, switching on the heater costs you almost nothing since you're making use of energy that the engine was already wasting. In the case of an electric vehicle, cabin heating represents the largest auxiliary demand on the battery during winter.

What that actually costs

The range of electric vehicles is reduced by the cold weather through a number of mechanisms at the same time, since the battery chemistry slows down, the cold air increases drag, and the heater has to work.

Efficiency can drop by about half compared to figures obtained in milder weather. Although a typical cold snap in Connecticut will not be that severe, you should assume there will be a substantial decrease and not treat the 307-mile figure as one that applies all year round.

That's where the heated seats and steering wheel cease to be comfort features and start to serve an efficiency function.

It takes a great deal of energy to warm the air in an entire cabin, but very little energy is needed to heat the seat cushion and the steering wheel rim since in this case you are only warming the surfaces that come into contact with you. This is exactly what Chevrolet dealers state in their own advice for the winter months: use the seat and wheel heaters to stay comfortable at the same time as preserving the battery.

On a thirty-degree commute, you should switch on the seat heating and the wheel heating and set the cabin temperature lower than you would in a gas car; in this way you will be comfortable and will also reach your destination with more range remaining.

The correction your spec sheet needs

That is the point at which I differ from the way this is presented.

The heated features are not fitted as standard on the entry-level LT 1. According to Chevrolet's own descriptions, heated front and rear outboard seats, a heated steering wheel and the heated wiper park are offered as available features. On LT models these features are included as part of the Comfort Package, which contains the heated front seats, the heated steering wheel, a power driver's seat and driver power lumbar; that package's contents are standard on the RS.

If you're shopping for winter comfort, don't assume that the basic model comes with it. Find out what package the particular car has and get this information in writing from the window sticker. It's something that is cheap to deal with before you make the purchase and becomes costly if you wait until after you've bought it.

There are two further points concerning accuracy that are worth mentioning.

The rear outboard seats, which are the two window seats, have heating facilities, while the middle rear seat does not.

The expression "heated windshield wipers" actually refers to a heated wiper park area; a defroster element located at the base of the windshield heats the blades while they are parked, preventing ice from bonding them to the glass overnight. The heating applies only to the parts of the blades where they rest, not to the entire sweeping area. It is useful, though not exactly what the name implies.

The information on Chevrolet's own support materials explains this point. The feature becomes active below 45 degrees, so it will begin to be useful sometime next month instead of right away. However, it only comes into operation on its own if the Auto Rear Defog function is turned on in the HVAC customization settings, meaning you need to look for this setting rather than take it for granted. Additionally, you can start it manually at any time using the rear defrost button. On the first occasion you use it during a journey it runs for 15 minutes, and then 10 minutes on each subsequent use.

The feature that actually changes your winter

Preconditioning is the one to learn.

As long as the car is plugged in at home, you can use the power from the wall rather than that from the pack to heat up the cabin and the battery. In this way, when you go out you will find a warm car with a fully charged battery and will have used none of your range for that.

It is not possible to achieve this with a gas car since remote start will use up fuel and the engine still has to warm up. With an electric vehicle, preconditioning in your driveway costs only a small amount of electricity at your home rate and uses no miles.

Arrange it under the vehicle's settings, making sure that the option for remote start also turns on the heated seats. Then use it each cold morning. Owners who do this say that they have a quite different winter compared to owners who don't.

The AWD question

The 300 horsepower and 355 lb-ft are achieved with the dual-motor arrangement, and the EPA-estimated range is as high as 307 miles, compared with 319 miles for the front-wheel-drive model. However, you should check the window sticker for that particular car since some of the all-wheel-drive versions are rated at less than 307 depending on their configuration.

In Litchfield County a difference of twelve miles is a minor consideration in return for having a second driven axle, though it is another matter whether you actually need it. Cars with front-wheel drive cope well with the winter conditions in New England, and proper winter tires achieve better traction than all-wheel drive using all-season tires.

If you'd like to have both, then get both; when making your choice, go for the tires first.

Where to look in Torrington

The local Chevrolet dealership is Northwest Hills Chevrolet, which is located on East Main Street in Torrington.

When you make the call, ask three things.

Whether they both sell and provide servicing for the Equinox EV, and who there actually knows it.

Which package the particular car has, feature by feature, for the heated seats, the heated steering wheel and the heated wiper park. Do not accept a trim name as the answer.

Have them demonstrate the preconditioning procedure on the car in question, since it's a menu not a magic word and spending five minutes with someone who knows the car will save you the trouble of working it out over the course of a whole season.

An electric car gives you instant heat and takes range to do it. Both of those are true.

But using the seat and wheel heaters rather than blasting the whole cabin, and preconditioning while you are plugged in, mostly solves the trade-off. Just make sure the car you are going to buy actually has the heaters, because on the entry trim that is a package, not a promise.