UPDATE: Reviews section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
Ditto Teslas which favour battery cooling over cabin cooling. Teslas with the windows down have ben a common sight in France this Summer.
Considering the A/C on a Tesla is sized to work in places like Arizona, it's hard to believe a well maintained one would be incapable of dealing with the heat in France. There are however a few common problems Teslas get (particularly a blocked condenser) which results in weak A/C.
That's interesting, in that AC is used for battery cooling (of course it would). Why, I've seen quite a few new EV's in this heat with the windows all open rather than using the AC - I was assuming it was to save battery power, but if the car is using the AC for battery cooling, maybe that's a bad idea, unless the A/C is only really needed under high battery load or charging ?
I can't speak for them RE Air con effectiveness, but I actually really like having the window open when it's warm outside (not STINKING hot, but warm).. I enjoy the warm air breeze!
And again I can't speak specifially for the Zoe (which is a pretty old EV now), but I very much doubt that an EV's cabin air con stops working if it has to cool the battery.
For the most part, extreme battery cooling is only really needed when ragging the car on track (LOL) or rapid charging. The EV has a larger circuit designed for this. I've had my battery very hot, and the AC rad fan working overtime, and still have effective cabin cooling!
DrP
I didn't say it stopped working I said it was so poor it was better opening the windows. Get into a car that's so hot that everthing you touch hurts (keep lots of water in the car to pour over steering wheel etc.) then turn on the air con which is already working hard to cool the battery and all it does is dribble col air - open the windows and you get a blast of air at 40 rather than 50 plus.
Kids and dogs left in cars over here die.
I didn't say it stopped working I said it was so poor it was better opening the windows. Get into a car that's so hot that everthing you touch hurts (keep lots of water in the car to pour over steering wheel etc.) then turn on the air con which is already working hard to cool the battery and all it does is dribble col air - open the windows and you get a blast of air at 40 rather than 50 plus.
Kids and dogs left in cars over here die.
It's hard to imagine a car sold in markets like Spain, Portugal etc would intentionally work as poorly as you describe. Yours is probably broken in some way.
Bought new, the air con compressor packed up at six years old and was replaced by the main dealer which returned the air con to new performance. In the mid 30s the air con works as well as any air con I've used but when it's 40 degrees and more the battery has great big fans that take far more air than the cabin fan can.
How many of you doubters have got into an EV left in the sun at 40 plus and observed what happens when you turn it on and drive off ?
How many of you doubters have got into an EV left in the sun at 40 plus and observed what happens when you turn it on and drive off ?
It's been 38ish degrees here of late, and last week i was at the nurburgring where it was 37 deg (my pre-track tyre pressures had climbed to 47psi, it was SOOO hot!).
I just pre-cool the car before getting into it, so the plastics etc have cooled down.
But i can imagine it would be frustrating to have A/C that's not fully functioning in that heat.
DrP
I didn't say it stopped working I said it was so poor it was better opening the windows. Get into a car that's so hot that everthing you touch hurts (keep lots of water in the car to pour over steering wheel etc.) then turn on the air con which is already working hard to cool the battery and all it does is dribble col air - open the windows and you get a blast of air at 40 rather than 50 plus.
Kids and dogs left in cars over here die.
It's hard to imagine a car sold in markets like Spain, Portugal etc would intentionally work as poorly as you describe. Yours is probably broken in some way.
To re-iterate - if your finding a Tesla cannot cool its battery and Cabin in 40DegC heat - your Tesla is broken.
There's two answers IME
1) Never
and
2) When it's broken.
My old C-Max never seemed to lose a drop of pressure in the AC system.
The Berlingo was fine once topped up (~18 years old)
The Fiesta hasn't worked for years, I finally got around to topping it up (it was completely empty) so fingers crossed it's survived.
The MIL's Golf loses gas slowly over a few years.
I just bought one of those fancy re-charging kits with a pressure gauge from Halfords years ago. Yes in principal it's bad for the environment if I know it's leaking, but it's nowhere near as bad for the environment as say for example, driving a car. The original can probably lasted about 12 car-years of regular top ups. So it pays for itself failry quickly if you consider re-gassing a regular expense. And if nothing else, then at least you can test the pressure with it and figure out if it's as good as it's going to get or if it's actually dead.
n.b. you shouldn't keep "topping up" indefinitely. The can's contain oil as well as refrigerant, and eventually you'll fill the reservoir with oil and kill the compressor.
It's hard to imagine a car sold in markets like Spain, Portugal etc would intentionally work as poorly as you describe. Yours is probably broken in some way.
Can’t speak for Tesla but VW group do a hot country package - not sure what this entails but I’d assumed beefed up cooling etc.
Every could of years or if needed -when cold counters didnt seem to keep the meat cool enough we(in the butchers) would have a refrigeration engineer come and pump in whatever gas they pump in. Thats it. No big deal, no extra things needed and it wasnt that expensive.
So contact a refrigeration company and they will do whats needed.
How many of you doubters have got into an EV left in the sun at 40 plus and observed what happens when you turn it on and drive off ?
Pretty sure all cars struggle for a while when they've been sitting in the sun on a hot day? Pretty normal to have the windows down for 5-10 mins at the start of a drive to let the hot air out.
But your earlier post made it sound like the A/C in your car was fundamentally incapable of cooling the cabin at all on a 40c day, like when you were driving along the motorway or whatever.
FWIW My Mrs has an MG4 EV and it was just normal temperature in 38c heat a few weeks back (France). Didn't notice it struggling at all, other than than fans going like billy-o when charging.
