I think you will be using alot of power to heat the car at those low temperatures regardless of tech. If you are not sure, purchase it up front as you will not be able to add it later.

This article is a little dated, but here is an SAE link discussing the advantages of a heat pump to help with your decision.

Heat pump technology an EV game changer

Heat pump technology an EV game changer

www.sae.org

 

I think you will be using alot of power to heat the car at those low temperatures regardless of tech. If you are not sure, purchase it up front as you will not be able to add it later.

This article is a little dated, but here is an SAE link discussing the advantages of a heat pump to help with your decision.

Heat pump technology an EV game changer

Heat pump technology an EV game changer

www.sae.org

Yeah I am really inclined towards getting it as I may not be able to get it later on

I was worried about this

https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/volkswagen-refunds-id-3-and-id-4-owners-for-underperforming-heat-pump-cuts-price-for-option-in-new-cars/

 

Looks like in terms of temperature you will be in sweet spot for using heat pump.

I think it depends on your usage of the car. If you are planning to do a lot of road trips, then get it (or make sure you will get a car with heat pump for free!)

If your usage is mostly around town with overnight charging, then it is not necessary. You can use preheating which is more effective than heat pump for short trips.

 

I normally dont do road trips in winter and every day driving of about 100 km (65 miles) is way more than enough to go on a single charge. Electricity rates are also not crazy here so I dont see savings of more than 1500$ + 13% tax = 1700$.

Out of curiosity, did you calculate how many km/miles, and thus years, it would take to pay back that $1700?

 

I drive about 2500km a month. So in 4 months I drive about 10,000km. If I get about 8% Battery savings, that will give me 800km extra. Let's consider even additional 1000km because of heat pump, at current electricity price of around 12cents per kW, savings per year may be $120 even with inflation let's count it to $150 so I think it takes more than 10 Years to save $1700.

Only plus point with heat pump may be, I can go a bit further in winter between charges.

 

I'd get it for the resale value too.

 

I would go with the heat pump. I am surprised that VW did not include those in all their ID4's. It really makes sense. Everything is already there for it except a reversing valve and the associated electronics.

 

The HP fitted to iD4s is entirely different to the non-HP AC system.

 

Apart from slightly better efficiency, it is a bliss to have access to good, fast preheating

 

And perhaps I should qualify this: If you live in a cold or temperate climate, I would always opt for the heatpump; otherwise, no.

 

I don't think it's worth getting the heat pump at a cost of $1500.

The reason being is that you will use heated seats and steering wheel that provide more direct heat and comfort than cabin heat. Overall on extended trips you can get some value back by the heat pump but if you also have 3 years of electrify america the recovery is minimal at best and it's more expensive for the same kind of heat.

I would instead put those $1500 at getting a heat pump for your home where you can get the benefit of anything beyond 100% efficiency in a place that matters more.

 

I am leaning towards getting one, just for the sake of having it. Obviously it will help, may not recover the money or pay for itself over the life of vehicle by savings in energy. But this is the only chance I will have to add it also just in case that 8-10% extra efficiency may help me get out of tricky situation. If not $1500, it may recover about $1000 over the long run and god knows if software update can make it more efficient or if they have already made some mechanical changes required to make it more efficient for Canadian climate. It used to be offered as standard equipment before, which means it must be working.

 

When costing things you should be aware of where energy prices could go!

When I placed the order for my iD4 electricity was 15p/kWh, now it looks like it could be over 70p/kWh by the time my iD4 is delivered!

 

I am curious, in regards to this...

When I checked my daily commute on ABRP it shows same battery consumption as shown below for my every day trip

-25'C (-13f) Same with or without heat pump
-20 'C (-4f) around 5% less battery usage with heat pump
-5'c (23f) around 8% less battery usage with heat pump
+5'C (41f) around 8% less battery usage with heat pump
+15C (60f) Same with or without heat pump

Is the heat generated the same, or is the resistance heater quicker and hotter on really cold days?

Cheers!

 

I am curious, in regards to this...

When I checked my daily commute on ABRP it shows same battery consumption as shown below for my every day trip

-25'C (-13f) Same with or without heat pump
-20 'C (-4f) around 5% less battery usage with heat pump
-5'c (23f) around 8% less battery usage with heat pump
+5'C (41f) around 8% less battery usage with heat pump
+15C (60f) Same with or without heat pump

Is the heat generated the same, or is the resistance heater quicker and hotter on really cold days?

Cheers!

That's good! It is between -5℃ and 5℃ from October to March where I live!

 

I've ordered MY23 with a heat pump out here in BC.

 

Thanks everyone for your help. Eventually I added it just for the sake of adding as you can not go wrong with efficiency improvements. It may not be 300% efficient but better than 0.

 

Also helps with resale value should you choose to sell later.

 

For context.

We drove ours to Kelowna this summer during one of the heat waves. Temps at the Kelowna Electrify Canada Kelowna was 40c and the car maintained a cool 21c without any issues, even after the hp lowered the cabin output to care for the battery that was reaching 46c during the charge. The 400km drive back to vancouver in that heat averaged 18kw per 100km so I would say the heat pump seems quite efficient.

For cold weather, the coldest we experienced was -15c and again the car was able to maintain comfortable temps at all time.

 

For context.

We drove ours to Kelowna this summer during one of the heat waves. Temps at the Kelowna Electrify Canada Kelowna was 40c and the car maintained a cool 21c without any issues, even after the hp lowered the cabin output to care for the battery that was reaching 46c during the charge. The 400km drive back to vancouver in that heat averaged 18kw per 100km so I would say the heat pump seems quite efficient.

For cold weather, the coldest we experienced was -15c and again the car was able to maintain comfortable temps at all time.

You guys are lucky in BC, here in Ontario it may go around to -25 'c and few days around -35'c with windchill.

Out of curiosity, Will Heat Pump help with Cooling as well? I thought Compressor is used for Cooling needs and Heat Pump strictly for Heating.

 

I would try and predict the Canadian winters in the next 5-10 years. What do you think the weather will be doing? Here we just the closest Hurricane to San Diego in the last 50 years.

 

Its all over the place, here in Ontario we had very dry and hot summer but they are predicting crazy winter this time

 

They are predicting the winter in Canada already? What source are they using? Please don’t say Farmer’s Almanac! 👩‍🌾

 

Ha ha ha.. currently they are the ones who started predicting. New forecasts will come later

 

My local dealer is automatically adding the heat pump to every model sold. If the buyer doesn't want it, buyer needs to prove him wrong lol. Wierd how those who don't have a heat pump want one yet those that can have it question its use.
Wise choice is to get with the heat pump in Canada.

 

Controversy

 

I don't know if it had to do with the heat pump but I don't notice any difference in driving range when I took delivery of the car in March and then there were days during the morning with freezing temperatures and last August when there were a few for the battery ideal days between were at 25 degrees.
I certainly don't regret taking the heat pump option.

 

That is good to know, builds more confidence 😁
Toronto normally has extreme freezing weather from mid Jan to Mid Feb where I think it would not be that efficient, 5 summer months we may not need heating but rest 6 months are in sweet spot for optimum Heat-pump efficiency.

 

I asked myself the same question and I ended up ordering the car without the heatpump.

I think it boils down to how you will use the car. In my case, 90 % of our driving is in town for very short trips (around 5 km one-way). We usually end up driving between 10 000 to 12 000 km per year. The extra distance that we could get from a heatpump will not be necessary.

So, for us it's more a question of cost. To help me decide, I did a google sheet that takes into account the cost to keep the battery at 0c during winter (when the car is not used) and the cost to heat up the cabin / battery for our short trips. The delta for a year between the cost of operating a car without a heatpump VS with a heatpump is around 36.00 $ Over 10 years, that's 360.00 $ !! Not worth it for us.

Here is some information on how I came to those numbers :
1. Cost of kwh is 0.10 $
2. 45 days per year are between 0 and 10 c. To keep the battery at 0 c, 0 kwh is used (per day).
3. 60 days per year are between -10 and 0 c. To keep the battery at 0c, 3 kwh is used (per day).
4. 45 days per year are between -20 and -10 c. To keep the battery at 0c, 6 kwh is used (per day).
5. 15 days per year are between -30 and -20 c. To keep the batteray at 0c, 9 kwh is used (per day).
(note: the kwh are based on someone on this forum stating that he lost around 3 kwh per day at -10c. I assumed a linear function)
6. At 0 c, the heatpump is 8 % more efficient. At -10 c, it's 32 %. At -20 c, it's 25 % and after -25, it's 0 % (based on fiddling around with ABRP. Those numbers are representative of very very short trips, on long trip numbers are different)
7. For each set of temperature (0 to 10c for exemple), I use the efficiency of the coldest temp. (-10 c in the exemple)
8. I used 25 km per day because we don't do long trips during winter. Those occur outside of the usefullness of the heatpump.

In the end, YMMV...

 

I asked myself the same question and I ended up ordering the car without the heatpump.

I think it boils down to how you will use the car. In my case, 90 % of our driving is in town for very short trips (around 5 km one-way). We usually end up driving between 10 000 to 12 000 km per year. The extra distance that we could get from a heatpump will not be necessary.

So, for us it's more a question of cost. To help me decide, I did a google sheet that takes into account the cost to keep the battery at 0c during winter (when the car is not used) and the cost to heat up the cabin / battery for our short trips. The delta for a year between the cost of operating a car without a heatpump VS with a heatpump is around 36.00 $ Over 10 years, that's 360.00 $ !! Not worth it for us.

Here is some information on how I came to those numbers :
1. Cost of kwh is 0.10 $
2. 45 days per year are between 0 and 10 c. To keep the battery at 0 c, 0 kwh is used (per day).
3. 60 days per year are between -10 and 0 c. To keep the battery at 0c, 3 kwh is used (per day).
4. 45 days per year are between -20 and -10 c. To keep the battery at 0c, 6 kwh is used (per day).
5. 15 days per year are between -30 and -20 c. To keep the batteray at 0c, 9 kwh is used (per day).
(note: the kwh are based on someone on this forum stating that he lost around 3 kwh per day at -10c. I assumed a linear function)
6. At 0 c, the heatpump is 8 % more efficient. At -10 c, it's 32 %. At -20 c, it's 25 % and after -25, it's 0 % (based on fiddling around with ABRP. Those numbers are representative of very very short trips, on long trip numbers are different)
7. For each set of temperature (0 to 10c for exemple), I use the efficiency of the coldest temp. (-10 c in the exemple)
8. I used 25 km per day because we don't do long trips during winter. Those occur outside of the usefullness of the heatpump.

In the end, YMMV...

With our prices of 0.88$ kwh it will of course be a different calculation.
In my opinion, the heat pump works best for short distances.

 

I agree with both of your affirmations.

 

My heat pump came with the car but I would of taken it even if optional not because of price or savings but only to gain whatever extra range in colder temps. But yeah, that's a personal choice where I value range over price.

 

Yeah its true, that added range can be really helpful sometimes.
As I mentioned above, I can go to Niagara falls from my house and come back without charging, if I have Heat pump but can not do that without it.

 

Scenario:
1. Live in Vancouver with milder winter
2. Car is garaged
3. Ordering Statement package, so will have heated seats and steering wheel
4. Range less important - daily driving avg ~40km
5. Even if I use for road trip, more likely summer than winter

The odd longer winter driving may be:
Bellingham is 180km round trip, should be fine for round trip without heat pump.
Seattle is 460km round trip, won't be enough even with heat pump.

EV isn't my only car, so if there's truly a use case that I worry about range or charging, worse case is drive a gasser.

I've placed an order with no heat pump based on the above, are there other reasons (ex. speed of heating, reliability, etc) which I will regret my decision? Not sure if it's too late to change my order with dealer.

 

Heated Seats are standard for any ID4 model in North America, in Canada even Heated steering wheel is standard feature but in US its included with statement only.

Even I don't think at today's electricity rates you will save $1700 in electricity. So as long as you don't want range no heat pump is ok. For day to day city driving you may not need it.

But if electricity rates go up drastically like what happened with gas, or electricity rates in Europe then you may regret that decision as I don't think you can add it later.

 

0.10 kWh rate.
These were the good old days in Eu when power was also almost free at 0.10.

For longer journeys we currently leave the ID4 at home because it is cheaper to drive with our petrol car.

 

Yeah, at .88 per kwh, it would not be sustainable (as it's probably not the case for you guys...) At those rate, just for running the house (everything run on electricity), it would cost us around 16k cad. I would be scrambling to install a heatpump in the house before winter...

 

Thanks for the analysis. Based purely on charging cost and battery savings, I knew it'll be a long time before paying off, longer than I care for. That's why I am interested in other reasons/benefits like quicker cabin heat up, etc.

 

Your welcome,

I guess it might be easier to sell in the future. Also, I would not be surprise that non-heatpump car have a longer ETA. VW will probably prioritize AWD heatpump cars. Cabin heat up would be around the same (If it's like a house heatpump, the non-heatpump would be faster by 20 to 40 seconds - not relevant IMHO)

 

Thanks everyone for their comments in this thread.

How I'm calculating the payback period.

Will be using shore power for scheduled cabin heating,

For non heat pump, Expecting cost per KM OF 3 cents. This is based 20 Kwhr per 100 km plus 10% for charging overhead and a electrical rate of 14 cents per kwhr.

For heat pump, assuming 10% efficiency gains, then the savings would be 0.3 cents per Km. Cost of heat pump is $1500 . So the payback period would be 500,000 kms.

Since the the 10% efficiency gains only apply for cooler periods of the year, assume 6 months, the payback period is now 1,000,000 Km.

 

I agree with you, if you are getting heat pump to save money, simply don't. Also it is not just $1500, (1500 + Tax) * (8ish% interest over 7 years). I think it will roughly come around $2150.

As long as electricity prices don't rise more than 4 times like Europe, you will not save any money by adding a Heat Pump. It may even add extra weight reducing range slightly.

Get Heat Pump if you don't want to worry about or really want that 10/20% extra range in winter (debatable, not proven) and may be a bit higher resale value if you are thinking to sell yours (again its pay higher, get higher, no benefit).

 

Also, VW might have been greedy on the price of the option. A heatpump is basically an AC with valves to reverse the process (and a better compressor, etc...).

So... the heatpump replace the AC. If a car AC is around 1000 $, VW is basicaly charging us 1000 + 1500 = 2500 + tax. A basic house heatpump that work down to -25c costed (2 years ago when I bought mine) around 3500 + tax $ installation included (they can cost a lot more tho).

IMO, 2500 is way more than what it's worth / cost.

 

Also, VW might have been greedy on the price of the option. A heatpump is basically an AC with valves to reverse the process (and a better compressor, etc...).

So... the heatpump replace the AC. If a car AC is around 1000 $, VW is basicaly charging us 1000 + 1500 = 2500 + tax. A basic house heatpump that work down to -25c costed (2 years ago when I bought mine) around 3500 + tax $ installation included (they can cost a lot more tho).

IMO, 2500 is way more than what it's worth / cost.

As has been mentioned in other replies, the switch from “just A/C” to a fully-reversible heat pump is a lot more extensive than just adding the reversing valve, a second expansion valve, and a defroster for the exterior heat exchanger. A completely different system is installed with a completely different refrigerant with quite-different thermal and mechanical properties. There may also be the loss of “economies of scale” for this very-different system.

All things considered, I'm not sure I'd have selected the heat pump if it had been offered in my region. (But it wasn't so I can only speak hypothetically.) But I don't think VW is necessarily financially soaking those people who buy-in to the heat pump.