[VW TECHNICIAN]

I like this YouTube person.... he is honest and has clever ideas and what he uses to access many other informations when doing testings.
And from his phone app, i see carscanner app on many vehicles.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

There is clever way for heat pump how to deal with frost up...but I'm not in power to make statement....no need for outside electric heater on the evaporator ( condenser in heat cycle)
Depending on humidity and outside temperature....( PTC heater may have same efficiency in extreme situations there) but on average heat pump will be more efficient and it is integrated more efficiently with cooling loops.
Canadian fellas can provide more insight on this matter. Especially on 2023 models.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

When you're down below freezing, I'm not sure a heat pump helps.

What probably DOES help, at least a little, is to recycle the waste heat from the drive into the passenger compartment (assuming that there's any to spare after heating the battery). But the ID.4 doesn't do that, either.

Before spreading wrong information, i would advise you to take look at pdf files posted on this forum...there are schematics for all different types of heating and heat pumps.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

Several folks have told me that I'm wrong about waste heat from the electrical system not being able to be discharged into the passenger cabin of the ID.4.

I do not for a moment claim that I am never wrong, but I guess I do need further explanation.

Here's the diagram of the non-heat-pumped ID.4's battery and electric drive cooling system from MC-10186407-0001.pdf, the “Self Study Program 811213 The High-Voltage System in the ID.4”:

View attachment 18970

The only question is what is component 6, the “Heat Exchanger for Heat Condenser”? To what does that exchange heat?

Meanwhile, please note that there doesn't seem to be any direct path for waste heat from the drive electronics to reach the cabin air; the waste could warm the battery and any remaining heat in the battery exhaust coolant that isn't routed right back to the drive electronics could reach the mysterious component 6, but that's a pretty indirect path.

If equipped with heat pump it will use #6 heat exchanger block for heat harvest from battery pack to assist in cabin heating.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

Thank you for that clarification — That's EXACTLY the situation that I expected.

#6 is heat exchanger block .....refrigerant to coolant ( heating or cooling if necessary)

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

Just to get this completely explicit:

So in a North American car without a heat pump, which portion of the Air Conditioning refrigerant loop is this heat exchanger dumping its heat into? (I'd assume a cool/cold part of the refrigerant loop?)

No heat pump...heat exchanger is used only when air conditioning is called for cooling HV battery pack....heat would be dumped to the refrigerant.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

The picture doesn't show that, though, does it? It shows hot fluid entering this heat exchanger and cool fluid leaving it. (It also ignores the fact that the PTC Heater heats the fluid, but showing heating/cooling on the same diagram was probably viewed as too confusing).

BTW, my Volt has the exact same heat exchanger that @VW TECHNICIAN is describing and it's for exactly the same purpose: cooling the battery (and the drive electronics? I can't recall.) cooling loop in the summertime when its hard to reject heat to the ambient air via the radiator.

Quite similar across the board....but ID has integration of bypass valve for refrigerant when air-conditioning is called but dosent need to cool down HV battery.