So I have to take a road trip in an EV, and it’s winter. So I’m going to have to use the AC. I know in my old ICE car I could have the AC off and the fan would blow hot air just from the engine. With my EV it seems to be the same, even with the AC button off the vents are blowing hot air. Is that hot air just heat vented from the battery? Or is it still using battery power for the compressor to heat the air.
Some scavenge heat from the motors and batteries, probably not happening that much in winter. All have at least a resistive heating element as far as I can tell. The newer ones usually have/can be optioned to have a heat pump.