So if I put a heater in my trunk for a few minutes before I leave my mileage might greatly improve? Interesting. Maybe I should just clean out the garage and put my car in it.

 

I know it's the HEV battery and not the 12 volt. Just some ideas...

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000I8XDAS/ref=dp_image_z_0?ie=UTF8&n=15684181&s=automotive"]

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Kat's 22400 60 Watt 5.5"x 8.5" Battery Pad Heater : Amazon.com : Automotive

 

I'd like to clean out the garage but alas I don't have one.

Eric1r, now that I know this works the one's you show would make a more permanent install and take less room. My trunk is empty but if you got stuff in there don't want to set her on fire. Might be to warm then eh. The pad type your showing would make it easy to put the stock cover back on. Will play with some and then could extend the cord to the front of the car so you plug in like every one else.

People look at you funny when your plugging in at the trunk.

 

Yes we have seen a huge drop in MPG when my wife commutes to work which is like less than two miles but yesterday I had to make a meeting nearly four hours away.
On the trip there i picked up a big tail wind and was running 44.3 MPG for nearly four hours..this car handles wind very very well

On the way home I hit a signifigant head wind and still averaged nearly 41MPG

So some of that goes to its low coefficient of drag
Some of it goes to the long run time

Still very very pleased with the car overall

Still can't believe how well this car handles wind and cross wind

 

Yes it did 35 mpg @ 75 mph into a 40 mph headwind on the way back to San Diego without any handling problems on heavy side winds it was about 33 mpg at that speed and still not very noticeable steering problems.

 

So, installed a block heater for the ICE. No real change. Next, install heater into secondary cooling system. The somewhat jerky starts were mostly gone but watching what the ICE was doing with the battery got me thinking.

So what did you end up using for a block heater and also the coolant heater?

 

The block heater was put in at Hyundai, so for it, it's a Hyundai part. The secondary coolant heater was one from ZeroStart. Model 3305040. Must be in this family because the car runs at 86-95f and this model starts/stops at 60-80f.

 

Forgive me for sounding a bit confused, but... well I am. I'm not entirely sure how you've rigged up a battery heater in your trunk. Do you have any pictures? I would love to be improving my winter mileage now that I'm living out in Calgary.

My biggest issue is window defrosting - it fogs up in the cold weather and I need to use the defrost, which automatically kicks in the ICE for quite a while until something (perhaps it is the AC unit?) warms up and then I start noticing that I can get EV mode when stopped. That being said, like AC in the summer, it does seem to draw a fair bit of power from the battery and reduces the amount of time my ICE is off, thus reducing my mileage.

Current estimates this winter - I'm averaging about 6.5L/100km on the highway in the cold, but it's around 7-7.4 in the city. If I could get that down to 6-6.5 overall, I'd be happier.

 

Ceramic 12V Battery Heater on Optima Hybrid

See attached pic showing yesterday's ~42MPG results with -9F outside temp. Nice!

The other pic shows my HarborFreight $10 heater mounting with simple wiring, which was direct to 12Vbatt with an inline switch mounted in the cabin on the +12V wire leg. At this point I plan to manually turn the heater on/off, but now that I know this helps, I will want to get either a control timer and/or a temp sense circuit control too(so I don't worry about forgetting to turn it off). Be careful with your AWG wire & switch selection, since these heaters are rated 11Amps.

Hybrid after the update still sucks in the cold - Page 2

 

Ahh, nice work there! I am trying something similar on my 13hsh, certainly looking for tips as to the best result while not causing trouble with the warranty.

 

I think the earlier post showing a heater or some sort of element on the battery is a good idea. Something so that the battery is warm in the winter months for those who have to deal with it. And by warm i mean a battery that is maybe 50 degrees or so rather than 3 degrees like mine is going to be all next week here in Chicago. This is one the differences between this hybrid and other hybrids that utilize a liquid cooling system.

 

Yeah definitely notice a big difference in cold weather mpg and warm weather mpg... In the cold weather I get avg mpg in the lower 30s and in the warmer weather in the lower 40s.. . big difference...

 

Wayne just finished driving our sister 2014 Kia Optima Hybrid in the cold and discovered this:

"Hi All:

A tip for those with the Kia Optima Hybrid. It was 50 degrees this morning and I did not wear a jacket.

Do not run the heater on cold mornings, just the heated seats and wheel. If you run the heater, the engine will stay running even with the SoC at 7/8. SoC normally oscillates between 1/2 and 3/4 with slow speed city stuff allowing to drop one bar below 1/2 once in a while.

After watching SoC continue up to nearly topped off and the ICE still running while crashing the avg. I shut the cars HVAC heat down when I got to the local McDonald's Drive through 2.2 miles away. For the total RT, the Optima Hybrid EX allowed just 28.1 MPG with me driving. Word to the wise, use electric seat and wheel heater but do not use the HVAC heater until the car is warmed up on your normal commute. You will be very disappointed with the efficiency of your Optima Hybrid if you do not heed this work around.

Wayne"

Kia August 2014 Sales Up 5.1% with 54,667 Vehicles Sold + Optima Hybrid Review - CleanMPG Forums

 

This is really good advice. I'll try it here in Calgary, since we just went through a cold snap (and snow!!). Seat heaters, but not air heaters. I think my wife will prefer that too.