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Comment by hwillis | Hacker News Reader

> The extended range is nice and all, but if somebody makes a car that can run the AC without running/draining the battery while it's parked, even if it's just a little to keep the car interior at 35°C or so, I would, without exaggeration, buy it the day it's released here.

Tesla's dog mode does this. Draining the battery isn't really something to worry about; AC uses <300 watts over long periods (turns on and off at <1 kW). Leaving it on for 8+ hours you're talking about <5% capacity loss, at a cost of <50 cents. For short trips you could leave the AC on full blast without even noticing a drop.

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It looks like the Hyundai Kona EV has a Utility Mode that works similarly (the headlights are off, the vehicle is locked in park, and you can run the AC indefinitely.)

However, based on this thread, utility mode requires the key fob, so someone could just break a window and steal the car. I wish manufacturers other than Tesla would think about these use cases:

https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/u...

It was mentioned later in that thread, but the Kona EV also lets you control the AC remotely via its mobile app without leaving the keys in the car. I don't know if it'll run indefinitely, though; my old Chevy Volt would turn off remotely started climate control after 15 minutes or so, and I haven't tried in the Kona yet.

That said, even if it is time-limited, 15 minutes is usually enough to cool down the car without leaving the AC on all day.

Any time limit defeats the point. An electric car isn't just a car without gas, it's a climate-controlled room you can put anywhere.

As global temperatures rise, there are places becoming increasingly uncomfortable to live in. There may be cases where it's cheaper to wait out the hottest days in your car, instead of retrofitting a cooling system onto a building.

I'm not sure how true that would be in extremely hot weather, but it is probably the only reason I'm considering a Tesla if it ever comes to my city, my commute is really short so even if it cut 200 miles off the range it'd be worth it for me.

Having a car with remote start alleviates the problem a little bit, but I'd rather not run an ICE engine while I'm not in the car for obvious reasons.

Even on constant full blast with the smallest battery Tesla sells, it's only gonna use ~2-3% per hour. Over 8 hours that would be 44 miles off the 220 mile range.

> but it is probably the only reason I'm considering a Tesla if it ever comes to my city

Hmm, Telsa should be pretty reachable. Perth and El Paso look like some of the only neglected hot cities.

I don't live in the US, as far as I'm aware there's only one Tesla store in my country and it's nowhere near me.

I figured- Perth is in Australia. If you're in Mexico you're pretty screwed, as is... South America, Africa, and most of Asia. You can check the map if you like!

https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=67.51085725091038%2C...

Mexico. I'm actually surprised there's one charging point in my city. I'd expect there to be none.

I'm pretty hopeful that we'll either get Tesla in a couple of years or other manufacturers will come out with something.

It seems that they deliver, if I'm reading the pages right. Not sure what being further away means for servicing though.

What do you mean by 'if it ever comes to my city'?

Yeah, can't you drive Teslas anywhere?

Sure, I mean they float, right?

I wouldn't want to own a car that can't be repaired locally.

Wouldn't chucking a bucket of water over the car with the evaporation help cool the car down quicker initially? Along with least reducing the amount of time needed to run idle for cooling.

Though this would depend upon the humidity, would not work in high humidity and equally work better in low humidity.

Sure, but for that to work you have to carry around buckets of water.

Not in the morning when you're at home.

This definitely makes Teslas more attractive to me. About half the homes on my (short) street have Teslas. I didn't know how little hot weather affected the battery usage. I had mistakenly assumed that A/C would have a greater negative impact on range.

It will on an older Leaf with a smaller battery. In Norway, you might be forced to turn of the heating in winter if traffic gets bad. But with double-digit kWh of battery capacity as a normally-unuser buffer, it won’t be much of a worry, if at all.

> Tesla's dog mode does this.

Dog mode is the main thing keeping me from trading in my Tesla for something else.

Tesla also has the milder "Cabin Overheat Protection" that can be turned on in settigns to keep the car interior from going over about 100 degrees fahrenheit.

You can also just turn on the AC from your phone 10 minutes before you leave. Or, have it learn your schedule so it prepares your car for you before you go.

In hot climates, even when the air temperature returns to tolerable levels, radiant heat from the various surfaces is no joke.

It helps that a Tesla battery can basically power a house for several days.

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