Experimental Investigation on Heating Performance of Newly Designed Air Source Heat Pump System for Electric Vehicles

Utilizing the heat from air source with heat pump system in electric vehicles shows a significant advantage from thermoelectric heat source for heat supply in cold climate. It could improve the driving range of electric vehicles considerably in winter and replace the positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heater with an acceptable cost and reliability. In this work, a newly designed heat pump system was first introduced with less components and cost. Second, experiments were conducted to investigate its cooling performance, and subsequent heating performance from −10 to 10 °C. The typical heat transfer and flow characteristics of refrigerant were recorded, and the behavior of each component including compressor, evaporator, condenser, and outside heat exchanger were analyzed and interpreted. The results showed that the heating and cooling performance of the new heat pump system could almost remain the same with traditional air-conditioning system in automobile and surely satisfy with the heat requirement of electric vehicles. In the heating mode, the maximum heating capacity increases by 13% at 400 m³/h air volume from 300 m³/h at the ambient temperature −10 °C, while the outlet air temperature decreases by 4–6%. In addition, using a heat pump system showed an increase in the driving range of electric vehicles by 25–31% as compared to PTC heaters.