You might have a heat pump in your house. Now it's increasingly likely you'll also have one in your EV.
BY Adele Peters2 minute read In freezing temperatures, a typical electric vehicle can lose a lot of battery power. The range on a Chevy Bolt or BMW i3, for example, can be cut roughly in half. But adding a heat pump can help solve a large part of the problem, which is why the technology is beginning to show up in a growing number of EVs. Winter affects EV batteries in two ways. First, lithium-ion batteries work a little more slowly in the cold, so they're less efficient. But the biggest issue comes from turning on a car's heat. The first generation of electric vehicles kept passengers warm with resistive heating, which quickly drains the battery. Gas cars don't have the same challenge—ironically, that's because they run so inefficiently, generating a lot of waste heat. "If you're on a road trip and you put your hand on the car, you can feel the heat of the engine. . . . It can channel that waste heat into the cabin to warm the passengers," says Andy Garberson, who leads research at Recurrent, a company…