Live From Parked Changli At The Bus Stop: Cold Start

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This is a bit of an experiment: I’m writing this on my phone from inside the Changli at my kid Otto’s bus stop, because I took him to the stop in the Changli, for fun, but then I got a notice that the bus would be late so we’re camped out here, waiting. In the cold. The little EV has become an ersatz cabin. This is our new life.
Img 9257See that switch? It’s for the heater. It’s 31 degrees outside, so let’s test it!

Huh. It’s excellent at producing white noise, less so at generating heat. Img 9258
I wonder if that label actually says WHITE NOISE GENERATOR from the PEOPLES’ WHITE NOISE GENERATION FACTORY or something like that. Because it sure as hell makes no heat!
Seriously, I think the air coming out is colder than the ambient air! How is that possible? Useless!
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Is it coming? I’m deep in the sunk cost fallacy now, because it’s been like an hour! It’d be crazy to drive him now, right?
Right?

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Mercedes Streeter

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81 thoughts on “Live From Parked Changli At The Bus Stop: Cold Start”

  3. I thought your battery wiring was supposed to keep the cabin warm.

    Also, what’s the unused switch location for? Did you not order the AC option?

  5. Inquiring minds want to know!
    DID you end up running Otto in?
    DID you end up waiting and waiting?
    DID the bus ever show up?
    DID you both die of exposure?

    What’s story?!

  6. When l was young I had no sense.
    Drove my Changli thru an electric fence.
    The damn thing sparked but it was small.
    Looked back when Otto screamed.
    Exploding batteries had burned his balls.

  7. Well, for reference, my PHEV’s have had 5000-6000 watt heaters. This has a 400 watt heater. You are getting the heat output of about 25% of a hairdryer. Didn’t one of the the electric cars from the 70’s or 80’s actually use a hairdryer under the dash as the heater?

    Have you considered an electric seat cover? Heated seats are the most efficient way to take the chill off.

    1. Yes, the Electrek “Uncar”! Aging Wheels (on YouTube) did a great dive into one.

      (edited to put quotes around the name that was only used in advertising, and because the edit button’s still a cool novelty)

  11. Looks like bottom line of text says “Hebei Langfang Zhenxing Heater Factory”, production date 2020. The logo in the top left says “revitalize” according to Google Translate, but then the same characters in the company name just under the wireloom is “Zhenxing Electric”.

  15. I read “31 degrees” as 31c and wonder wtf you’d think to test the heater in that temp.

    Then I realized you’re probably saying 31f and, sure, that’s chilly.

  18. The Changli could see a massive upgrade with three 6-packs of these LiFePO4:

    https://batteryhookup.com/products/new-case-with-6x-3-2v-74ah-lifepo4-prismatic-cells?variant=43706622902434

    $630 + shipping, plus the cost of an inexpensive charger would allow you to arrange a single string of 18 of the 74AH batteries in series for 57.6V nominal. The pack would weigh 86 lbs. If all cells are initially bottom balanced to within 0.001V, when configured as a single series string, no BMS is needed with this chemistry. As long as the connections are consistent between cells, it may never need another balance again for decades. It would be a 4.2 kWh pack and the Changli would have a 60+ mile range. The Changli would retain all of its original power, and then some thanks to less voltage sag under load, and it would lose hundreds of pounds of weight. And its fire risk on part of the battery would be almost non-existent(that funky wiring is another issue. Get that shit replaced ASAP).

      1. I predict his current battery pack won’t last more than a year before one or more batteries fails on him. Doing a full range test with those, and then NOT immediately charging them up, will be a quick way to this failure.

    1. Maybe “inadequate” isn’t the right word, because if your skinny wires get you to the bus stop and back without melting, then they’re adequate. For now.

  20. If it makes you feel better my Ram has some sort of blend door issue going on which means I have heat but I can’t get it into the cabin.. equally frustrating!

    2. I had the opposite problem in my old Ranger. I had either Max Heat, or Max AC, and nothing in between. I built an Arduino thermostat to control the coolant flow into the heater core. Ugly and unrefined, but marginally effective.

    3. I think that’s a Dodge problem; my Grand Caravan has had the same problem. First 2 times was under warranty, now we just suffer with it…

  22. If you do decide to drive him, please use a different vehicle. You don’t want to heat the cabin with the suboptimal wiring on the batteries.

    Once you’ve replaced those wires, though? Everybody Chang Li tonight! And we’ll be looking for a trip report. Extra points for video of the ride and of people reacting to Big Red. 🙂

    1. Yeah, you’re possibly getting more heat out of the melting wires than you are the “heater”.
      Seriously though: upgrade the wiring STAT and get another plug-in heating device. I wouldn’t trust that magic white box to not create a fire. (at least then it would produce heat!)

  23. If that thing has a 12v outlet anywhere, for future cold weather adventures I recommend just getting a 12v electric blanket you can bust out. Power draw isn’t that bad and should be fairly cozy.

  24. All I’m wondering is if the other kids think the Changli is the coolest/funniest thing to get out of or grounds for endless bullying/teasing.

    1. My middle school was so mean it wouldn’t have mattered if a kid got out of an up armoured HUMVEE with a machine gun turret up top, the other kids somehow, someway would have found some kind of weakness for their emotional IEDs

      1. funny enough, my elementary/middle-school best friend’s dad drove an armored HUMVEE. Only, the turret was unfortunately removed and replaced with a plate. I think at some point he built a turret for shows and whatnot, though. That thing was stoopid fun. Where he parked in the driveway, there was a pile of coke and beer bottle caps under the rear bumper, cause we’d open them by holding the caps on the bar and smacking them.. He’d floor it before speed bumps and jump the thing, we went though rivers at offroad places near us.. the windows would be underwater.. dude was nuts. And I loved that HUMVEE. He also had a civilian H1 that was less cool. Also, I was lucky that my middle school wasn’t too bad, but kids are shitty, so I can only imagine.

            1. Why would you need one there? Insurgents got nothing on American middle schoolers!

              Besides in Regan’s America your ride might as well have been taking point in a SF pride parade if it didn’t have at least ONE belt fed up top.

          1. 15-passenger Econoline with most of the seats out of it. Usually late, until I lied to my Dad and told him that school started 30 minutes earlier than it actually did. Being late seems to be the family curse.

      3. You think your middle school was mean?

        Mine removed all of the stall doors from the Boys’ rooms(and some of the rooms had the stalls removed altogether, like the locker room, leaving the toilet users fully exposed to an audience), and the kids there would relentlessly bully anyone who needed to take a sit-down toilet break. There were also metal detectors, on-campus police, and if the bullies were on a sports team the staff looked the other way regardless of what they did to other students. I used to sneak alcohol in there to pass the time. It was less a school, and more a prison.

        So glad I haven’t had to set foot in that place for 24 years…

        1. We at least had toilet doors. Those might have been removed after I left though with the aforementioned Reagan’s America and its renewed wars on everything. Drugs, D&D fueled Satanism, anything but abstinence, heavy metal, commies, take your pick.

          Ditto on our middle school athletes getting a universal “boys will be boys” pass on behavior that would get most adults rightfully sued or put in jail. I’m SO glad none of that shameful elitist nonsense carried up through high school and college into the real world.

          1. I’m SO glad none of that shameful elitist nonsense carried up through high school and college into the real world.

            Your sarcasm is hilarious.

            Drugs, D&D-fueled Satanism, anything but abstinence, heavy metal, commies, are all things I enjoy. I discovered them long after the Reagan administration. Good times.

      2. Memories that last a lifetime…and are recounted to a therapist.

        “The Changli started smoking, so my dad made me jump out….and then he pulled out a chainsaw….”

          1. Growing up in a safe and boring environment does not preclude you from spending a lot of time with a therapist. Ask me how I know.

            For what it’s worth, this childless fella with no experience raising a kid thinks Jason is doing a fine job at being a father.

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