That’s VERY up close. It’s significantly less obtrusive a few feet away.
Hehehe, I find it actually quite pleasant, kind of like an ambient synth piece.
Ha…that’s what I thought too. I can “om” out to that. 
crunching some numbers on my 2014 LEAF:
getting average of 7km/kWh
Tier 1 electricity pricing 0.12 CAD/kWh (not counting the 0.22/day basic cost)
100 km = 14.3 kWh
Gas price = $1.70 CAD/litre
Works out to equivalent 235 MPG (US gallons)
That’s VERY efficient! Is it mostly around town driving? Our Lyriq is about 3 mpkw but it’s mostly highway. Much bigger car, or course.
We are at 5600 miles in our Tesla and it works out to 3.1 miles per KWh. We’ve spent $272 to charge (that includes a few trips with Tesla Superchargers). On our Subaru, with current gas prices that would be about $800 in fuel.
And yes, the Leaf is efficient. That’s about 4.4 miles per KWh. Of course, I do drive with a heavy foot (pulled over once for speeding already)…I’m sure I could do a lot better if I wanted to.
Yes, mostly around town, not much highway driving, and that’s usually only at 80 km/h
I was in my house, with the windows closed, & was able to hear it go by. I don’t know if it’s the model or this particular unit but that’s too loud
The RAV4s are also fairly loud going forward. I can tell when our friend is pulling up to our house. And, she often takes our dog and our dog goes a running to the door because he knows.
The ice cream truck that patrols our neighborhood plays a never-ending loop of “Turkey in the Straw.” Maybe auto manufacturers need to think outside of the box like that.
Then you’ll have children running into the streets looking for ice cream. Safety would most likely decrease.
Saw a test of the F150 Vs the new Ram 1500 towing 6800# up to the Eisenhower tunnel and back in CO. They averaged 4.7 MPG. Now I know charging times and fillup times are drastically different, but my 32 gallon tank would be $100+. A Chevy Silverado EV (that could go further) would be $30 in MT. Might be worth getting a burger.
News report; owner of a new Cybertruck in Alberta got two hours usage of it before it bricked, possibly because of the cold.
From the article:
Tesla employs a heat pump on the Cybertruck to increase the heating and cooling efficiency. This is good for preserving battery power and range, but there are questions about how effective this system is in harsh environments.
I have been advised by my home heating guy that a heat pump is not an option for my house, because they just don’t work well in our winters. Dunno how that translates to a heat pump in a vehicle.
The Model Y and several other vehicles have been using heat pumps for years now with no problem. There were some initial teething pains they had to get through, though. And this is a different architecture due to the 48 volts and other things.
You do need a source of resistive backup heat. Some vehicles put in a separate heating unit. The Model Y at least runs the motor windings in a deliberately inefficient way to generate more heat when needed. Saves a part and simplifies the overall architecture, but it is probably harder to get right initially.
In a car there are things which are too hot, and things which are too cold. The Tesla heat pump works with the cooling system to move heat from the too hot things to the too cold things. It is not completely dependent on outside air.
For example, in the summer the AC (aka heat pump) moves heat from inside the cabin, and perhaps puts it in the battery to warm it up in advance of supercharging. In the winter, waste heat from the motors and electronics can be put in the cabin.
Obviously if there is not enough or too much heat the outside air can be used as a source of heat or a place to dump excess heat. Even -40 air still contains heat, it is just hard to get.
Mach E is getting a heat pump in MY2025. I’m a little dubious, because my 2021 and my 2024 have been perfectly serviceable without a heat pump, and this is reportedly going to take away from my frunk space (I have a 2025 on order – hey, I love this carline).
In cold weather the heat pump is going to extend the range slightly, but in warmer weather, it’s just added, unnecessary weight. It’s also an additional potential point of failure.
I really hope that Ford did proper due engineering diligence on this decision rather than having Marketing simply listening to all of the dumb Reddit subs that say that “a heat pump is necessary.”
I’m not anti-heat pump. I installed a pricey ground-source heat pump (“geothermal”) in my previous house. Its ROI was six years. I was awesome. I wish I had the space to install one on my current property – vertical has no ROI for me.
A heat pump shouldn’t require significantly more mass/volume. It’s just air conditioning in reverse, after all, so the normal AC compressor gets replaced with a dual-purpose one. The valving gets more complicated but Tesla at least has shown how to simplify that with their octovalve. And of course you lose the big resistive heater and all the stuff related to that. Seems like about a wash overall.