Is a heat pump a must?

[Thoringal]

Does anyone know how much a heat pump costs for the Skoda Enyaq Estate? Should I get one? Thanks.

[spinna1969]

A grand apparently. I’ve ordered a car without but have read about advantages.

[Ovv]

I believe there is a good comparison video on YT that shows the difference between two VW ID3's, one with one without, it looks like there is an advantage. I'm currently looking around at used Enyaq's and finding one with a heat pump is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

[ricky10]

I got a heat pump in my car but efficiency saving it’s enough to justify the £1k outlay tbh

Also it is only useful in winter. And they tell you heated seats and steering wheel is better than A/C in winter so that even further negate the usefulness of the heat pump

[orrery]

It is more use the smaller battery you have. Every Leaf has one as standard.

[IanEV]

It depends on the types of journeys you make. I don’t have one and don’t consider it necessary. I make maybe 10 over 200 mile trips a year at most. The rest of the time I charge at home and am not constrained without a heat pump

[RichR]

I wrote a long article on how the system works and who would benefit most.

TL;DR: if you mainly do short journeys (ie under 20 minutes) then no. If you do longer journeys especially when it’s cold then yes.

Personally I think all cars (not just EVs) and houses should have one. One of the most efficient ways of keeping things warm.

[ricky10]

Cars don’t need heat pumps to keep warm. Just dress appropriately.

No clue about what the other person going on about Nissan having a heat pump and how it helps - Nissan leaf is well known for having 0 cooling to its HV battery system until around 2019 edition. Heat pump is not for the battery. It is for the interior Climate control. God forbid the amount of ignorance and misinformation there are even within the community

[ChangoMutney]

It's best to think about it in range terms rather than money saving. EVs are cheap to run and I doubt many people would 'get their money back' on a heat pump. However in the winter or summer on longer journeys it reduces the heating or cooling power draw, giving you a longer range. If you calculate the range benefit per £, it works out as a similar cost to the range benefit / £ of going from the 60 to the 80. I'm glad I have it.

[Dorsetandy]

I’ve run an iV60, with no heat pump, and a Tesla Model 3, with a heat pump, side by side for the last 11 months. Both have covered approximately 6k miles over this period and are used for similar types of journeys, apart from using the Tesla on long trips due to the reliability and cost of their supercharger network. The Enyaq has averaged 3.7 miles kWh and the Tesla 5kWh which with very similar sized batteries gives respective ranges of 214 and 280 miles respectively. The differences are less in the summer with the Enyaq managing over 4 miles kWh dropping to 3 or less on the coldest winter days. The Tesla has never dropped below 4 miles kWh.

Appreciate there is an element of comparing apples and pears but both cars have been run on similar journeys so thought it might add some data to the debate.