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Heated seat belts increase the range of electric vehicles on the mass market for the first time

You probably already have heated seats and possibly a heated steering wheel in your car. Are you ready for a heated seat belt?

That’s what ZF, one of the world’s leading auto suppliers, announced last week at CES. The innovation focuses on electric vehicles.

While it may sound extravagant and unnecessary, ZF has a point with its so-called Heat Belt. Every heating accessory in an electric vehicle is not just about convenience and luxury. It helps dispel the burden from conventional cabin heating.

In cold weather conditions, the heat in the cabin is the second largest energy consumption factor, only behind the propulsion system of electric vehicles running on the road.

ZF Heat Belt - heated seat belt for electric vehicles

ZF Heat Belt – heated seat belt for electric vehicles

Electric vehicles don’t have as much waste heat as internal combustion engines, so it’s not uncommon for electric vehicles to drop 20% in efficiency and driving range. According to ZF, the heating belt can allow up to 15% increase in range—by reducing the use of conventional climate systems and switching to direct contact heating, rather than air heating. The system consumes about 70 watts and raises the temperature of the seat belt material by 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).

It’s not too expensive either. According to ZF, the cost of adding seat belt heating is similar to the increasingly common part now added to the steering wheel.

For now, it’s a pragmatic approach amid some of the innovative approaches companies have demonstrated in recent years. 2012 BMW under investigation cabin heating based on infrared rays for the upcoming i3 EV, but it doesn’t appear in the production version. It’s a particularly attractive solution because it can selectively heat the surfaces of the vehicle (or its occupants)—but not the air in between.

Radiant cabin heating is another solution that automakers and suppliers have tried to tackle in recent years. In 2015, researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft demonstrated a lightweight “film-based film” for radiant heatonly a few micrometers thick, can be used to warm cabin surfaces.

Toyota bZ4X radiate heat

Toyota bZ4X radiate heat

A radiant heat form is an option on bmw i7, panel heating for the door armrests and center console. A more widely used radiant heating solution in Toyota bZ4X; it had the first radiant floor heating system on the US market.

That moment, heat pump is part of a solution to make climate control more efficient and help overcome the dilemma of cold-weather range loss for electric vehicles.

ZF Heat Belt - heated seat belt for electric vehicles

ZF Heat Belt – heated seat belt for electric vehicles

ZF’s thermal belt is market-first — at least in a way that can be scaled up for mass-market vehicles. So what took the industry so long to come up with this? One of the answers is that the seat belt is a core safety item, so it needs to comply with an endurance test that doesn’t apply to other heated items. A “special textile treatment” must be used to weave the heat conductors into the belt structure without affecting the belt performance; on the other hand protection is the same.

The supplier confirms that the belt is a fully developed product, but is still looking for its first customer. Given all the attention paid to the electric vehicle’s range—and the poor optics of early adopters stuck in the winter—it’s reasonable to assume we’ll see more features soon. this feature further.



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