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.
See 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. 
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!
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?
Take your kid to the bus stop? What happened to walking. In 2 feet of snow. Uphill.
Uphill … both ways.
Walking would be faster than the Changli if it’s uphill.
Bungee a 20# propane tank on the roof and run a 40 dollar heater inside. One tank should last all winter.
cheap chinese diesel heater from Aliexpress, keep with the theme
Awesome…and add the “roll coal” option too!
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?
Best translation is ‘lead dust recirculation unit’
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?!
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.
Molten lead on one’s balls can be quite painful.
I hate it when that happens.
Tell us more…… umm nevermind
You had to be THAT guy… Name checks out.
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.
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)
I knew I had seen a YouTube video showing that. Thanks for refreshing my memory!
Here it is… a real hairdryer as the window defroster…https://youtu.be/FyZd4_2unFM?t=598
At least he splurged for the 400w instead of the 200w.
For reference, here’s what a 200w looks like. $17 at Amazon all day long for what is a personal heater. You got to step up to the big bucks — $22 for 500w.
https://www.amazon.com/Lasko-100-MyHeat-Personal-Heater/dp/B003XDTWN2/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3VFGQSS1FGFGU&keywords=200+watt+personal+heater&qid=1698951638&sprefix=200+watt+personal+heat%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-5
Why stop with Otto? Maybe you can convert the Changli into something along these lines…
https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/03/30/the-tin-can-school-buses-of-india/
I mean if you strip the wires on this down, then connect it to one of the batteries, what’s the worst that can happen?
12V In Car Heater
Otto *did* say the new wiring in the backseat got hot while driving. Using even longer wires to connect the batteries, you could route them through the benches to create some Red Green-style heated seats!
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”.
If you made the floor panels removeable, you could probably Flintstone it when you run out of juice.
Loan it to David. The floor will spontaneously rust through.
And we are one step closer to Torch fully becoming our new David.
Chang Li – I believe that is Mandarin for mobile bus stop!
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.
It’s 31F, and the F stands for FREEDOM.
And Liberia agrees with you.
Shuddup. [Slinks away, embarrassed.]
That Changli is the coolest! Or maybe the coldest? Is there a difference?
Seriously though, listen to Toecutter and Fuzzyweis!!
Is it true that if you dress like a clown you can get more passengers in the Chang Li?
I LOVE clowns!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N9Fzv7bYCM
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).
this is Torch. Half assed is the ONLY way he does things.
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.
And a year is only assuming the terrible wiring job doesn’t engulf the car and occupants in flames long before then.
I’d bet you could get some good heat off your inadequate battery wiring.
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.
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!
Only a 6 hour job to take the dash off and fix it. Ask me how I know…better yet don’t the memory is still to painful.
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.
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…
So you’re saying that this morning is literally a “Cold Start”.
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. 🙂
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!)
Same.
‘This could get serious. Sure hope he upgraded those wires!’
Damnit: now I’ve got that stuck in my head!
Oh, well; Daft Punk washes out even the most insidious earworms
HEEEEEYYY MACARENA!! 😉
Imma ‘member you!
No go anyway: daughter subjected me to that for a couple years in middle school: Rush’s 2112: Overture washes it right away 🙂
Good to know – thanks! 😀
Oh, just sing “beans and beans and beans…” to the Meow Mix tune. My wife hates me now.
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.
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.
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
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.
Well without that turret your friend DEFINITELY would have gotten the business.
Jeez, I never had one with a gun mount either; in Iraq OR Afghanistan!
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.
Did we go to the same school?
Maybe. I was the kid dropped off in the very turretlless Pinto Country Squire.
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.
I think were related.
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…
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.
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.
Bullying. But Torch don’t give a damn.
I’m sure Otto doesn’t really give a shit either lol
Mental illness tends to run in families. YMMV
truer words
Drive him yourself! The new batteries aren’t gonna get range tested just going to the bus stop!
You’re creating memories that will last a lifetime…act accordingly.
Yeah, for ALL our lifetimes though!
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….”
COTD right here. Absolutely incredible.
That poor kid is going to spend so much time in therapy, they will end up giving him his own private parking spot.
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.
They’ll both spend time bonding in the burn ward first if that wiring doesn’t get changed.
Yes but with that wiring, it might only be 10 minutes.