Making electric vehicles better with diesel power

Winter is hard on electric vehicles.
Turn on the heat and it gets even harder.
The electrical motor and inverter put off barely any heat compared to an internal combustion engine, so no free heat.
Mine uses a set up like a hot water heater element immersed in antifreeze and the antifreeze is circulated through a normal heater core.
I figured if the weak heater became a problem I'm sure I could figure something out.
Well it became a problem and I think I figured it out. I decided that I would like lots of heat with little to no loss in range.
A feat not even the newer heat pump heater cars can match.
I'm looking at the Eberspacher diesel fired coolant heater. It puts off between 15,000 and 5,000 BTUs per hour. The leaf has a display for how much power is going to its electric heater. It usually draws between 1,000 and 5,000 watts, which is between 3,400 BTUs per hour and 17,000btu per hour.
So the diesel coolant heater lines up pretty well with what the factory electric heater already does.
I figured it will probably use around a gallon of diesel per month.

 

I would have that engine drive an alternator to contribute charging the batteries.

 

You don't read much about how a Prius is affected by cold weather. The batteries don't work as well.

 

Excellent problem solving! Looks like the perfect solution.

 

I think those are also going to draw some electricity as well. Betcha it's going to be a few if not several amps. Just sayin.

 

The high voltage DC powered heater will probably draw a little power with the diesel heater tied in. But I'm thinking it will draw a few hundred watts as opposed to the 2,000 to 3,000 watts it seems to like drawing during normal operations.

The diesel heater draws around 10 amps on start up then levels off to around 2 or 3 amps in operation. So between 140 on start up down to 30 or 40 watts on the low end.

 

I did end up buying one of these German made hydronic heater.
A week ago.
and still waiting for it to show up at my house.

 

Back in the 1930-40 pep boys sold a catalytic heater for the cars then, only problem was it consumed the air in the cabin and killed people. Oops
However something similar might be considered with more controls obviously and safety measures.

 

My 1974 VW Safari (Type 181) had a gasoline heater

better than nothing, just barely.

 

The hydronic heater is fully vented out side. The heat is put into the heater coolant loop so I get use of the built in heater functions, defrost, foot blower vent with out the loss in range.