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Old 01-25-2012, 10:27 PM   #49 (permalink)
rmay635703
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard View Post
For efficient defrosting, the glass can be heat directly with electricity. Ford and others did this, with a very thin (sputtered) gold coating on the glass, apply electricity and it clears mist or frost within a few seconds.

We are so used to a ICE with all that waste heat -- you can heat the entire inside of the car easily. But heating the air to heat the glass and powering the fan, as well -- is just about the worst way to do it in an electric car.

One of the things I'm doing with the CarBEN EV5 is thermally *insulating* the entire car (foam core composite sandwich) and the side windows will be double glazed, if possible. This will make the inside more comfortable in all weather.
Insulation works wonders, just changing the door gaskets on my commuta made it much toastier.

Also my father used to have a car that looked like it had rear window defroster lines around the outside edge of the front window, I've often wondered why this cheap solution isn't used?

Afterall a single line can clear 4-6" in time, it would certainly "assist" and accelerate defrosting the front window.