Ford wants electric cars to continue to use “underfloor heating”.

An important question with electric cars remains: “How can a car go as far as possible?”. A simple answer is to make the battery bigger. However, this is expensive, not good for the environment and makes a heavy car. Also, a large battery takes longer to charge and you spend more money on electricity. Ford now has a solution to keep your electric vehicle going further without increasing the battery size: underfloor heating.

Ideally, you want an electric car to go as far as possible with the smallest possible battery. To achieve this, a car not only has to be light and streamlined, it also has to use electricity efficiently. The same applies to the equipment.

Not the first with local heating for electric cars

Ford isn’t the first to come up with the idea. Last January, a major powertrain and chassis supplier, ZF Friedrichshafen AG, presented a heat belt. By keeping your body warm in this way, you would save up to 15 percent of energy.

Heating in the floor mats of the Ford E-Transit

Ford takes a slightly different approach and wants to keep you warm as you drive through multiple surfaces. Ford engineers tested an E-Transit equipped with heated armrests, floor mats, door panels, sun visors and an under-steering wheel panel.

According to the American brand, you save around 13 percent when heating without the electric heating from the grid, but with local heating. In practice, the Ford E-Transit only increased the range by 5 percent. You might ask yourself whether it’s worth it.

Also, our readers have wondered about windows fogging up when you don’t have the heating or air conditioning on. We submitted this question to Ford, this article will be updated when we have an answer from the American brand.