Basic Motors believes EVs might assist enhance the common-or-garden heated windshield.

In a patent software printed by america Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) on July 13, 2023 (and initially filed Jan. 12, 2022), GM describes a extra refined heated windshield design that might use embedded components and draw energy from an EV’s battery pack to take away ice, mist, and different obstructions to imaginative and prescient.

Basic Motors heated windshield patent picture

Windshield heating is generally carried out by blowing sizzling air onto the windshield from inside vents. As with heating methods used to heat automobile cabins, that warmth can come from an internal-combustion engine or, in an EV, a warmth pump or resistance heater. Whatever the warmth supply, this methodology works comparatively slowly, initially clearing solely small areas the place the heated air first hits the windshield and figuring out, GM notes.

Embedding electrically conductive components within the windshield can warmth the floor extra evenly, as a result of these components could be unfold throughout the floor. In contrast to the defrosting grids used on rear home windows, it would not restrict visibility, GM claims. However in response to GM, the restricted energy out there from 12-volt AC automotive accent electrical methods—the standard supply of electrical energy in an internal-combustion automobile—would restrict the effectiveness of such a system.

Basic Motors heated windshield patent picture

GM’s resolution is to make use of DC present, which is produced by an EV’s battery pack. In line with the patent software, the present could be fed by means of bus bars to a layer of conductive materials utilized to the floor of a chunk of glass. Windshields are typically made with laminated glass, comprised of a number of layers, permitting the coated floor to be sandwiched between layers and radiate warmth outward to them.

Patented concepts do not at all times make it to manufacturing, however a heated windshield like this might be helpful not just for enhancing visibility in wintry circumstances, but in addition probably for enhancing EV cold-weather vary. Direct heating with heated seats—and even heated seat belts—is considered extra environment friendly than blowing heat air for heating automobile cabins. Maybe that precept will even work for windshields.