Originally Posted by
Old Farang
Not sure who has written that, but I would hope that Nissan cars don't use what is written there!
Utter rubbish!
Bollocks! Unless it has an air muff around the exhaust as in a piston engine light aircraft!
All vapour compression type air conditioners can be referred to as "heat pumps". Heat energy is being moved from one place to another, and the only place that after years of working with them, it is only the Yanks use that terminology. And the ones that I know about are just used as heaters, with what should be the evaporator buried in the ground.
I don't know about later Land Rovers, but my ancient Discovery uses a conventional type vapour compression air con system. BUT, the hot water from the engine is also continuously circulated through a separate heater matrix, or radiator type of core, along with the air con evaporator mounted in an air box. The cabin temperature is controlled by mixing the cabin air across both parts.
Reverse cycle air cons still work on the same principle, but the circuit is reversed so that internal part becomes the condenser, and the external part becomes the evaporator.
Modern engine driven car air cons now use a variable displacement compressor, that although it still runs at a speed depending on the drive ratio as in a conventional "old" type, the output, and therefore the load, is regulated to what is needed. A bit like what happens in a invertor type house air con. The end result is a more efficient system energy wise.
Much research has been done on EV cars on different types of air cons, and various systems are now in use. It should also be kept in mind that a big source of heat with a ICE car is now not there, so the cooling requirement is a lot less.