Basic Motors believes EVs may 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 subtle heated windshield design that may 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 usually executed by blowing scorching air onto the windshield from inner vents. As with heating techniques used to heat car 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 might be unfold throughout the floor. Not like the defrosting grids used on rear home windows, it would not restrict visibility, GM claims. However based on GM, the restricted energy out there from 12-volt AC automotive accent electrical techniques—the standard supply of electrical energy in an internal-combustion automotive—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 way of bus bars to a layer of conductive materials utilized to the floor of a bit of glass. Windshields are usually 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 could possibly be helpful not just for enhancing visibility in wintry situations, but additionally 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 car cabins. Maybe that precept may even work for windshields.