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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • I have lived in a cold climate area my whole life and have severe reynauds syndrome. It can be 100F and the second I touch an ice cube all of my fingers turn deathly pale. Nearly 100% of the time, no matter the temperature, I will have an extremity that has no blood flow. It is severe enough that it is physically debilitating. I can’t play in the snow with my kids for very long, or play guitar without running my hands under a hot tap. Right now I have a cheap box fan running on low, 10’ away, and four of my fingers have cut circulation. Because there is no blood in my fingers or toes, touching anything freezing cold feels like they are being stabbed. I’m also very prone to frostbite and have worried about losing my toes a few times due to it. I actually have little feeling in them and have lobbed of parts of my fingers off which can’t even slightly compare to the pain of grabbing a cold steering wheel. When I wash my hands the water has to be scalding hot and have accidentally caused others to scald themselves by forgetting to tell them.

    My body though? Can’t handle anything above 75f. I’m comfortable in just boxers in 50F. I overheat in long sleeves so easily that I own 1 longsleeve shirt. I had to get the HVAC tech at my work to change the air exchangers so that my work area was 60F so I didnt sweat through my PPE.

    Plus, mine is a lifelong curse unlike your wimpy little leukemia. I kid. I just wanted to complain a bit. Glad you beat the big C. I hope to never have that battle and hope it was your last.




  • There’s a few things a bunch of other commenters are getting wrong, at least from my understanding.

    The AC compressor is run by a belt from the engine. Unlike a home AC, a vehicles AC is either on or off. There is no cycling. The temp control is just changing how much outside air comes in, or how much heat is drawn from the engine.

    The fan speed is not going to effect anything at all. The alternator spins to generate electricity to recharge the battery, but the amount of energy required to spin it doesn’t change based on how much electricity is being drawn.

    Tamping your AC down in any way, whether by lowering fan speed, or increasing the temperature is less efficient. Use it at it’s coldest temp and highest fan speed if you’re going to use it at all.

    Edit: I almost forgot to add that AC efficiency is going to be more closely tied to your driving speed and outside air temperature. Driving faster makes your AC more efficient (not necessarily your whole car). More air passing over the evaporators means more heat released from your AC to the outside, which makes colder air in your car. The colder the air outdoors, the more heat the AC can release to the outdoors, which means colder air in your car.

    As for EVs, I have entirely no clue, but I would assume it’s a similar situation.

    Edit: I may be entirely wrong. I’m not sure about anything anymore. I know a guy who knows all about these things, let me get him down here tomorrow and we can go from there.