It seems that too many people freeze in their cars because they burn up their gas running the engine to keep warm. Or they are worried that they are going to run out of gas and they get out and get lost, and that's it for them.

It would be more efficient to heat your car by burning gasoline directly than by running the engine and using the car's normal heating system.

Cars in blizzard areas should come with a hand or foot-pumped gasoline burner that vents to the outside of the car. It would ideally be integrated into the design of the car, but could be carefully designed as an add-on.

This and a few of your favorite MRE's would probably give you a couple of days of not freezing to death so the rescue people could find you.
-- nomocrow, Feb 06 2007

Webasto heating systems http://www.batmanuk.com/webasto.htm
PETROL 12 Volt PART No. 41 SK464 £598.00 + vat [angel, Feb 06 2007]

Espar heaters http://www.espar.com/
[afinehowdoyoudo, Feb 08 2007, last modified Jul 23 2008]

Some coaches in UK have space-heaters powered by diesel.
-- angel, Feb 06 2007


I think they had these on old Volkswagens. I think people kept burning their cars up so they stopped.
-- jhomrighaus, Feb 06 2007


[jhomrighaus], I think those fires were more likely caused by the poorly made fuel lines in old VWs (Hitler's revenge, I think they called it).
-- discontinuuity, Feb 06 2007


They used a gas heater because the engines were air cooled.

When they went to liquid cooling they just used the normal method
-- dev45, Feb 06 2007


Actually they went to exhaust heat exchangers on the Air Cooled engines, then the liquid came when the air cooled engines went.
-- jhomrighaus, Feb 06 2007


Yep, I had one of the exhaust heat exchanger ones.
-- baconbrain, Feb 07 2007


Gasoline is too volitile to be used as a direct fuel for heating. One thing that seems to work well is one of those propane camping lights. It gives you plenty of light but it also radiates a great deal of heat.
-- Jscotty, Feb 08 2007


Motorola used to make a gasoline-fueled automotive heater. Too dangerous.

That having been said, a built-in gasoline burner that was designed for the purpose of producing heat might be a useful addition to a car engine; it could both expedite the delivery of heat to the passenger compartment and hasten the heating of the engine oil.
-- supercat, Feb 08 2007


I'm really envisioning this for emergency use with radiant heat, just enough to keep you from feezing to death - with a hand pump so that you don't have to start the car to make it work.
-- nomocrow, Feb 08 2007


Baked . See links. If you said "self-powered gasoline car heater" I would agree, it is a good idea. As it is, the smallest Espar heater draws about 2A@12V. Or if you said "affordable.." but thats just a WIBNI.. Jscotty, be careful using a propane camping light in an enclosed space - fuel burning appliances can produce deadly concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) - only 400 ppm - if operated without ample oxygen for combustion. Allow me to emphasize: harmful amounts of CO can be created long before actually expending the available air.
-- afinehowdoyoudo, Feb 08 2007


Thank you [jhomrighaus]
-- dev45, Feb 09 2007



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