So far this winter we’ve had two freezing rain events. Each time there was about 1 cm of ice accretion. In the days gone by, incandescent lights produced a fair amount of heat and melted any ice. The LED lamps do not produce much heat at all so the ice just sits there. Sublimation is slow and scraping is a drag. That ice certainly reduces the illumination range making it very easy to overdrive the headlights. If the MINI detects the rain for the windshield and adjusts the wiper frequency, I think it should also recognize ice formation on the headlamps and provide some heating to keep the ice in check. Mike Wazowski & more ️️️ than &
Many years ago I retrofitted the GM heated washer fluid (not heated nozzles) system to my Jeep Wrangler. The warm fluid cleared ice off the windshield over 3 minutes or so vs scraping (because only a small additional reservoir fed from the main one was heated so you only got a few seconds of warm washer fluid every 40 seconds or so). It was a great system and that, combined with washer jets for headlamps, like our previous Land Rover had, would solve the issue.
Well now that it's more quiet in Ottawa, you should be able to visit a heated parking garage like Ottawa City Hall at off-peak times. Alternatively you could get an automatic laser wash and wipe the headlights dry.
The SE's side mirrors are heated winter and summer, regardless of the ambient temperature. Headlight-bucket heaters would take away even more of our very limited battery power and MINI would have to implement special sensors (or a timer-switch) to activate those heaters. Remember, this is the least-expensive (MSRP) EV in the US and MINI is starting to take away standard features (eg. rear camera parking lines, non-body-color roof) for the Signature trim rather than add new ones. The one range-negative feature I envy in the 2022 models--their heated steering wheel--is now reportedly at the mercy of the chip shortage.
It’s wild cars are delivering with so many less features because of the shortage. Are people being promised retrofits later?
