48-volt pulsed power defrosts automobile glass in 60 seconds

Cold-weather climates face the challenge of quickly and efficiently defrosting automobile windshields. The legacy approach of channeling the wasted heat from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to the windshield is slow and inefficient. The windshield defrosts in a non-uniform pattern, wasting energy by melting the entire ice layer.

“The traditional way that automobiles defrost glass is just flooding the surface with heat,” said Betterfrost Technologies CEO Derrick Redding of this industry’s legacy methods of dealing with icy windshields.

EVs introduce a new defrost challenge.

In cold weather, EVs and PHEVs do not produce any waste heat to be recovered, a major difference from ICE systems. That leaves the vehicle to draw energy from the main battery – the same power source that provides propulsion. This drains the battery and reduces range, a noted consumer concern with EVs.

Betterfrost Technologies (Betterfrost) has unveiled its rapid-ice-melting technology that leverages 48V and a proprietary algorithm. Their breakthrough premise is that ice does not need to be melted completely to be removed from the windshield. It’s enough to weaken the bond between ice and glass at the “interfacial layer.” This allows ice to slide off the window rather than melting it all easily.

By sending short, controlled pulses of power through the glass surface, Betterfrost creates a thin, quasi-liquid layer beneath the ice, releasing it instantly from the windshield without wasting energy by heating the entire surface. Pulsed power interacts with the windshield’s fully coated, low-emissivity (low-E) glass layer. Low-E conductive coatings, such as silver or indium tin oxide, serve as the electrical pathway for uniform heat distribution through Betterfrost’s proprietary power control algorithms. Betterfrost controls energy and melts a very thin ice layer in less than a minute (its record is 42 seconds), using 20X less energy than it takes nearly 25 minutes for traditional HVAC systems.

“The key insight was getting the ice to release off a surface,” said Redding. “The most efficient way is to pulse power so the heat only reaches the interfacial layer – maybe a tenth of a millimeter – so the ice just slides right off. And it doesn’t matter how thick the ice is. Our method uses the same amount of energy and time to remove it.”