Karma uses a PTC heater or thermal electric elements to heat the coolant in stealth mode. If you click the wavy lines off on the touch panel and the color goes to all blue then it turns the heater off. It should warm the coolant pretty quickly when functioning. If you uncheck or turn off ac it goes to full orange color. While true running the ICE helps warm it up, the only reason to do that is to conserve range as the PTC heater does pull alot of amperage and runs off of the HV battery thus reducing the range of the car in the winter. Id say she may need to be looked at if it isnt working at all you shouldn't need the ICE for heat.