Electrical heating device for a motor vehicle

The device (3) has separately controllable heating stages provided with a positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heating element (30). A control device (15) adjusts a heating power of each stage. Temperature sensors are connected with the control device. The sensors are associated to the stages. The control device includes a monitoring device for monitoring whether a temperature detected by one of the sensors exceeds a preset temperature value. The control device reduces the heating power when the monitoring device determines that the detected temperature exceeds the value.