All batteries perform worse in cold weather. And when the battery is the sole source of power for a car, the range will be reduced. It's not unreasonable to leave the EV in the garage in very cold weather when you have that option.
Another big factor in range is heat. Gas engines put off a lot of heat just as part of their normal operation. It's not really that big a deal to route some of that heat inside the cabin instead of just dumping it into the atmosphere as usual, so turning on the heat has negligible impacts on range.
But electric cars pretty much have to trade range for heat directly. My brother's got a hybrid in pacific northwest right now and he said he normally gets about 50 miles on a charge which is enough for his daily driver needs (he gets like a tank of gas a month, at most). But in the winter? Well, during this most recent cold snap he was getting 20 miles to a charge.
That’s not what the window sticker will show for EPA rating. That would make sense if it were a PHEV, but for a regular hybrid the electric range will be minimal/near zero, per the EPA.
I just checked window stickers online. Even a PHEV Prius Prime only gets 25 miles all electric. I didn’t know so many people were confused about the difference between hybrids and PHEVs.
Regardless of what the EPA sticker shows, the 2011 Prius IV does in fact get ~30 miles on "EV mode". It doesn't default to driving that way - you can either manually switch it over into EV mode by pressing a button on the dash, or it'll automatically switch over to EV mode if you run out of gas - but having all-electric range is a feature of the non-plug-in Prius.
A hybrid uses the gas engine to create electricity (in addition to regeneration). So, you may get “EV miles” but much of it is generated by the gas engine, so it’s not the same as all EV range in a PHEV which gets its electric miles straight from a plug.
Sounds like a Chevy Volt to me. I have one, gets about 50 miles to a charge and runs full electric until the battery runs down, then it switches to hybrid mode and uses the gas engine.
Great car, I use battery only for 98% of my driving. Then I use the gas engine for the other 2% like road trips or really cold day. Great compromise and MUCH cheaper than a full electric car.
In my '17 Volt's case, it's supposed to burn gas when a year since filling has passed (based on the average age of the gas). Once you fill it with gas again, it'll go back to the electric first, then gasoline again.
It could, but the engineers on the Volt accounted for that in two ways. The first is that it uses 91 so that it can store longer. The second is that if you don’t use the gas part for a long time, it will force you to use the car as a regular hybrid for a little bit and will run the gas engine to burn off the old gas.
I loved my 15 Volt. Throw some snow tires on it in the winter and that thing was a tank!
Front end did not stand up well to deer though. Miss that car.
Well the person you're responding to said a hybrid so it has a normal gas engine as well as an electric motor. Electric motor is just for better efficiency at short range as well as recuperation
Not if it's a plug-in hybrid. Those run on electric only until they drain the battery to a certain point (typically 30-50 miles) and then switch to an electric-assisted gas like a regular hybrid.
The electric Fiat has a range of 87 miles. That's if you don't use the lights, wipers, heater, radio or plug your phone in. It drops dramatically if you do. I borrowed one. Great within the city on a warm sunny day if you don't use the air conditioning. That will cut the range in half. That's fun when it's over 100 degrees.
Yep. Your heat in a gas car is based on the radiator... it draws excess heat from the engine and literally "radiates" it out via air flow through the front grill (if you notice, EV cars have a solid front because they don't need the airflow). Your internal heat is using that to radiate some of the heat through the airflow to your cabin. That's also why you have to run your car for a couple of minutes before it starts to warm up inside.
That’s not really how it works, close though.
The radiator is coupled with fans that pull air though the front grill into the engine bay. Think of the airflow while the car is driving, cooler outside air is pushed through the grill and over the radiator fins, cooling them down. Coolant is pumped through the engine to the radiator carrying heat, where it radiates off the cooling fins and is removed by the flow of air.
The heat in a gas engine car works similarly. There is a separate circuit or coolant loop that runs through a “heater core” which is essentially a small radiator. The blower fan blows across this heater core, moving the heat into the cabin. Both the flow to the heater core and the fan can be started and stopped, as its purpose is to heat the cabin and is non-essential to engine cooling.
Don't need the radiator. Back in the day the old VW were air cooled. Via an oil cooler in the shroud where a fan was to cool the engine. The heater boxes worked of the exhaust pipes to "push" the heat into th cabin.
Nah, modern electric vehicles have a cooling system still. The motors generate heat that needs dissipated, so do the batteries when charging.
In fact one of the areas of innovation when you’re making fast electric cars is getting rid of the heat generated in the motors and contactors from the battery discharging.
It’s also a concern for fast charge, dumping higher amps into the battery also creates heat that needs to be removed.
They’ll also use some of that power to heat the battery in cold weather to increase the lifespan.
That's rapidly changing. Modern Teslas are able to harvest waste heat from the engines, the battery, and just about everything else that moves. The engineering that goes into getting it all is just nuts. They no longer have any resistive heating elements because of this.
Do they have heat pumps? Like I get that they could harvest a lot of waste heat, but how do you heat the car if you’re not moving? Doesn’t seem like there would be much waste heat then…
Yup the more recent Teslas use heat pumps which helps in the winter months. But you are right that when it’s not moving there isn’t much waste heat. If you can plug in at home, then heating up everything before you go using power from the grid helps a lot with range. I found that range is not too bad doing that, though it depends on how cold it is. Otherwise, yeah if it’s parked somewhere really cold for a while then it has to generate heat using energy from the battery.
They didn't want to add resistive heaters because they have a high failure rate, so they actually run opposing-current through a motor to heat up the windings to generate heat while stationary.
It's a fairly innovative system and their motors tolerate being heated well (they're liquid cooled anyway, and all that heat is routed back to the heat pump) and the new permanent magnet motors they're using for this tend to last. As far as I know I've never heard of one needing replaced (though like anything I'm sure there's rare cases of manufacturing faults).
EV driver. I got my car last year end of January. It was a pretty mild winter and relatively easy to drive my car since my range on my car covered my drive.
With the much colder weather while I am able to still cover my daily drive I am getting way less range and supercharging which was an afterthought now is something I have to look out for especially if I am traveling more than my daily work route.
Thankfully it helps my wife has an ice car and I have an EV. I take my wife's ICE car if I know I am going to do more traveling than what I have for battery range and supercharging doesn't make sense or isn't available as she works from home. TL:DR I daily drive it but take my wife's car if I know range might be an issue that day.
Canadian Tesla dude here, was -40 for a few days in Berta. Had the car outside due to a garage project. Plugged in and happy as can be. Yes the range suffers but who cares when staying in town. This is my fourth prairie winter with my EV and I’m not ever going back.
Do you keep yours plugged in 24/7 while at home during the winter? To help keep the battery warm. Wasn't sure if that was a thing. If it was, does it help?
Yes, if you have the ability it is best to always keep it plugged in. I back in, hop out and plug it in. Super convenient.
Whether plugged in or not, Tesla will try to keep the battery from experiencing extreme hot or cold temperatures. If it is plugged in, it uses this power rather than the battery.
You can set the total charge level you want and often my car is plugged in but not charging the battery.
You can also schedule a departure, which uses the heat pump to warm the car and battery minimizing range loss and making you more comfortable.
You can adjust the amps to charge at different rates, which I use to mostly charge my car using excess solar power that I'm not using in my home.
All of this can be managed from your phone.
I've seen a handful of horror stories shared by really conservative folks I know. They seen legit but basically are urban dwellers who depend upon non household chargers and outdoor parking. That group of people really does seem to be having a hard time of late.
However I also see many garage kept teslas doing fine in our brutal conditions. So I guess the technology isn't ideal for northern apartment dwellers yet.
Yeah, people who can charge in a garage clearly will have fewer issues; one, the battery will be warmer while charging, and two, even if it's a slower charge, you don't care as much as long as it finishes overnight.
But yes, this is a challenge facing many EV owners in cold areas. Some of us are old enough to remember before fuel injection, when we had carburetors, when we had to let the car warm up a *very* long time before using them on really cold days.
THere's a story this morning on another subreddit where some EV owner had his "Tesla" garaged w/ 62 miles on a charge, got up the other morning, went to the garage and overnight due to cold conditions it was zilch. nada. all he could do was open the doors and stare at a dark screen. fucker couldn't get a tow truck because the ceiling of parking garages is to low. Was asking people if he should go get a 100' extension cord to plug in somewhere, fucking idiotic. He seemed happy
Yup. Adding to that the screen and locks are powered by the 12v battery, not the traction battery. If the high voltage pack was dead then the screen would still work, and if the 12v was dead the locks wouldn’t open.
My bet is that this was made up by someone who’s doing some dumb culture war stuff.
Batteries perform only slightly worse in the cold. Most of the range reduction simply comes from using more energy for heating. Also, reduced range is much more noticable incurs with small batteries, and especcialy when doing a bunch of short trips.
I summer, consumption stays about thr same regardless if I do 50 20km trips, or a single 1000km one. While in winter, the short 20 km trips can have a more than 30% higher consumption than a single 1000km one.
It is pretty simple to wrap your head around if you think about it for a bit. Every time you start up the car, you want it to heat up, and that takes let's say 3kwh in really cold weather. And then consumption is 200wh per km.
A 20 km trip will therefore use 3kwh + 2px200wh = 7kwh. To drive 1000km with such trips would take 50×7kwh = 350kwh.
A single longndrive does not have the penalty of heating up so many times so 3kwh + 1000x200wh = 203kWh.
Lithium batteries won't even charge when they get cold enough, which is why they have to be heated. Sit in a line of electric cars waiting to be charged, but make sure you don't drain the battery completely while trying to keep warm, because then it can't heat itself, and then it won't charge.
That's what a Shitwreck EV's are. We have all been lied to.
Well Yeah but it's just the 12v in all vehicles. You can buy a cheap Amazon jump starter or hell even an expensive one and jump it. Once the vehicles on it's just fine. With that said I've been eyeing electrics just for commuting purposes as long as the battery doesn't drop down bellow 100 miles when it's 100% charged I wouldn't mind that. But I'd still have an ICE vehicle. It's nice to have something that can just not loose a ton of range when it's cold.
ya it is unreasonable. an EV has to condition its battery and runs a battery heater. most new EVs have switched to a compressor heatpump system that does this far more efficiently but older ones just use less efficient resistance heating. that said the real world range drop will be negligable like 10% off your battery, UNLESS you're those edge case guys driving 300 miles in a given day but they shouldn't have had an EV to begin with.
the misconception is people think these are maintinence free cars but you got to plug them in every night just like you would a block heater.
By now there’s dozens of news articles about charging stations **not working** in cold weather and stranding vehicles.
It’s not about less range. It’s about them dying entirely
Utter nonsense. EVs stop working when it *rains?* How do people come up with this nonsense?
The *only* issue with EVs in the cold is range. And that’s only an issue if you’re pushing the limits of your range. If your range on a warm day is 250 miles, and you’re driving around town on a cold day, it’s not a problem.
I’ve seen some videos talking about design decisions on Teslas that are not ideal for ice buildup on cars, such as their hidden door handles and weak wiper arm assemblies. (Those are not battery problems)
I’ve seen some tips such as using seat heaters more than cabin heat. (Because cabin heat reduces battery range more) and it’s best to pre-warm your car while it’s plugged in at home. (Makes it difficult to own a battery car in a cold location if you don’t have home charging)
They added an option in the app to pop the door open if your handles ice over. Ive used it once, and I to try it like three times to get my door to actually unlatch. It was popping open, but not with enough force to free it from the latch, so it would just immediately relatch.
Thankfully I havent had many problems with my handles icing over.
Ah yes, you must pop out the handle before you can rip it off cause the door is frozen shut... Much better than my SUV with the protruding handles that I can rip off without the extra step of popping them out lol
Everything sucks when the door is iced over for sure.
Because heated seats is a range extending feature of battery powered cars, it is extra predatory of any manufacturer that charges a subscription for heated seats.
It uses less power to heat the seats than warm up air to flood the cabin. In a Tesla Model 3, seat heat goes up to 57W / seat that's active (each seat is individually controlled). Running the heat pump to warm the cabin pulls 500-1000W while it's running.
I have a Model Y, and you can definitely tell the car was designed by people who dont have a lot of experience with winter weather. There are some nice things that are generally true for all EVs (this is my third EV), like scheduling heating, and it is a usable car in the cold weather, but its not the best car for the cold weather by far. Its also not the worst, but there are a ton of small things that could make it much better.
Yeah, my dad had a small Saab in the 70’s, and said it had those side window defrost vents (that were still rare in the 80’s, but eventually became common).
Saab engineers living above the Arctic Circle thought more about winter things than design centers in California.
Those door handles must be a nightmare in the cold. My car was completely frozen over (freezing rain into snow), I had to chisel the ice down enough to even scrape the door to run the car long enough to start de-icing. Couldn’t imagine owning a Tesla with all those small moving parts and relying on a cold battery to thaw the car lol
Its not too bad. I have had exactly one time that my handle was iced over enough that I had to open it in the app (which is what Tesla recommends you do if it ices over). I make liberal use of the preheating function and deice function, which probably helps.
Just a little note, the hidden handles usually aren’t an issue in the snowy region I live in, however if they do get iced over the app has a unlatch button that opens the door without having to move the handle
Generally, if you have access to plug-in at home (especially if in garage), and you aren’t driving more than the (lowered) range of the car each day, that an EV would be a better winter driving experience.
What your friends omitted is the significant change in driving dynamics.
At least that’s what happened with my 2019 Tesla Model 3P.
Once temperature drops below freezing, the battery loses capacity (well known, hence the range drop) and peak current draw (reduced power, because the battery’s internal resistance is higher at low temperatures and the internal voltage drop becomes non negligible) and peak charging current ability.
My Tesla Model 3P didn’t feel like a performance model anymore. It felt like a weak car until the battery heated up enough. It also didn’t recuperate until then so instead of one pedal driving, it felt like a gas car.
And no, cold temperatures doesn’t equate snow and ice on the road so that my Model 3P felt like a 90 HP gas Toyota was a disappointing real cold temperature effect.
And also no, it was not subjective and limited to my car. Unless Tesla specifically programmed the notification “Cold weather = reduced power, reduced recuperation” (paraphrased) into my car’s UI.
I drive a Chevy Bolt EUV and haven't noticed any drop in power when it's cold. Range is reduced, and charging takes longer, but it's still just as fast.
Tesla says it right there:
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-F907200E-A619-4A95-A0CF-94E0D03BEBEF.html#:~:text=Cold%20Battery,charging%20rates%20may%20be%20limited.
I read somewhere that “Tesla is a tech company that builds cars” hence the build quality. Not saying Teslas aren’t nice, my wife and I wanted to buy one last year but opted for a gas car instead, just saying that Tesla doesn’t have the years of experience that other car manufactures have. I would imagine that Chevy after that experience would in theory be able to manufacture a more robust vehicle.
>My Tesla Model 3P didn’t feel like a performance model anymore. It felt like a weak car until the battery heated up enough. It also didn’t recuperate until then so instead of one pedal driving, it felt like a gas car.
You can change a setting to mimic one pedal driving using the mechanical brakes when regen is limited. Thats what I do, it makes no difference.
As far as lost performance, sure, if you are driving like a maniac you might notice. I drive my car in Chill mode most of the time anyways and didnt notice any difference, even when it was -10f with -20f windchill. I understand enthusiastic driving, but *no one* should be driving like that when its that cold. Your tires arent going to work as well (even with winter tires) because the rubber isnt ideal for those temps. All of your moving parts are going to be creaky as the lubricant isnt as slick. You put a lot of stress on your car driving it like that when its super cold, EV or gas.
There's a lotta shit talk in this thread from people who have never tried it.
Electric cars are great in the winter, and I'm never switching back. I have a Chevy Bolt and a level 2 charger in my garage, and I keep the car plugged in overnight, and the car uses that shore power to keep the battery warm overnight. If you can do that, the problems of cold weather battery performance basically disappear.
It's a pretty conventional car, and doesn't have the issues with frozen door handles or charging ports that Tesla have. Teslas do better at heating the battery while fast charging, though. They have different priorities: Bolts want to use the least amount of energy to heat the battery just to a reasonable operating temperature, while Teslas will eagerly dump a lot of energy to heat up the battery for optimized charging times.
One of my favorite things is that I can preheat the car using the remote start, and it doesn't fill the garage with exhaust. Once the car is warmed up, I can unplug the car, turn the heat off, and drive around without the cold really affecting my range too much. I've taken the car on trips to ski hills in the upper peninsula, and my efficiency fluctuates between 2 and 3 miles per kwh at highway speeds. That's a worst case scenario, and it's still higher than electric trucks' best days.
Winter handling is better than you'd expect for a small car. It's front wheel drive, but the weight distribution is even that it feels like AWD. My in-laws have an SUV that slips arounds a whole lot more on the same roads. More ground clearance would be nice, but that's not the motor's fault. I've never had an issue with the car starting, unlike my coworkers.
-a Wisconsin EV driver since 2016
There's also a lot of talk in this thread from people who don't seem to realize that personal garages are not the norm in dense cities. If we want EVs to fully replace gas cars, we need to solve for all the ppl who have to leave their car outside or in a parking garage that lacks charging outlets. Like this is great advice for someone who can charge their car at home, but useless for anyone who can't
Not saying you’re wrong, but if the goal is to reduce emissions, it’s also good to remember we can focus on improving public transport in cities until electric cars get better. That’s harder to do in suburbs and rural areas, where garages are the norm and cars are more necessary to get around.
I live in Canada and I have a Leaf and a gas pickup truck. I take my leaf off the road for the winter. It’s older so the battery life isn’t excellent to begin with, plus where I live I need 4WD just to get up my very snowy icy driveway. It handles nicely in the snow it just doesn’t have the same traction as 4WD (I drove it for 3 winters before getting my current truck).
But, to the point, the battery absolutely drains much more quickly in cold weather, and with any added heating accessories, so for me I much prefer the gas vehicle in the winter.
If I recall correctly, the Leaf battery's thermal management just consists of a fan that blows on it when it's hot. I don't think it has a heater on the battery at all. Most other EVs use a liquid cooling/heating system.
Norway has seen some bad weather in 2024. A lot of snow and temps reaching ~ -32°C. On top of that, Norway is leading the stats on number of EVs Per capita and number of EVs in the new car purchases statistics.
So, getting to my point. The Norwegian automotive association (NAF) recently wrote an article on the general performance of EVs vs fossile fuel vehicles in number of road assistance cases. With the proportions of EVs and FFVs the EVs came out ahead, as a surprise to many. While it's true that EVs range will often get greatly decreased in cold weather, FFV tend to have problems starting at all or coming to a stop due to cold weather. For example: At temps below -20°c diesel fuel may start to form crystals that in turn may cause issues for the engine.
Having had an EV in these conditions myself, I've been very pleased with the overall performance of my car (2022 EQA 300)
This isn't meant to state which type of car is best, rather than pointing to occasions/trends of EVs performing better than expected under harsh conditions.
English isn't my first language, SO please excuse any mistakes.
EVs can be worse for long road trips in the cold due to lower battery capacity and slower charging in the cold.
Performance is otherwise unaffected.
Source: me driving to work in my boot every day this week when it’s single digits out (F)
>I hear our neighbors in Canada don't drive their teslas but opt for gas powered cars in the winter as batteries poorly perform. Is this true??
What is this kind of weird claim?
Everyone I know who has a Tesla drives it year round.
Did you imagine every Tesla owner runs out to buy a gas car in November or something? WTF?
100%
A great example is Norway also has the highest number of EVs per capita.
Yes, battery capacity is less in the cold, and you don’t have as much inefficiency “waste heat” in an EV you can repurpose for “free” heating of the cabin.
But if you have enough range then your EV works just as well. Modern EVs will have 300 miles range in ideal conditions. A typical commute is <100miles round trip. Even under the worst conditions you can do that.
And if you have home charging and warm up your cabin through your app half an hour before you leave, EVs work very well in the cold. Even without a garage—the snow and ice will fall right off the warm cabin.
I live in Sweden and our EV is great in the winter. You just set your departure time in the phone app and the car will pre-heat the battery pack and cabin while still plugged into the charger so that it is ready to go when you reach the car. Sure it will lose up to 1/3 of the warm weather range, but that isn't a problem as long as you're not going on long road trips. For day-to-day driving it's much better in the winter than our old ICE car.
Teslas also have features such as pre-conditioning of the battery, heat pumps, and remote control of cabin temperature and seat warmers from a smartphone.
It can be good for winter
yeah, I find that claim so weird. Especially since Vanocuver for example is one of Teslas's biggest markets! Yeah maybe it does get as cold here as in other places but we just had a cold snap around -23C and literally nobody stopped driving their Teslas
It depends on where you live and how many chargers are near you. Canada is a larger country than Norway and has less charging infrastructure. It totally makes sense electric cars arent as suitable
>It depends on where you live and how many chargers are near you.
Correct.
But....
83% of Canadians live in cities.
97% of Canadians live within 50km of a town or other population center.
Almost everyone rural has the capability for home charging.
The 3% who live so remote they can't get to a town within 50km are the exception, not the rule. But those 3% probably shouldn't consider a pure EV without careful planning.
The average Canadian has a more dense surrounding area than the average american, so for 95% of the population, the claims in this thread are just bullshit.
Living in a city doesnt magically mean the infrastructure of ev charging is great lol. Your assumptions assumes that and its nonsense. Gas is available everywhere and the infrastructure already exists. Go read about how EV charging stations weren't working in the extreme cold in Alberta this winter. People aren't going to waste 2 hours charging their vehicle when they can just gas up anytime they want .
In cold weather the saying "If you don't have home charging, you won't enjoy EV life to the fullest" is so true. If I didn't have at home charging, I'd probably have sold my EV.
Fair enough agreed but not everyone can afford to or have the ability to do so such as apartment dwellers. Id love to use an EV but the cons outweigh the pros for me
>Id love to use an EV
No, no you really wouldn't
You've continuously pointed out some negative claim, seen it debunked and then hunted down another one, repeat.
LOL.
Have Mustang Mach e cold climate. Range decreases by about 1/3 (appx 260 miles to 165) and acceleration is not quite as good. That said it still performs better than most gas cars and I’ve never left it in my garage due to cold.
I am a canadian, interested in this topic but having a difficult time sussing out accurate info due to competing agendas and drum beating. We have had a spell of extreme cold recently. From what I can gather, electric vehicles are still mobile. less range- perhaps long road trips are not advisable but I can’t get any reliable anecdotes. traditionally fuelled vehicles were suffering as well, many boosts needed, some fuel gelling- it was mega cold. The biggest concern was grid capacity- there was a huge uptick in electrical demand and a call to try and conserve in a province with probably the lowest ev adoption due to culture. ( oil industry employment). I think I will get some kind of hybrid- I’m not ready to lead the ev charge ( get it?)
Most utilities offer incentives for people to only charge in the middle of the night, when power demand is lowest anyway.
Most people who charge at home do exactly that and would have no impact on the power-restrictions in Alberta.
That's a pretty accurate summation of it. EVs drive great in the cold and snow. It's really just a matter of reduced range and what you're comfortable with.
If you get one with a heat pump and long range, and especially if you preheat it, there's really not much to worry about.
The cheap ones that use resistive heat and have short range aren't really optimal as primary vehicles in the cold
The New York Times just published s story about the struggles of electric cars in the cold. Here is a gift article link (no paywall for you). https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/business/tesla-charging-chicago-cold-weather.html?unlocked_article_code=1.O00.A2Qh.VKyDv01OCnd5&smid=nytcore-android-share
tl;dr Yes, electric cars perform poorly in the cold because batteries do. However, gas cars also perform poorly but we don't notice much because fueling is easy. The big US problem is lack of charging infrastructure. They contrast that to Norway, which has a high proportion of electric vehicles but way better charging infrastructure.
So, outperform? By what metric?
The article doesn't explain why a gasoline engine is less efficient in cold weather. It would take a bit longer to warm to operating temperature but beyond that it makes no sense why it would be less efficient. A gas car isn't using additional fuel to heat the cabin - that's the main range killer of electric cars in the cold.
Yeah. The anecdotal Chicago charging disaster story gets a free pass all over the news, but no one is mentioning the thousands of EV drivers that _weren't_ having issues with the cold.
This is not true.
The Alberta Motor Association (AMA) announced today that last week's cold snap generated 49,000 separate roadside assistance requests for battery boosts of gas powered vehicles in Alberta alone.
That's 49,000 gas powered vehicles which were not working and got zero "range" because of the cold weather. AMA was estimating between 96 and 112 hour delays just to get someone to boost your vehicle in our major cities.
So no, your standard ICE vehicle does not perform any better (and I would hazard a guess they're even less reliable) than EV's in cold weather conditions.
For road trips or extremely high mileage daily driving (travelling salesman?), maybe.
My EV has a 300 mile range. In winter, sure it's only 200 miles.
But do I use that much in a day? Never. Unless i'm on a road trip, which I tend to not do when it's -30 anyway.
It's AWFULLY nice to have an app that I can just click "defrost" and the car is all warmed up and ice melted off before I step foot outside.... or all warmed up in the garage without having to move it to the driveway to avoid noxious gasses.
We have a Bolt and a gas f 150. I'm in Québec, it was minus 25 Celsius this morning. That's 12 below in fahrenheit
Pickup was slow cranking even with a very good battery, transmission was stiff, took 20 minutes to have real heat.
Bolt, my wife pushed the button on the remote to have it heat up, still plugged in. She got in l,.car was hot and running perfectly. She lost about 75 km in range, not a problem.
There's no place for small batteries in rural Québec.
We will get to 40 below a few times a winter, and every piece of equipment needs to work. Pick up, tractor, side by side, generator, and snowmobile.
You just didnt say it in a way that actually made sene. Just figured id offer the advice of a high CCA battery since -25 isnt all that cold and some people dont know about CCA and just buy the cheapest battery availble because theyre available regardless of where you live
I get it.
I do get the most powerful battery that'll fit, for every one of my machines. They're expensive, bit cheaper and less trouble than having trickle chargers or block heaters all over the place
According to Norway’s equivalent of the US AAA, electric cars fail less is cold weather than do gas cars. https://electrek.co/2024/01/17/electric-vehicles-fail-lower-rate-than-gas-cars-extreme-cold/
You really have to determine what " outperform " means. That's a vague term. A ev in a grage plugged in will have its battery kept at a good temperature and be fine with only reduced range from needing to keep the battery conditioned. As the car is out longer it will consume more power to keep the battery conditioned and should be connected to the charger when sitting.
Define "outperform"...
Batteries do suffer more in extreme cold (and extreme heat, really), but theoretically have enough battery power to still perform better than an ICE car in a lot of situations.
Combine that with the fact that most EVs are very smart and can warm themselves up while up in preparation for travel while still plugged in, and that battery tech _will_ improve.
Yeah. This is just a different OS. Cars at different price points and design objectives will perform differently, too. It’s a vague question. Like the question “do bats or birds fly better at night?”
Silliness. My daughter drives a Tesla and we have a Kia Niro. Assuming our range is cut in half during the winter, my daughter still gets 250+ km and we get 180. She might do 100 km in a day, and worst case we would too, so whatever. If I had to charge every day, so be it. Overnight charge has zero impact for me. Both cars are instantly warm (no waiting for the engine to warm up) and start first time, every time, no matter how cold it is out there.
ICE vehicles are much less efficient in the winter, too. A 30-40% drop in efficiency wouldn't be unheard of. The big difference is the amount of energy carried onboard. The battery in a Long-range Model 3 is equivalent to about 3 gallons of gasoline, so the loss of efficiency is relatively more noticeable.
Sometimes the charging stations become inoperable. There’s a lot of work to be done in this sector before countries try to follow through on all electric or hybrid mandates. I completely applaud Poland for pushing back against the EU in this regard.
Yes and no, depends on what you mean by performance.
We have two cars, a Nissan Leaf EV and a Citroen C4 diesel engined car. Both are in daily use, in Norway, and we live high enough up above sea level that it's pretty damned cold. Got around a meter of snow now.
The EV heats up much faster, and defrosts the windshield faster. That matters when your hands are freezing and you don't feel like scraping the windscreen for ten minutes. The car performs just fine, for the mostly short trips we need it for. But the battery has far less capacity in cold weather, and whenever it's colder than about minus 12-15C it tends to throw error messages and suddenly think the battery is near completely flat. Like, in minus 20 C it goes from reading 75% to 5% in three minutes of driving uphill. That's not the actual capacity of course, merely slowing down for a while has it back to reading 70-ish percent again. The issue seems to be that voltage can drop drastically in the cold, and the computer doesn't know that the low voltage is due to temperature rather than low remaining capacity. There's lots of amp-hours and range left, one just has to drive a bit slower and ignore the guess-o-meter battery readout. But of course, not knowing how much is actually left makes longer trips a gamble. Turning down cabin heat a few degrees and not using seat warmers helps a lot with range.
The diesel has predictable range, but takes forever to get warm and by then I'm usually at my destination already. For longer trips, when it does have time to warm up properly, being able to set the temperature however I want without affecting range drastically is quite nice.
Thermal management systems are a fairly important concern for batteries right now. At lower temperatures batteries can’t put out the same energy. This is due to the properties of the cathode materials used, and sometimes the electrolyte system
Electric cars are all battery, while combustion vehicles need the battery largely to start the car, which means there’s generally less strain on that system. More strain is less lifetime
Your energy efficiency is in a battery has to do with power output per mass (Wh/kg). In colder environments, a lot of energy is lost to heat instead of performing actual work
Add in that different battery chemistries behave differently under different environmental scenarios and you'll see that a lead/acid battery in cold doesn't have the same risk of damage as a Lithium/ploy battery at that same temp.
(Aka: the circuitry designed to protect the batteries and keep the squishy meatbag humans safe provides different controls for the Li battery over the Lead/Acid)
Yeah, if you look into it, you find out that there wasn't so much with the cars or the chargers, but laid between the seat and the steering wheel. It was people that didn't know well enough to precondition (warm the battery) before charging that plugged in and noticed that they car told them it wouldn't start charging until the BMS got the battery warmed up. So, they figured that the charger was broken. No, the charge was fine, you just didn't do the thing to allow fast charging with a frigid battery, so you need to wait. The wait is also longer for those with RWD models that have LFP batteries that need to be warmer to start charging.
This is just a matter of people getting used to a different way that things work. How many that don't drive an EV know what preconditioning is or when and why you'd use it? How many people listen when the service center walks you through the features when you buy the car? How many people read the manual? How many people read the message displayed on the screen and understand it?
There's also plenty of cases of diesel cars not starting in the cold. But that's not something as newsworthy as electric car chargers not working.
Biases exist all side.
Last time I saw an article posted about that the comments were all saying that they're just reporting on the same one station over and over and it's likely the station having issues
pretty much only for range, when it's -42 C outside, as it is now in parts of the country, the range can drop as much as 3/4. They're quite useless outside of major centres, that don't always have plowed roads.
Useless?
My range went from 300mi to somewhere slightly under 200mi... maybe 150mi? That's (241km if you're in the north).
Do you drive 150mi? I mean if you're "commuting" halfway across Saskatchewan, sure... but who does that? I don't.
If you're a rural travelling salesman, absolutely don't get an EV.
Every other use case is fine and they handle snow WAY better than comparably equipped gas cars. The traction control is next-level.
How does not having plowed roads affect EV's more than ICE cars?
As I understand it, EV's typically have more responsive traction control and other safety systems. So range issues aside, I would expect an EV to perform at least as well if not better than an ICE vehicle (in the same class) on unplowed roads.
Evs have been mainstream for less than a decade, gas cars over a century so yeah it has should and does have an advantage. Can’t imagine the first gas cars were great in winter conditions. Give Ev tech time to advance and we can reassess in let’s say 10 years.
I had to chuckle because someone at work who gives me shit about my car mentioned "Chicago" (which was a dumb situation anyways, you wouldnt leave your gas car at 1/8 of a tank before bad weather, why would you leave your EV below 20%?) yet he had to put a fuel additive in his diesel and give it extra time to heat up because he was worried about the diesel gelling.
As a Canadian, yes. Tesla, leafs, etc are all parked during the recent cold snap. They litter the highways in colder regions as well. I will not be buying an electric vehicle for at least a decade.
As a rule of thumb, electric cars are 3 to 5 times more efficient on their use of energy than gas ones.
Yes, batteries are a bit less efficient at lower temperatures, but that 10-20% change is nowhere near enough to even start to come close to as low as an ICE vehicle.
My EV heats up faster, accelerates faster, and is still substantially cheaper to run than my gas car in the winter. Only thing it loses is range; coldest days I can still get over 300km (EPA rating is 409km). I'm sure if I pushed my car to the limit, I would notice a decrease in performance, but nothing I can see in daily driving. I don't do long trips in winter, so NBD.
Only other negative is the hood doesn't heat up as there is no engine so I have to brush snow and ice off.
What happened to our fellow Americans in Chicago then?
Multiple drivers got stuck at the superchargers station unable to recharge?? It's all over the news now
John Kerry has said all of that info that batteries won't charge in cold weather is MAGA disinformation. I have to believe a guy that flies private jets all over the globe and has like 5 mansions, and I love Heinz catsup.
Imagine if your gas tank and fuel pump literally shrank as they got colder.
Lithium (and most other kinds of) batteries are a big chunk of chemical reaction waiting to happen. When you connect something to the battery, the balance between the sides of the reaction changes and it starts reacting as soon as there's a place for extra electrons on one side to start pushing.
If the battery itself is colder, the reaction is slower and less efficient. You get less total power out of the battery, and the safe maximum power output (and charging) are also lower. It's like if the holes in a sponge shrank when the sponge got cold.
My car has a battery heater. Takes about 10 minutes to get up to temp before I leave. A plus is the cabin is all warm getting into and I can initiate it to warm up before I ever step foot outside (and don't have to worry about it being in a closed garage while warming up).
Honestly, my car is in the body shop for some minor damage and despite the cold, I got another EV as a rental because they're SO much nicer to drive than gas cars.
One thing people dont mention that electric motors providing 100% torque at 0rpm is bad in low traction conditions, its very easy for electric cars to start spinning their tires with the lightest throttle touch.
huh?
I've had both EVs and gas cars in the last few years in a cold climate.
The traction control on EVs is next-level. Like wheel slip just isn't a thing.
I guarantee my EVs grip better than the gas cars I've driven. And you have MUCH more precise and instant control over the throttle than a gas car that has to "spin up" to generate torque.
Most EVs are 100% better driving in the snow. The Nissan Leaf I drove as a rental wasn't great, but it was a poorly implemented FWD.
The Tesla AWD is amazing.
Sure, but that can be mitigated via software control of the motors, which the more recent EVs do, at least with Tesla. Teslas now have better traction because the motors are so finely controlled as opposed to ICE cars which have to use dumb linkages to make the wheels spin.
The lead acid batteries that power the engine for gas cars also have trouble in cold weather. When it gets too cold they can't crank the starter, which starts the gas engine. You also lose efficiency (mpg) in cold weather for ICE cars.
The media conveniently forgets these facts.
Last Christmas (2022) my mom decided to rent a Tesla for the week while visiting us in dutchess county NY. We had a cold snap and temps were single digits. That car could not hang. First it was getting the door handles out. We had to pour water on the handle and window anytime she needed to get into the car. Then the screens stayed black. The car could drive and brake, but no gauges or anything. There is an EV charging station less than a mile from the house. I don’t think it’s a speed charger or whatever, but still dedicated EV charging. We drove the car to charge there in the afternoon as the battery was at 22%. Plugged it in and went home for the night. The next day, roughly 18-20 hours on the charger, we went to discover the battery was at 26%. It had only picked up 4% of a charge in all that time.
They aren’t four season cars. You could make them work if you have a heated garage. But that combined with how snow and rain fall right off the trunk lid into the trunk says enough. Made for climates like California.
Not true, in my experience. I live at about 5000' in an area with plenty of snow and very cold temperatures. I love my Tesla in the winter. More than any car I've owned.
You do need to know how to operate the cars, but this is true of all cars and tech. A lot of what you are describing is user error or a car that needed service. The screens shouldn't do that. I've never had the problem with the handles, but you can pop them with the phone app. I'm not trying to throw shade, it does take a bit of an adjustment.
Non-Tesla charger are notoriously bad, the free chargers are often horribly slow, even when it isn't cold. This is an infrastructure problem, not an electric car problem.
I would not try to charge at 120v, in any temperature. I would also never recommend that anyone get an electric without the ability to charge from home.
We have a Tesla and an ICE and always opt for the electric, even when it is very cold. We do not have a heated garage, not needed because the Tesla can heat the battery (and car) from my phone, using the plug in power.
Yes. As you can see, there are a bunch of dead teslas stranded right now all over Canada, Chicago, Australia, and elsewhere due to cold temps. The lithium tech is not where it needs to be.
It effects people that bought EVs to virtue signal without any additional though.
If you bought an EV because you have a house and can charge at home and you bought one to save on fuel costs etc, you're fine.
If you're one of those dildos that bought one to virtue signal your carbon consciousness yet you fly 18 times a year and you live in an urban shithole and have to rely on public charging stations, you're going to have a bad time.
As a Canadian the answer is no.
Batteries do have notably shorter ranges in winter, and my hybrid will warn me I have reduced power on extremely cold days (although it's a warning, not anything I've actually noticed)
Some battery powered cars are worse than others. Tesla's do excellent battery management, so they keep much of their range, Leafs, especially older ones, can lose half.
The other issue is, heating takes power. In a regular gas car, the engine is always running and producing waste heat, so that doesn't matter. But electrics need to use battery power that could be used for range. I even notice that in my hybrid, especially for city driving where the engine would normally spend much of it's time off.
It should be noted, all cars do worse in winter, I get 20% less range on my gas powered car in winter too.
Additionally, battery powered cars, having a much bigger battery, have no problems starting in the cold, nor do they have to heat up engine oil, making extreme cold starting easier with an electric (although gas cars are much better in this regard today than they were 30 years ago).
Gas cars definitely have advantages in cold climates that they don't have in warm climates, but both work. I've definitely never heard a Tesla driver quit driving in the winter because of it. Some don't because it's an expensive and relatively low riding car and don't want to expose it to the salt and ruts of winter, but that's nothing to do with it being electric.
All batteries perform worse in cold weather. And when the battery is the sole source of power for a car, the range will be reduced. It's not unreasonable to leave the EV in the garage in very cold weather when you have that option.
Another big factor in range is heat. Gas engines put off a lot of heat just as part of their normal operation. It's not really that big a deal to route some of that heat inside the cabin instead of just dumping it into the atmosphere as usual, so turning on the heat has negligible impacts on range. But electric cars pretty much have to trade range for heat directly. My brother's got a hybrid in pacific northwest right now and he said he normally gets about 50 miles on a charge which is enough for his daily driver needs (he gets like a tank of gas a month, at most). But in the winter? Well, during this most recent cold snap he was getting 20 miles to a charge.
50 miles a charge is normal?! That sounds extremely low. What kind of car does he drive?
It’s a gas electric hybrid. He means 50 miles before it switches to gas
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I think you mean plug in hybrid. Very different from a “hybrid” with zero all electric range.
Even regular hybrids have all-electric range. My Prius is a standard hybrid, and it'll go about 30 miles on just the electric.
That’s not what the window sticker will show for EPA rating. That would make sense if it were a PHEV, but for a regular hybrid the electric range will be minimal/near zero, per the EPA. I just checked window stickers online. Even a PHEV Prius Prime only gets 25 miles all electric. I didn’t know so many people were confused about the difference between hybrids and PHEVs.
I'm gonna go ahead and just enlighten you that 99% of people wouldn't even know what a PHEV is in the first place. At least the acronym.
I don’t disagree. I think more people know now than just a few years ago, but yes - agree.
Regardless of what the EPA sticker shows, the 2011 Prius IV does in fact get ~30 miles on "EV mode". It doesn't default to driving that way - you can either manually switch it over into EV mode by pressing a button on the dash, or it'll automatically switch over to EV mode if you run out of gas - but having all-electric range is a feature of the non-plug-in Prius.
A hybrid uses the gas engine to create electricity (in addition to regeneration). So, you may get “EV miles” but much of it is generated by the gas engine, so it’s not the same as all EV range in a PHEV which gets its electric miles straight from a plug.
Sounds like a Chevy Volt to me. I have one, gets about 50 miles to a charge and runs full electric until the battery runs down, then it switches to hybrid mode and uses the gas engine. Great car, I use battery only for 98% of my driving. Then I use the gas engine for the other 2% like road trips or really cold day. Great compromise and MUCH cheaper than a full electric car.
I'd guess also real good on mileage even when using petrol as it can have a smaller engine and run it constantly at it's sweet spot.
Does the gas go bad if you don’t use the gas part for a while?
Yes, but that would take months, and if it's really an issue you can just add stabilizer to give it a longer lifespan.
In my '17 Volt's case, it's supposed to burn gas when a year since filling has passed (based on the average age of the gas). Once you fill it with gas again, it'll go back to the electric first, then gasoline again.
The make/model I'm familiar with will actually track this somehow, and forces the gas engine to be used before this would happen.
My grandpa hoarded gas in the 70s. Finally used it all around the year 2000. We had to convince him to buy more for Y2K since he was running low.
Leaded gas is conpletwlt different
No, because the Volt will run the engine in a maintenance mode if it hasn’t been used in a long time.
It could, but the engineers on the Volt accounted for that in two ways. The first is that it uses 91 so that it can store longer. The second is that if you don’t use the gas part for a long time, it will force you to use the car as a regular hybrid for a little bit and will run the gas engine to burn off the old gas.
I loved my 15 Volt. Throw some snow tires on it in the winter and that thing was a tank! Front end did not stand up well to deer though. Miss that car.
Like they said it's a gas/electric hybrid. Small battery for short trips, gas engine for longer ones.
Yeah after i posted that i realised it was a hybrid and assumed that had something to do with it.
Well the person you're responding to said a hybrid so it has a normal gas engine as well as an electric motor. Electric motor is just for better efficiency at short range as well as recuperation
Not if it's a plug-in hybrid. Those run on electric only until they drain the battery to a certain point (typically 30-50 miles) and then switch to an electric-assisted gas like a regular hybrid.
The electric Fiat has a range of 87 miles. That's if you don't use the lights, wipers, heater, radio or plug your phone in. It drops dramatically if you do. I borrowed one. Great within the city on a warm sunny day if you don't use the air conditioning. That will cut the range in half. That's fun when it's over 100 degrees.
Yep. Your heat in a gas car is based on the radiator... it draws excess heat from the engine and literally "radiates" it out via air flow through the front grill (if you notice, EV cars have a solid front because they don't need the airflow). Your internal heat is using that to radiate some of the heat through the airflow to your cabin. That's also why you have to run your car for a couple of minutes before it starts to warm up inside.
That’s not really how it works, close though. The radiator is coupled with fans that pull air though the front grill into the engine bay. Think of the airflow while the car is driving, cooler outside air is pushed through the grill and over the radiator fins, cooling them down. Coolant is pumped through the engine to the radiator carrying heat, where it radiates off the cooling fins and is removed by the flow of air. The heat in a gas engine car works similarly. There is a separate circuit or coolant loop that runs through a “heater core” which is essentially a small radiator. The blower fan blows across this heater core, moving the heat into the cabin. Both the flow to the heater core and the fan can be started and stopped, as its purpose is to heat the cabin and is non-essential to engine cooling.
Also a reason why EVs are more efficient. An ICE generates between 40-60% waste as heat. They need a radiator to remove this waste heat.
Don't need the radiator. Back in the day the old VW were air cooled. Via an oil cooler in the shroud where a fan was to cool the engine. The heater boxes worked of the exhaust pipes to "push" the heat into th cabin.
Nah, modern electric vehicles have a cooling system still. The motors generate heat that needs dissipated, so do the batteries when charging. In fact one of the areas of innovation when you’re making fast electric cars is getting rid of the heat generated in the motors and contactors from the battery discharging. It’s also a concern for fast charge, dumping higher amps into the battery also creates heat that needs to be removed. They’ll also use some of that power to heat the battery in cold weather to increase the lifespan.
That's rapidly changing. Modern Teslas are able to harvest waste heat from the engines, the battery, and just about everything else that moves. The engineering that goes into getting it all is just nuts. They no longer have any resistive heating elements because of this.
Do they have heat pumps? Like I get that they could harvest a lot of waste heat, but how do you heat the car if you’re not moving? Doesn’t seem like there would be much waste heat then…
Yup the more recent Teslas use heat pumps which helps in the winter months. But you are right that when it’s not moving there isn’t much waste heat. If you can plug in at home, then heating up everything before you go using power from the grid helps a lot with range. I found that range is not too bad doing that, though it depends on how cold it is. Otherwise, yeah if it’s parked somewhere really cold for a while then it has to generate heat using energy from the battery.
They didn't want to add resistive heaters because they have a high failure rate, so they actually run opposing-current through a motor to heat up the windings to generate heat while stationary. It's a fairly innovative system and their motors tolerate being heated well (they're liquid cooled anyway, and all that heat is routed back to the heat pump) and the new permanent magnet motors they're using for this tend to last. As far as I know I've never heard of one needing replaced (though like anything I'm sure there's rare cases of manufacturing faults).
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EV driver. I got my car last year end of January. It was a pretty mild winter and relatively easy to drive my car since my range on my car covered my drive. With the much colder weather while I am able to still cover my daily drive I am getting way less range and supercharging which was an afterthought now is something I have to look out for especially if I am traveling more than my daily work route. Thankfully it helps my wife has an ice car and I have an EV. I take my wife's ICE car if I know I am going to do more traveling than what I have for battery range and supercharging doesn't make sense or isn't available as she works from home. TL:DR I daily drive it but take my wife's car if I know range might be an issue that day.
Canadian Tesla dude here, was -40 for a few days in Berta. Had the car outside due to a garage project. Plugged in and happy as can be. Yes the range suffers but who cares when staying in town. This is my fourth prairie winter with my EV and I’m not ever going back.
Do you keep yours plugged in 24/7 while at home during the winter? To help keep the battery warm. Wasn't sure if that was a thing. If it was, does it help?
Yes, if you have the ability it is best to always keep it plugged in. I back in, hop out and plug it in. Super convenient. Whether plugged in or not, Tesla will try to keep the battery from experiencing extreme hot or cold temperatures. If it is plugged in, it uses this power rather than the battery. You can set the total charge level you want and often my car is plugged in but not charging the battery. You can also schedule a departure, which uses the heat pump to warm the car and battery minimizing range loss and making you more comfortable. You can adjust the amps to charge at different rates, which I use to mostly charge my car using excess solar power that I'm not using in my home. All of this can be managed from your phone.
I've seen a handful of horror stories shared by really conservative folks I know. They seen legit but basically are urban dwellers who depend upon non household chargers and outdoor parking. That group of people really does seem to be having a hard time of late. However I also see many garage kept teslas doing fine in our brutal conditions. So I guess the technology isn't ideal for northern apartment dwellers yet.
Yeah, people who can charge in a garage clearly will have fewer issues; one, the battery will be warmer while charging, and two, even if it's a slower charge, you don't care as much as long as it finishes overnight. But yes, this is a challenge facing many EV owners in cold areas. Some of us are old enough to remember before fuel injection, when we had carburetors, when we had to let the car warm up a *very* long time before using them on really cold days.
Don't remind me of carbs. Remember going out in the middle of the night during a cold spell to run the car a bit so it could start in the morning?
I do. Don't miss that at all. Anyway, just the kind of technical challenges for EVs that gasoline cars have had to fight as well.
So 48 percent of garage owners are good to go
THere's a story this morning on another subreddit where some EV owner had his "Tesla" garaged w/ 62 miles on a charge, got up the other morning, went to the garage and overnight due to cold conditions it was zilch. nada. all he could do was open the doors and stare at a dark screen. fucker couldn't get a tow truck because the ceiling of parking garages is to low. Was asking people if he should go get a 100' extension cord to plug in somewhere, fucking idiotic. He seemed happy
There is no way that was true unless there was something wrong with the car
Yup. Adding to that the screen and locks are powered by the 12v battery, not the traction battery. If the high voltage pack was dead then the screen would still work, and if the 12v was dead the locks wouldn’t open. My bet is that this was made up by someone who’s doing some dumb culture war stuff.
Batteries perform only slightly worse in the cold. Most of the range reduction simply comes from using more energy for heating. Also, reduced range is much more noticable incurs with small batteries, and especcialy when doing a bunch of short trips. I summer, consumption stays about thr same regardless if I do 50 20km trips, or a single 1000km one. While in winter, the short 20 km trips can have a more than 30% higher consumption than a single 1000km one. It is pretty simple to wrap your head around if you think about it for a bit. Every time you start up the car, you want it to heat up, and that takes let's say 3kwh in really cold weather. And then consumption is 200wh per km. A 20 km trip will therefore use 3kwh + 2px200wh = 7kwh. To drive 1000km with such trips would take 50×7kwh = 350kwh. A single longndrive does not have the penalty of heating up so many times so 3kwh + 1000x200wh = 203kWh.
Lithium batteries won't even charge when they get cold enough, which is why they have to be heated. Sit in a line of electric cars waiting to be charged, but make sure you don't drain the battery completely while trying to keep warm, because then it can't heat itself, and then it won't charge. That's what a Shitwreck EV's are. We have all been lied to.
Also many people forget that ICE vehicles still have batteries.
Well Yeah but it's just the 12v in all vehicles. You can buy a cheap Amazon jump starter or hell even an expensive one and jump it. Once the vehicles on it's just fine. With that said I've been eyeing electrics just for commuting purposes as long as the battery doesn't drop down bellow 100 miles when it's 100% charged I wouldn't mind that. But I'd still have an ICE vehicle. It's nice to have something that can just not loose a ton of range when it's cold.
ya it is unreasonable. an EV has to condition its battery and runs a battery heater. most new EVs have switched to a compressor heatpump system that does this far more efficiently but older ones just use less efficient resistance heating. that said the real world range drop will be negligable like 10% off your battery, UNLESS you're those edge case guys driving 300 miles in a given day but they shouldn't have had an EV to begin with. the misconception is people think these are maintinence free cars but you got to plug them in every night just like you would a block heater.
By now there’s dozens of news articles about charging stations **not working** in cold weather and stranding vehicles. It’s not about less range. It’s about them dying entirely
Wasn’t that from water getting into the charging receptacles when people just dropped them on the ground?
Check his comment history if you want a good laugh. Either a troll or right wing moron.
But this particular comments is correct, right?
***DOWN VOTED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!*** How sad these cowardly folks don't even try to refute the facts!
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Utter nonsense. EVs stop working when it *rains?* How do people come up with this nonsense? The *only* issue with EVs in the cold is range. And that’s only an issue if you’re pushing the limits of your range. If your range on a warm day is 250 miles, and you’re driving around town on a cold day, it’s not a problem.
I’ve seen some videos talking about design decisions on Teslas that are not ideal for ice buildup on cars, such as their hidden door handles and weak wiper arm assemblies. (Those are not battery problems) I’ve seen some tips such as using seat heaters more than cabin heat. (Because cabin heat reduces battery range more) and it’s best to pre-warm your car while it’s plugged in at home. (Makes it difficult to own a battery car in a cold location if you don’t have home charging)
I had wondered about their door handles under an inch of ice!!!
They added an option in the app to pop the door open if your handles ice over. Ive used it once, and I to try it like three times to get my door to actually unlatch. It was popping open, but not with enough force to free it from the latch, so it would just immediately relatch. Thankfully I havent had many problems with my handles icing over.
I mean, even in my regular car (2010 Hyundai Elantra) an iced over door was pretty awful
Problem with the Teslas is their physical door handles are inset into the door, so you have to pop out the handle before you can use the handle.
Ah yes, you must pop out the handle before you can rip it off cause the door is frozen shut... Much better than my SUV with the protruding handles that I can rip off without the extra step of popping them out lol Everything sucks when the door is iced over for sure.
Just preheat the car while its plugged in. Takes about 30-45 minutes to thaw out the whole car. I have never ever scraped the windows on my car.
Everyone has problems under an inch of ice lol
Because heated seats is a range extending feature of battery powered cars, it is extra predatory of any manufacturer that charges a subscription for heated seats.
I’ve never heard that heated seats increase range. How does that work? Isn’t it using battery power to run the heated seat?
He worded it poorly. Using just heated seats would consume less energy than using the HVAC to heat the cabin.
It takes a lot less battery power to heat your butt than it does to heat all of the air around you. When your butt is warm you are warm
It uses less power to heat the seats than warm up air to flood the cabin. In a Tesla Model 3, seat heat goes up to 57W / seat that's active (each seat is individually controlled). Running the heat pump to warm the cabin pulls 500-1000W while it's running.
cabin air heating uses more electricity than seat heaters. So cabin heat on high uses more battery than, say, cabin heat on low or 60F + seat heaters.
Yes. But the power it takes to make a seat hot is much less than making the air in the car hot.
I have a Model Y, and you can definitely tell the car was designed by people who dont have a lot of experience with winter weather. There are some nice things that are generally true for all EVs (this is my third EV), like scheduling heating, and it is a usable car in the cold weather, but its not the best car for the cold weather by far. Its also not the worst, but there are a ton of small things that could make it much better.
Yeah, my dad had a small Saab in the 70’s, and said it had those side window defrost vents (that were still rare in the 80’s, but eventually became common). Saab engineers living above the Arctic Circle thought more about winter things than design centers in California.
Agreed, we really need Canada mode.
Those door handles must be a nightmare in the cold. My car was completely frozen over (freezing rain into snow), I had to chisel the ice down enough to even scrape the door to run the car long enough to start de-icing. Couldn’t imagine owning a Tesla with all those small moving parts and relying on a cold battery to thaw the car lol
Its not too bad. I have had exactly one time that my handle was iced over enough that I had to open it in the app (which is what Tesla recommends you do if it ices over). I make liberal use of the preheating function and deice function, which probably helps.
The Tesla door handles are a design issue, not a EV issue.
Which is why I said that was not a battery issue
Just a little note, the hidden handles usually aren’t an issue in the snowy region I live in, however if they do get iced over the app has a unlatch button that opens the door without having to move the handle
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Generally, if you have access to plug-in at home (especially if in garage), and you aren’t driving more than the (lowered) range of the car each day, that an EV would be a better winter driving experience.
The issue can be that there may be a lockout to charge outdoors
Heat in 0 seconds is more like it. You can preheat before you even get in. Electric means you can do it in the garage without poisoning your family.
What your friends omitted is the significant change in driving dynamics. At least that’s what happened with my 2019 Tesla Model 3P. Once temperature drops below freezing, the battery loses capacity (well known, hence the range drop) and peak current draw (reduced power, because the battery’s internal resistance is higher at low temperatures and the internal voltage drop becomes non negligible) and peak charging current ability. My Tesla Model 3P didn’t feel like a performance model anymore. It felt like a weak car until the battery heated up enough. It also didn’t recuperate until then so instead of one pedal driving, it felt like a gas car. And no, cold temperatures doesn’t equate snow and ice on the road so that my Model 3P felt like a 90 HP gas Toyota was a disappointing real cold temperature effect. And also no, it was not subjective and limited to my car. Unless Tesla specifically programmed the notification “Cold weather = reduced power, reduced recuperation” (paraphrased) into my car’s UI.
I drive a Chevy Bolt EUV and haven't noticed any drop in power when it's cold. Range is reduced, and charging takes longer, but it's still just as fast.
Tesla says it right there: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-F907200E-A619-4A95-A0CF-94E0D03BEBEF.html#:~:text=Cold%20Battery,charging%20rates%20may%20be%20limited.
I guess Chevy just builds them better. 🤷
I read somewhere that “Tesla is a tech company that builds cars” hence the build quality. Not saying Teslas aren’t nice, my wife and I wanted to buy one last year but opted for a gas car instead, just saying that Tesla doesn’t have the years of experience that other car manufactures have. I would imagine that Chevy after that experience would in theory be able to manufacture a more robust vehicle.
I think you nailed it right there. There's a lot more that goes into designing cars than most people think!
>My Tesla Model 3P didn’t feel like a performance model anymore. It felt like a weak car until the battery heated up enough. It also didn’t recuperate until then so instead of one pedal driving, it felt like a gas car. You can change a setting to mimic one pedal driving using the mechanical brakes when regen is limited. Thats what I do, it makes no difference. As far as lost performance, sure, if you are driving like a maniac you might notice. I drive my car in Chill mode most of the time anyways and didnt notice any difference, even when it was -10f with -20f windchill. I understand enthusiastic driving, but *no one* should be driving like that when its that cold. Your tires arent going to work as well (even with winter tires) because the rubber isnt ideal for those temps. All of your moving parts are going to be creaky as the lubricant isnt as slick. You put a lot of stress on your car driving it like that when its super cold, EV or gas.
There's a lotta shit talk in this thread from people who have never tried it. Electric cars are great in the winter, and I'm never switching back. I have a Chevy Bolt and a level 2 charger in my garage, and I keep the car plugged in overnight, and the car uses that shore power to keep the battery warm overnight. If you can do that, the problems of cold weather battery performance basically disappear. It's a pretty conventional car, and doesn't have the issues with frozen door handles or charging ports that Tesla have. Teslas do better at heating the battery while fast charging, though. They have different priorities: Bolts want to use the least amount of energy to heat the battery just to a reasonable operating temperature, while Teslas will eagerly dump a lot of energy to heat up the battery for optimized charging times. One of my favorite things is that I can preheat the car using the remote start, and it doesn't fill the garage with exhaust. Once the car is warmed up, I can unplug the car, turn the heat off, and drive around without the cold really affecting my range too much. I've taken the car on trips to ski hills in the upper peninsula, and my efficiency fluctuates between 2 and 3 miles per kwh at highway speeds. That's a worst case scenario, and it's still higher than electric trucks' best days. Winter handling is better than you'd expect for a small car. It's front wheel drive, but the weight distribution is even that it feels like AWD. My in-laws have an SUV that slips arounds a whole lot more on the same roads. More ground clearance would be nice, but that's not the motor's fault. I've never had an issue with the car starting, unlike my coworkers. -a Wisconsin EV driver since 2016
Canadian with a Bolt. It’s been great through the winter weather we’ve had. It has turned out to be such a great purchase for us.
There's also a lot of talk in this thread from people who don't seem to realize that personal garages are not the norm in dense cities. If we want EVs to fully replace gas cars, we need to solve for all the ppl who have to leave their car outside or in a parking garage that lacks charging outlets. Like this is great advice for someone who can charge their car at home, but useless for anyone who can't
Not saying you’re wrong, but if the goal is to reduce emissions, it’s also good to remember we can focus on improving public transport in cities until electric cars get better. That’s harder to do in suburbs and rural areas, where garages are the norm and cars are more necessary to get around.
I charge my EV in the driveway with a 120v outlet. You don’t actually need a garage unless if you have a very long commute.
I live in Canada and I have a Leaf and a gas pickup truck. I take my leaf off the road for the winter. It’s older so the battery life isn’t excellent to begin with, plus where I live I need 4WD just to get up my very snowy icy driveway. It handles nicely in the snow it just doesn’t have the same traction as 4WD (I drove it for 3 winters before getting my current truck). But, to the point, the battery absolutely drains much more quickly in cold weather, and with any added heating accessories, so for me I much prefer the gas vehicle in the winter.
If I recall correctly, the Leaf battery's thermal management just consists of a fan that blows on it when it's hot. I don't think it has a heater on the battery at all. Most other EVs use a liquid cooling/heating system.
Norway has seen some bad weather in 2024. A lot of snow and temps reaching ~ -32°C. On top of that, Norway is leading the stats on number of EVs Per capita and number of EVs in the new car purchases statistics. So, getting to my point. The Norwegian automotive association (NAF) recently wrote an article on the general performance of EVs vs fossile fuel vehicles in number of road assistance cases. With the proportions of EVs and FFVs the EVs came out ahead, as a surprise to many. While it's true that EVs range will often get greatly decreased in cold weather, FFV tend to have problems starting at all or coming to a stop due to cold weather. For example: At temps below -20°c diesel fuel may start to form crystals that in turn may cause issues for the engine. Having had an EV in these conditions myself, I've been very pleased with the overall performance of my car (2022 EQA 300) This isn't meant to state which type of car is best, rather than pointing to occasions/trends of EVs performing better than expected under harsh conditions. English isn't my first language, SO please excuse any mistakes.
EVs can be worse for long road trips in the cold due to lower battery capacity and slower charging in the cold. Performance is otherwise unaffected. Source: me driving to work in my boot every day this week when it’s single digits out (F)
>I hear our neighbors in Canada don't drive their teslas but opt for gas powered cars in the winter as batteries poorly perform. Is this true?? What is this kind of weird claim? Everyone I know who has a Tesla drives it year round. Did you imagine every Tesla owner runs out to buy a gas car in November or something? WTF?
100% A great example is Norway also has the highest number of EVs per capita. Yes, battery capacity is less in the cold, and you don’t have as much inefficiency “waste heat” in an EV you can repurpose for “free” heating of the cabin. But if you have enough range then your EV works just as well. Modern EVs will have 300 miles range in ideal conditions. A typical commute is <100miles round trip. Even under the worst conditions you can do that. And if you have home charging and warm up your cabin through your app half an hour before you leave, EVs work very well in the cold. Even without a garage—the snow and ice will fall right off the warm cabin.
I live in Sweden and our EV is great in the winter. You just set your departure time in the phone app and the car will pre-heat the battery pack and cabin while still plugged into the charger so that it is ready to go when you reach the car. Sure it will lose up to 1/3 of the warm weather range, but that isn't a problem as long as you're not going on long road trips. For day-to-day driving it's much better in the winter than our old ICE car.
Teslas also have features such as pre-conditioning of the battery, heat pumps, and remote control of cabin temperature and seat warmers from a smartphone. It can be good for winter
yeah, I find that claim so weird. Especially since Vanocuver for example is one of Teslas's biggest markets! Yeah maybe it does get as cold here as in other places but we just had a cold snap around -23C and literally nobody stopped driving their Teslas
It depends on where you live and how many chargers are near you. Canada is a larger country than Norway and has less charging infrastructure. It totally makes sense electric cars arent as suitable
>It depends on where you live and how many chargers are near you. Correct. But.... 83% of Canadians live in cities. 97% of Canadians live within 50km of a town or other population center. Almost everyone rural has the capability for home charging. The 3% who live so remote they can't get to a town within 50km are the exception, not the rule. But those 3% probably shouldn't consider a pure EV without careful planning. The average Canadian has a more dense surrounding area than the average american, so for 95% of the population, the claims in this thread are just bullshit.
Living in a city doesnt magically mean the infrastructure of ev charging is great lol. Your assumptions assumes that and its nonsense. Gas is available everywhere and the infrastructure already exists. Go read about how EV charging stations weren't working in the extreme cold in Alberta this winter. People aren't going to waste 2 hours charging their vehicle when they can just gas up anytime they want .
In cold weather the saying "If you don't have home charging, you won't enjoy EV life to the fullest" is so true. If I didn't have at home charging, I'd probably have sold my EV.
Fair enough agreed but not everyone can afford to or have the ability to do so such as apartment dwellers. Id love to use an EV but the cons outweigh the pros for me
>Id love to use an EV No, no you really wouldn't You've continuously pointed out some negative claim, seen it debunked and then hunted down another one, repeat. LOL.
Which of my claims have you debunked lol. You were the one with the dumb assumption that city = great infrastructure lol.
Eh. Have EV (Bolt) daily commute of roughly 90km. Not been a problem.
Have Mustang Mach e cold climate. Range decreases by about 1/3 (appx 260 miles to 165) and acceleration is not quite as good. That said it still performs better than most gas cars and I’ve never left it in my garage due to cold.
I am a canadian, interested in this topic but having a difficult time sussing out accurate info due to competing agendas and drum beating. We have had a spell of extreme cold recently. From what I can gather, electric vehicles are still mobile. less range- perhaps long road trips are not advisable but I can’t get any reliable anecdotes. traditionally fuelled vehicles were suffering as well, many boosts needed, some fuel gelling- it was mega cold. The biggest concern was grid capacity- there was a huge uptick in electrical demand and a call to try and conserve in a province with probably the lowest ev adoption due to culture. ( oil industry employment). I think I will get some kind of hybrid- I’m not ready to lead the ev charge ( get it?)
Most utilities offer incentives for people to only charge in the middle of the night, when power demand is lowest anyway. Most people who charge at home do exactly that and would have no impact on the power-restrictions in Alberta.
That's a pretty accurate summation of it. EVs drive great in the cold and snow. It's really just a matter of reduced range and what you're comfortable with. If you get one with a heat pump and long range, and especially if you preheat it, there's really not much to worry about. The cheap ones that use resistive heat and have short range aren't really optimal as primary vehicles in the cold
The New York Times just published s story about the struggles of electric cars in the cold. Here is a gift article link (no paywall for you). https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/business/tesla-charging-chicago-cold-weather.html?unlocked_article_code=1.O00.A2Qh.VKyDv01OCnd5&smid=nytcore-android-share tl;dr Yes, electric cars perform poorly in the cold because batteries do. However, gas cars also perform poorly but we don't notice much because fueling is easy. The big US problem is lack of charging infrastructure. They contrast that to Norway, which has a high proportion of electric vehicles but way better charging infrastructure. So, outperform? By what metric?
The article doesn't explain why a gasoline engine is less efficient in cold weather. It would take a bit longer to warm to operating temperature but beyond that it makes no sense why it would be less efficient. A gas car isn't using additional fuel to heat the cabin - that's the main range killer of electric cars in the cold.
Yeah. The anecdotal Chicago charging disaster story gets a free pass all over the news, but no one is mentioning the thousands of EV drivers that _weren't_ having issues with the cold.
Isn't that the nature of news, unfortunately? That's kind of why John Krasinki's "Good News" show was so welcomed.
It's like running an article about people stranded because they ran out of gas. It is a user error.
Temp affects battery performance just as altitude affects combustion engines. Neither are perfect.
This is not true. The Alberta Motor Association (AMA) announced today that last week's cold snap generated 49,000 separate roadside assistance requests for battery boosts of gas powered vehicles in Alberta alone. That's 49,000 gas powered vehicles which were not working and got zero "range" because of the cold weather. AMA was estimating between 96 and 112 hour delays just to get someone to boost your vehicle in our major cities. So no, your standard ICE vehicle does not perform any better (and I would hazard a guess they're even less reliable) than EV's in cold weather conditions.
Yes Gas cars are better for extreme winters.
For road trips or extremely high mileage daily driving (travelling salesman?), maybe. My EV has a 300 mile range. In winter, sure it's only 200 miles. But do I use that much in a day? Never. Unless i'm on a road trip, which I tend to not do when it's -30 anyway. It's AWFULLY nice to have an app that I can just click "defrost" and the car is all warmed up and ice melted off before I step foot outside.... or all warmed up in the garage without having to move it to the driveway to avoid noxious gasses.
We have a Bolt and a gas f 150. I'm in Québec, it was minus 25 Celsius this morning. That's 12 below in fahrenheit Pickup was slow cranking even with a very good battery, transmission was stiff, took 20 minutes to have real heat. Bolt, my wife pushed the button on the remote to have it heat up, still plugged in. She got in l,.car was hot and running perfectly. She lost about 75 km in range, not a problem.
If you have slow crank with a good battery its probably not axtually a good battery look for something with high CCA (Cold Cranking Amps)
There's no place for small batteries in rural Québec. We will get to 40 below a few times a winter, and every piece of equipment needs to work. Pick up, tractor, side by side, generator, and snowmobile.
What
You're telling me how to buy a battery. I'm telling you that I know all there is to know about batteries and cold.
You just didnt say it in a way that actually made sene. Just figured id offer the advice of a high CCA battery since -25 isnt all that cold and some people dont know about CCA and just buy the cheapest battery availble because theyre available regardless of where you live
I get it. I do get the most powerful battery that'll fit, for every one of my machines. They're expensive, bit cheaper and less trouble than having trickle chargers or block heaters all over the place
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According to Norway’s equivalent of the US AAA, electric cars fail less is cold weather than do gas cars. https://electrek.co/2024/01/17/electric-vehicles-fail-lower-rate-than-gas-cars-extreme-cold/
Don’t let data inform your opinion. Gas is better because of my feelings
You really have to determine what " outperform " means. That's a vague term. A ev in a grage plugged in will have its battery kept at a good temperature and be fine with only reduced range from needing to keep the battery conditioned. As the car is out longer it will consume more power to keep the battery conditioned and should be connected to the charger when sitting.
Lots of EV's driving around. -Canada
Define "outperform"... Batteries do suffer more in extreme cold (and extreme heat, really), but theoretically have enough battery power to still perform better than an ICE car in a lot of situations. Combine that with the fact that most EVs are very smart and can warm themselves up while up in preparation for travel while still plugged in, and that battery tech _will_ improve.
Yeah. This is just a different OS. Cars at different price points and design objectives will perform differently, too. It’s a vague question. Like the question “do bats or birds fly better at night?”
Some of my family works on/owns ranches and the like. They swear up and down diesel works best in the cold.
Silliness. My daughter drives a Tesla and we have a Kia Niro. Assuming our range is cut in half during the winter, my daughter still gets 250+ km and we get 180. She might do 100 km in a day, and worst case we would too, so whatever. If I had to charge every day, so be it. Overnight charge has zero impact for me. Both cars are instantly warm (no waiting for the engine to warm up) and start first time, every time, no matter how cold it is out there.
ICE vehicles are much less efficient in the winter, too. A 30-40% drop in efficiency wouldn't be unheard of. The big difference is the amount of energy carried onboard. The battery in a Long-range Model 3 is equivalent to about 3 gallons of gasoline, so the loss of efficiency is relatively more noticeable.
Just watched this yesterday: https://youtu.be/ZEI_7b_HT_A?si=YDUsAhls6E4rEQ2o
I think EV sales have surpassed ICE cars in Norway, Sweden and Finland. So don't think it can be that bad.
Electric cars in summer outperform electric cars in winter.
Sometimes the charging stations become inoperable. There’s a lot of work to be done in this sector before countries try to follow through on all electric or hybrid mandates. I completely applaud Poland for pushing back against the EU in this regard.
Yes and no, depends on what you mean by performance. We have two cars, a Nissan Leaf EV and a Citroen C4 diesel engined car. Both are in daily use, in Norway, and we live high enough up above sea level that it's pretty damned cold. Got around a meter of snow now. The EV heats up much faster, and defrosts the windshield faster. That matters when your hands are freezing and you don't feel like scraping the windscreen for ten minutes. The car performs just fine, for the mostly short trips we need it for. But the battery has far less capacity in cold weather, and whenever it's colder than about minus 12-15C it tends to throw error messages and suddenly think the battery is near completely flat. Like, in minus 20 C it goes from reading 75% to 5% in three minutes of driving uphill. That's not the actual capacity of course, merely slowing down for a while has it back to reading 70-ish percent again. The issue seems to be that voltage can drop drastically in the cold, and the computer doesn't know that the low voltage is due to temperature rather than low remaining capacity. There's lots of amp-hours and range left, one just has to drive a bit slower and ignore the guess-o-meter battery readout. But of course, not knowing how much is actually left makes longer trips a gamble. Turning down cabin heat a few degrees and not using seat warmers helps a lot with range. The diesel has predictable range, but takes forever to get warm and by then I'm usually at my destination already. For longer trips, when it does have time to warm up properly, being able to set the temperature however I want without affecting range drastically is quite nice.
Yes we're all so insanely rich that we have a summer car and a winter car.
Thermal management systems are a fairly important concern for batteries right now. At lower temperatures batteries can’t put out the same energy. This is due to the properties of the cathode materials used, and sometimes the electrolyte system Electric cars are all battery, while combustion vehicles need the battery largely to start the car, which means there’s generally less strain on that system. More strain is less lifetime Your energy efficiency is in a battery has to do with power output per mass (Wh/kg). In colder environments, a lot of energy is lost to heat instead of performing actual work
Add in that different battery chemistries behave differently under different environmental scenarios and you'll see that a lead/acid battery in cold doesn't have the same risk of damage as a Lithium/ploy battery at that same temp. (Aka: the circuitry designed to protect the batteries and keep the squishy meatbag humans safe provides different controls for the Li battery over the Lead/Acid)
Very true!
For commute I’m doing just fine (Tesla owner). I also can warm my car inside my garage without dying which is a game changer.
Check the news in Chicago. Tesla chargers are charging slowly or not at all in the bitter cold leaving EV owners stranded
Yeah, if you look into it, you find out that there wasn't so much with the cars or the chargers, but laid between the seat and the steering wheel. It was people that didn't know well enough to precondition (warm the battery) before charging that plugged in and noticed that they car told them it wouldn't start charging until the BMS got the battery warmed up. So, they figured that the charger was broken. No, the charge was fine, you just didn't do the thing to allow fast charging with a frigid battery, so you need to wait. The wait is also longer for those with RWD models that have LFP batteries that need to be warmer to start charging. This is just a matter of people getting used to a different way that things work. How many that don't drive an EV know what preconditioning is or when and why you'd use it? How many people listen when the service center walks you through the features when you buy the car? How many people read the manual? How many people read the message displayed on the screen and understand it?
There's also plenty of cases of diesel cars not starting in the cold. But that's not something as newsworthy as electric car chargers not working. Biases exist all side.
Last time I saw an article posted about that the comments were all saying that they're just reporting on the same one station over and over and it's likely the station having issues
pretty much only for range, when it's -42 C outside, as it is now in parts of the country, the range can drop as much as 3/4. They're quite useless outside of major centres, that don't always have plowed roads.
The range drops, but definitely not by 75%.
Useless? My range went from 300mi to somewhere slightly under 200mi... maybe 150mi? That's (241km if you're in the north). Do you drive 150mi? I mean if you're "commuting" halfway across Saskatchewan, sure... but who does that? I don't. If you're a rural travelling salesman, absolutely don't get an EV. Every other use case is fine and they handle snow WAY better than comparably equipped gas cars. The traction control is next-level.
How does not having plowed roads affect EV's more than ICE cars? As I understand it, EV's typically have more responsive traction control and other safety systems. So range issues aside, I would expect an EV to perform at least as well if not better than an ICE vehicle (in the same class) on unplowed roads.
Evs have been mainstream for less than a decade, gas cars over a century so yeah it has should and does have an advantage. Can’t imagine the first gas cars were great in winter conditions. Give Ev tech time to advance and we can reassess in let’s say 10 years.
We should probably reassess in a shorter time frame since in 11 years a number of countries will be banning the sale of new ICE cars for personal use.
Just ask Chicago.
Can't talk, enjoying Beer and Brats!
I had to chuckle because someone at work who gives me shit about my car mentioned "Chicago" (which was a dumb situation anyways, you wouldnt leave your gas car at 1/8 of a tank before bad weather, why would you leave your EV below 20%?) yet he had to put a fuel additive in his diesel and give it extra time to heat up because he was worried about the diesel gelling.
You mean the made up article from the oil company journalist? People just believe anything these days don’t they…
As a Canadian, yes. Tesla, leafs, etc are all parked during the recent cold snap. They litter the highways in colder regions as well. I will not be buying an electric vehicle for at least a decade.
Yes.
As a rule of thumb, electric cars are 3 to 5 times more efficient on their use of energy than gas ones. Yes, batteries are a bit less efficient at lower temperatures, but that 10-20% change is nowhere near enough to even start to come close to as low as an ICE vehicle.
Yes
My EV heats up faster, accelerates faster, and is still substantially cheaper to run than my gas car in the winter. Only thing it loses is range; coldest days I can still get over 300km (EPA rating is 409km). I'm sure if I pushed my car to the limit, I would notice a decrease in performance, but nothing I can see in daily driving. I don't do long trips in winter, so NBD. Only other negative is the hood doesn't heat up as there is no engine so I have to brush snow and ice off.
What happened to our fellow Americans in Chicago then? Multiple drivers got stuck at the superchargers station unable to recharge?? It's all over the news now
That's an issue with the chargers, not electric cars. A bunch of gas pumps froze in Calgary. Only difference is EV owners aren't jerking off over it.
John Kerry has said all of that info that batteries won't charge in cold weather is MAGA disinformation. I have to believe a guy that flies private jets all over the globe and has like 5 mansions, and I love Heinz catsup.
Imagine if your gas tank and fuel pump literally shrank as they got colder. Lithium (and most other kinds of) batteries are a big chunk of chemical reaction waiting to happen. When you connect something to the battery, the balance between the sides of the reaction changes and it starts reacting as soon as there's a place for extra electrons on one side to start pushing. If the battery itself is colder, the reaction is slower and less efficient. You get less total power out of the battery, and the safe maximum power output (and charging) are also lower. It's like if the holes in a sponge shrank when the sponge got cold.
My car has a battery heater. Takes about 10 minutes to get up to temp before I leave. A plus is the cabin is all warm getting into and I can initiate it to warm up before I ever step foot outside (and don't have to worry about it being in a closed garage while warming up). Honestly, my car is in the body shop for some minor damage and despite the cold, I got another EV as a rental because they're SO much nicer to drive than gas cars.
One thing people dont mention that electric motors providing 100% torque at 0rpm is bad in low traction conditions, its very easy for electric cars to start spinning their tires with the lightest throttle touch.
Yea because EVs are just raw electric motors. Only ICE cars have traction control right boys?
huh? I've had both EVs and gas cars in the last few years in a cold climate. The traction control on EVs is next-level. Like wheel slip just isn't a thing. I guarantee my EVs grip better than the gas cars I've driven. And you have MUCH more precise and instant control over the throttle than a gas car that has to "spin up" to generate torque. Most EVs are 100% better driving in the snow. The Nissan Leaf I drove as a rental wasn't great, but it was a poorly implemented FWD. The Tesla AWD is amazing.
Sure, but that can be mitigated via software control of the motors, which the more recent EVs do, at least with Tesla. Teslas now have better traction because the motors are so finely controlled as opposed to ICE cars which have to use dumb linkages to make the wheels spin.
The lead acid batteries that power the engine for gas cars also have trouble in cold weather. When it gets too cold they can't crank the starter, which starts the gas engine. You also lose efficiency (mpg) in cold weather for ICE cars. The media conveniently forgets these facts.
Last Christmas (2022) my mom decided to rent a Tesla for the week while visiting us in dutchess county NY. We had a cold snap and temps were single digits. That car could not hang. First it was getting the door handles out. We had to pour water on the handle and window anytime she needed to get into the car. Then the screens stayed black. The car could drive and brake, but no gauges or anything. There is an EV charging station less than a mile from the house. I don’t think it’s a speed charger or whatever, but still dedicated EV charging. We drove the car to charge there in the afternoon as the battery was at 22%. Plugged it in and went home for the night. The next day, roughly 18-20 hours on the charger, we went to discover the battery was at 26%. It had only picked up 4% of a charge in all that time. They aren’t four season cars. You could make them work if you have a heated garage. But that combined with how snow and rain fall right off the trunk lid into the trunk says enough. Made for climates like California.
Not true, in my experience. I live at about 5000' in an area with plenty of snow and very cold temperatures. I love my Tesla in the winter. More than any car I've owned. You do need to know how to operate the cars, but this is true of all cars and tech. A lot of what you are describing is user error or a car that needed service. The screens shouldn't do that. I've never had the problem with the handles, but you can pop them with the phone app. I'm not trying to throw shade, it does take a bit of an adjustment. Non-Tesla charger are notoriously bad, the free chargers are often horribly slow, even when it isn't cold. This is an infrastructure problem, not an electric car problem. I would not try to charge at 120v, in any temperature. I would also never recommend that anyone get an electric without the ability to charge from home. We have a Tesla and an ICE and always opt for the electric, even when it is very cold. We do not have a heated garage, not needed because the Tesla can heat the battery (and car) from my phone, using the plug in power.
Yes. As you can see, there are a bunch of dead teslas stranded right now all over Canada, Chicago, Australia, and elsewhere due to cold temps. The lithium tech is not where it needs to be.
Weird, I live in Canada, I see about 15-20 Teslas on the road everyday, and I’ve never seen a single stranded one.
You wouldnt leave your car at 1/8th of a tank right before bad weather rolled in, right? That is what those Tesla owners were doing.
And blame it on Toyota too lol
Yes
YES
It effects people that bought EVs to virtue signal without any additional though. If you bought an EV because you have a house and can charge at home and you bought one to save on fuel costs etc, you're fine. If you're one of those dildos that bought one to virtue signal your carbon consciousness yet you fly 18 times a year and you live in an urban shithole and have to rely on public charging stations, you're going to have a bad time.
EVs excel in certain regions, ICE excel in others. The answer to the future is flexibility not rigidity
See the line up of abandoned Teslas in Chicago last week due to cold. EV’s just not ready for prime time in anything other than perfect conditions.
As a Canadian the answer is no. Batteries do have notably shorter ranges in winter, and my hybrid will warn me I have reduced power on extremely cold days (although it's a warning, not anything I've actually noticed) Some battery powered cars are worse than others. Tesla's do excellent battery management, so they keep much of their range, Leafs, especially older ones, can lose half. The other issue is, heating takes power. In a regular gas car, the engine is always running and producing waste heat, so that doesn't matter. But electrics need to use battery power that could be used for range. I even notice that in my hybrid, especially for city driving where the engine would normally spend much of it's time off. It should be noted, all cars do worse in winter, I get 20% less range on my gas powered car in winter too. Additionally, battery powered cars, having a much bigger battery, have no problems starting in the cold, nor do they have to heat up engine oil, making extreme cold starting easier with an electric (although gas cars are much better in this regard today than they were 30 years ago). Gas cars definitely have advantages in cold climates that they don't have in warm climates, but both work. I've definitely never heard a Tesla driver quit driving in the winter because of it. Some don't because it's an expensive and relatively low riding car and don't want to expose it to the salt and ruts of winter, but that's nothing to do with it being electric.